Morning Report — Trump triggers bipartisan criticism on Harris race comments

In a tense, combative interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention Wednesday, former President Trump sharply pulled the spotlight back onto himself. 

Trump mocked Vice President Harris’s heritage during the live interview, telling the Chicago crowd that Harris “happened to turn Black” in recent years, suggesting his opponent used her background as a way to gain a political advantage. He declined to say whether she had achieved her position based on merit or as “a DEI hire,” an attack by some Republicans implying Harris’s success is solely due to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“She was always of Indian heritage,” Trump said. “And she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black. And now she wants to be known as Black.” 

Harris, whose mother was Indian American and whose father is Black, has always identified as a Black woman. The comments were reminiscent of Trump’s past attacks, including the years he spent pushing the false conspiracy theory that former President Obama was not born in the United States.

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), called Harris a “phony” who “grew up in Canada,” at an Arizona rally just hours after the interview. While not directly invoking her race, Vance echoed Trump’s attacks, implying that Harris, who spent her teenage years in Canada, changed her identity and accent for political benefit.

Democrats and some Republicans quickly denounced the comments.

“The American people deserve better,” Harris said in Houston at a convention of Sigma Gamma Rho, one of the nation’s most prominent Black sororities. “The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us — they are an essential source of our strength.”

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Wednesday that Trump should focus on policy issues and not race in his campaign against Harris. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, an anti-Trump Republican now running for Senate, called the comments “unacceptable and abhorrent.” Michael Steele, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, characterized the interview as a “hot mess.” 

“I’ll tell you what it is not: It’s not surprising,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). “This is who Donald Trump is. This is the politics of insult, of revenge and resentment and retribution.”

Controversial and off-script, Trump’s NABJ interview shifted the media spotlight.

Trump had garnered the top headlines early in July with a debate performance, an assassination attempt and a unified Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. But attention turned to the Democrats when President Biden dropped out of the presidential race. 

Harris declared her candidacy less than two weeks ago, but she has dominated the headlines since: from the Democratic grassroots support flooding her campaign to her gains against Trump in key polling metrics, all-but erasing the lead the former president held over Biden. 

Trump, while still making headlines, was playing catch-up. But Wednesday’s explosive interview put all eyes back on the Republican nominee. 

The former president drew audible gasps over the roughly 35-minute conversation — moderated by ABC’s Rachel Scott, Semafor’s Kadia Goba and Fox News host Harris Faulkner — berating Scott for asking him about past statements and falsely claiming undocumented immigrants were “taking” attendees’ votes.

Trump at one point told the group that he was “the best president for the Black population” since Abraham Lincoln. He was asked about his references to “Black jobs,” and pressed on his pledge to pardon those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “If they’re innocent, I would pardon them,” Trump said.

Asked about whether Vance — who has been making headlines of his own for past comments — would be ready to serve as president on day one, Trump dismissed his running mate’s importance.

“Historically, the vice president in terms of the election does not have any impact,” Trump said. “You have two, three days where there is a lot of commotion … and then that dies down and it’s about the presidential pick.”

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LEADING THE DAY

CAMPAIGN POLITICS

The labor support was not in doubt. The United Auto Workers’s executive board endorsed Harris for president Wednesday, arguing its “job” this year is to defeat Trump and put another pro-worker president in the White House. The UAW’s firepower and organizing skills in key Midwestern states are seen as a major plus for Democratic candidates, even if some rank-and-file autoworkers break from their leaders to support Trump in November. Harris will be in Detroit Aug. 7 to showcase her union support. Her running mate will be on the road with her by then.

Evolution, revolution: Harris, in sync with administration policy, no longer supports a ban on fracking, as she did five years ago as a presidential primary candidate. Trump and Republicans are working to exploit her fracking reversal, arguing she’s a “Green New Deal” liberal at heart who shifted to the center on energy for political gain, particularly in pursuit of support in battleground Pennsylvania. The process of extracting oil and gas from the ground by injecting liquid at high pressure has been important to the state’s economy. 

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ZOOM IN

INTERNATIONAL

IRAN AND ITS PROXIES vow to punish Israel for the apparent assassination of top Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, bringing the two countries closer to an all-out war in the Middle East. Israel, which has not acknowledged the apparent strike in Iran, said one of its primary goals in the war against Hamas is the death of its top leaders. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued an order for Iran to attack Israel directly in retaliation for the killing, The New York Times reports, though the timing and scale of the attack are unclear. 

Israel’s Tuesday night strike on a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon and the Wednesday killing of Haniyeh have created one of the biggest challenges to a delicate equilibrium that has lasted through almost 10 months of war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel’s military confirmed Thursday that strikes on July 13 in southern Gaza had killed Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.

Throughout it all, Israel has fought a parallel, slower-paced conflict with Hamas’s allies across the Middle East in which all sides have risked major escalation but ultimately avoided dragging the region into a wider war (The Hill, The Washington Post and The New York Times). 

