Simone Biles set Twitter alight when she jabbed at Donald Trump and said she loves her “black job.” Immediately after winning her second gold medal at the Paris Olympics, making her the most accomplished gymnast in American history, Biles posted the tweet, which gained more than a million “likes.” The comment was an apparent swipe at Donald Trump, who repeated his “black job” remark during an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, which critics slammed as a disaster.
Kamala Harris supporters got in on the act, posting pictures of the Vice President poking her head through a curtain under the caption, “Did somebody say black job?” Some Harris backers have adopted the phrase and used it to argue that the President of the United States will be a “black job” if Ms. Harris wins the Presidential election in November.
Mr. Trump’s appearance at the Chicago National Association of Black Journalists prompted an outpouring of criticism online and in the Republican Party. When asked by ABC reporter Rachel Scott if he believes Kamala Harris is a “DEI hire,” as several Republicans had suggested, Trump questioned Harris’s racial identity and said she had always described herself as Indian and had only just begun referring to herself as black. Scott argued with the former President, saying that Harris went to a historically black university, was a member of a black sorority, and a black caucus when she served as a US Senator, but Trump continued to claim that Harris changed her identity to black for political gain – continuing to do so online after the Chicago event ended.
GOP lawmakers, some of whom remain unnamed, told journalists that Mr. Trump had significantly damaged his campaign. “That was not a demonstration on how to win over undecided voters,” one House Republican reportedly said.
Meanwhile, JC Vance also came under fire over a resurfaced video clip in which he described Simone Biles’ decision to withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as “weak.” Biles left the Games to focus on her mental health, and Vance suggested that those who praised her for doing so were celebrating weakness in a “therapeutic culture.”
