The Daily Show correspondent and recurring host Ronny Chieng took Donald Trump to task Thursday night for his apparent inability to understand Kamala Harris’ mixed-race background, wondering in particular how and why he decided to use a clip of Harris and the actor Mindy Kaling discussing their Indian heritage to attack his rival.
“As you all know, Vice President Kamala Harris is of Indian and Jamaican descent,” Chieng began, “and who better to understand the nuance of being mixed race than this guy?”
He then played some footage of former president Donald Trump at his disastrous NABJ conference on Wednesday, where he argued that Kamala Harris “became a Black person” after previously claiming to be Indian.
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Chieng then showed Trump’s recent Truth Social post where he shared a 2019 cooking video featuring Harris and Kaling. The two talked about their shared Indian heritage, a statement that Trump seems to think invalidates Harris’ biracial identity.
“Damn, I forgot how weird The Office got after Michael Scott left,” Chieng joked.
“So, Trump posted this video, but I’m like, how did he even find this?” Chieng said. “Was he doing deep oppo research on Mindy Kaling’s Instagram page? How far down the Mindy rabbit hole did he go?”
Chieng quipped, “Is he going to come out next week like, ‘Kamala Harris is not Black, and Mindy and B.J. Novak belong together, OK? Do the right thing, B.J., make an honest Indian out of her.’”
“Also, this doesn’t even prove his point,” Chieng said. “He’s saying that Kamala identified as Indian and not Black, and this is a video of her saying, ‘I’m half-Indian.’ What does Trump think the other half is?”
“How does this guy not understand what half means? Like, he constantly tells us he’s a genius, but he can’t comprehend a Goldendoodle?” Chieng asked.
Chieng finished the segment saying, “By the way, Trump doesn’t get to decide how Black a Black person is. Only Kendrick Lamar can do that, OK? So, Kendrick, weigh in here.”
For more, listen to The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng on The Last Laugh podcast.
