Kamala Harris responds to Trump's shock claim he 'didn't know' she was black while urging historic African American sorority to 'fight for our future'

Kamala Harris has responded to Donald Trump's Wednesday rant where he claimed she 'happened to turn Black' a few years ago.

Taking the stage at the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc.'s 60th International Biennial Boulé in Houston, Harris addressed the interview hours before, where Trump insisted that 'all of a sudden, she made a turn'.

His comments came at a gathering of Black journalists in Chicago, as an interviewer asked him whether he agreed with Republican sentiment that his rival a 'DEI hire.'

Asking the journalist 'to define DEI', he went on to question Harris's heritage.

The Vice President, in turn, said 'the American people deserve better,' in a speech that also urged the African-American sorority to 'fight' because 'there is so much at stake.'  

'This afternoon Donald Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists', Harris said during her speech.   

'And it was the same old show: the divisiveness and the disrespect.

'Let me just say, the American people deserve better. 

'A leader who tells the truth,' she went on. 'Who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands our differences do not divide us.

'They are an essential source of our strength,' she added.

She appeared to attempt to stay above the fray seen since the interview, however, electing to not directly quote it or refer to the comments aired by the conservative earlier in the day.

Instead, she continue to talk down her competitor and his long-finished presidential term, which she framed as unsuccessful and something to be left in the rearview. 

The sorority she spoke to is a member of the 'Divine Nine,' a group of distinguished Black sororities and fraternities that have rushed to vote on Harris's behalf.

Harris thus thanked them for getting her and Biden elected, and suggested they have the power to do it again come November.

'I believe in the promise of America. And aren't so many of us empirical evidence of the promise of America,' Harris, who is a member of a different Divine Nine sorority, said. 

'Greater service brings greater progress,' she continued, before listing some of the historic sorority's accomplishments.

'You helped elect Joe Biden as the president of the United States and me as the first woman Vice President of the United States.' 

'Our nation needs you,' she went on.

Vowing to take on big pharma, landlords, big banks, and corporations and champion the middle class, she defiantly declared: 'We are not going back.'

Harris also spoke of the so-called 'promise of America' - one that she said consists of 'greater service and greater progress.'

She addressed the current cost-of-living crisis and concepts like equal pay for women, before briefly touching on the elephant in the room - Trump's controversial comments.

It started when ABC's Rachel Scott, seated opposite the Republican, mentioned how a lot of people didn't think it was appropriate for him to be in Chicago considering his past comments about people of color, including Indian-American Nikki Haley.

‘First of all I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,’ Trump told Scott, calling the journalist 'nasty' and 'hostile' in a unintentional ode to his 2016 campaign. 

‘You don’t even say hello how are you?’ Trump went on, before slamming ABC a 'fake news network.'

‘I came here in good spirit. I love the black population of this country,’ he said.

'I think it’s a very rude introduction. I don’t know exactly why you would do something like that,' he said.