Donald Trump’s lies and racist remarks about Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Association of Black Journalists convention this week have been widely criticized, but some Trumpworld insiders, including his running mate J.D. Vance, are defending Trump and rallying around his racist remarks.
Political dirty trickster and MAGA insider Roger Stone used his StoneZONE Live show on the Rumble channel to defend Trump—and to carry Trump’s claims to a truly ridiculous conclusion. (Note: TPM reported this week that Vance has a six-figure investment in Rumble, which offers a platform to an assortment of deeply unsavory racists, antisemites, and neo-Nazis).
First, let’s review a few facts. Kamala Harris is the daughter of an Indian American mother and a Black Jamaican father. She has always embraced both sides of her family tree, identifying as an Indian American and a Black woman. She attended Howard University, a prestigious historically black institution, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a culturally significant Black sorority.
On stage at the NABJ, Trump lied that Harris had “always” identified as Indian until at some point she “became” Black, as if it were impossible or somehow illegitimate or deceptive for her to identify with all the elements of her mixed ethnicity.
Stone and his guest Troy Smith, editor-in-chief of Slingshot News, showed photos of Harris with the Indian side of her family and videos in which she talked about that part of her identity—and treated them as if they were some kind of “gotcha” moments or proof that Trump was correct. Stone praised Trump for confronting “the entire false narrative about who Kamala Harris really, actually is.” Smith referred to Harris’s “false portrayal of her race.”
Stone confidently summed up the Trump/MAGA argument with the stunningly stupid statement, “She bragged about being the first Indian American U.S. Senator, and then she brags about being a Black American U.S. Senator. She cannot be both.”
Of course she can be both. In the 2020 U.S. Census, about 10 percent of the population, nearly 34 million people, reported having a multiracial identity. And more uncomfortably for the Trump crowd, his running mate Sen. J.D. Vance is married to a woman of Indian ancestry and their children are among the millions of Americans of mixed ancestry.
Stone is not perhaps the best person to count on as a character witness. He was pardoned by Trump after a jury convicted him on seven counts of lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. The congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection exposed just how deeply Stone was involved in Trump’s plan to falsely claim victory on election night—and worse. Right Wing Watch reported in 2022:
“I really do suspect that [the election result] will still be up in the air,” Stone said on Nov. 1, as shown in the video clip provided by Danish documentary filmmakers of “A Storm Foretold.” “When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is nine tenths of law. ‘No, we won, fuck you. Sorry, you’re wrong, fuck you.’”
Stone also advocated for violence. “I say fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence,” Stone says in another clip a day before the election.
Stone has since aligned himself with MAGA minded “prophets” and claimed to have proof that a “satanic portal” had opened over the White House during the Biden administration.