“These reports over the last 24, 48 hours certainly don’t help with the temperature going down,” John Kirby, the White House National Security Council communications adviser, told reporters Wednesday. “We’re obviously concerned about escalation.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the U.S. was not aware of or involved in the strike, but he reiterated efforts to achieve a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, secure the release of the remaining hostages and address the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza. “I can tell you that the imperative of getting a cease-fire, the importance that that has for everyone, remains,” Blinken said in an interview in Singapore during an Asia tour. 

It’s a tall order. Qatar, which has been a key partner in the talks, warned Wednesday that the killing of Haniyeh would “lead the region into chaos and undermine the chances of peace” (The Hill and CBS News).

Tensions remain high in Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled since 2013, was proclaimed the winner of the Sunday vote by the electoral council. But the opposition says its tally of about 90 percent of votes shows that its candidate, Edmundo González won more than twice as many votes. As deadly protests mounted across the country, the Biden administration ratcheted up its tone Wednesday, pushing Maduro to publish automatically generated election results. Maduro on Wednesday asked the country’s high court to conduct an audit of the election, but foreign observers said the court is too close to the government to produce an independent review (The Associated Press and The Hill).

“Our patience, and that of the international community, is running out, running out. I’m waiting for the Venezuelan electoral [authority] to come clean and release the full detailed data on this election so that everyone can see the results,” Kirby said.

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ELSEWHERE

ADMINISTRATION

Biden, now legacy-minded and intent on writing a first rough draft of his administration’s history, is tracking his promises, adding to policy commitments and communicating to Americans the strides he believes his leadership delivered since his inauguration.

On Wednesday, he returned to the far-reaching $1 trillion Inflation Reduction Act to promote anti-discrimination support for farmers, forest landowners and ranchers who qualify for federal backing. He also touted outreach to help Americans figure out how to access his administration’s student loan debt forgiveness initiatives. Some 25 million student loan borrowers will receive emails from the government later this year outlining their options to erase debt and how to go about it. 

Drug companies that oppose another major Biden administration achievement now in law — reductions in drug prices required under Medicare by 2026 — have advised their shareholders that the end result won’t materially hurt company revenues. That suggests the price cuts won’t be as dramatic as many companies initially feared, although they argue innovation in the long run will take a hit, reports The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel.

The administration presented drug companies with the government’s final offers for the first 10 drugs under negotiation for reduced costs. Those figures will be public by Sept. 1. Generic competition and looming expirations of exclusive patents will drive down pricing even without the new law.

Incarcerated since 2003, trials avoided: The U.S. reached a plea deal with three prisoners accused of helping to plan the 9/11 attacks who are being held at Guantanamo Bay. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 59, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin Attash, born in 1978, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi, 55, all reached agreements with the U.S., the Defense Department announced Wednesday (The Hill). The agreement comes more than 16 years after the prosecution began and more than 20 years after Al-Qaida militants commandeered four commercial airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. The government did not release the exact terms of the deal. The U.S. use of torture was a formidable obstacle in government efforts to try the men in the military commission at Guantánamo because defense lawyers had argued that the men’s torture in secret CIA prisons had rendered the evidence against them unusable in legal proceedings.

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CONGRESS

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who switched his party to independent and will retire from the Senate in January, spent years trying to get his colleagues to ease and speed up federal permitting of oil and gas projects. 

Patience has its virtues. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 15-4 Wednesday on a bipartisan bill Manchin sought and Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso co-sponsored. The bill contains a range of provisions to bolster various types of energy, including coal and mineral mining, oil and gas, renewable energy and power lines. Hydropower may be added. The outlook for the legislation this year in the House has yet to be determined. Needless to say, Manchin wants to see the result in law before his Senate tenure ends.

The Senate is teeing up a key procedural vote today on a House-passed bill that would expand the credit for low-income families and revive a trio of business tax breaks. Senators will leave Washington this week and won’t return until after Labor Day, when House lawmakers also plan to be back (ABC News and Roll Call).

House Republicans balk: When House GOP leaders return to Washington in September, they will not take up this week’s Senate-passed legislation to protect children online, Punchbowl News reports. The House Republican leadership says it won’t bring up a pair of bipartisan measures the Senate passed with 91 votes Tuesday. “We’ve heard concerns across our conference and the Senate bill cannot be brought up in its current form,” according to a legislative aide.

The New York Times: Washington is preparing for the “Super Bowl of tax.” Even with control of the White House and Congress up in the air, GOP lawmakers and lobbyists are preparing to fight for tax breaks for corporations to shield provisions of a GOP tax law enacted in 2017 and signed by Trump but scheduled to expire.

Republicans are making a last push against the finalization of the Biden administration’s move to reschedule marijuana from its past status as an illicit drug, despite advocates saying the fight with the administration isn’t worth the effort. The White House in May began the formal process to move marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act — those considered to have the highest potential for abuse — to Schedule III, drugs considered to have a “moderate to low potential” for physical and psychological dependence. But dozens of Republicans in Congress are resisting the rule through letters to Biden or last-minute amendments in the House and Senate.

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THE CLOSER

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