HARRISBURG, United States (AFP) — Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris had decided to “turn Black” for political gain, as he attacked his Democratic White House rival during a combative interaction with African American journalists in Chicago.

The Republican former president’s inflammatory comments marked an escalation of the 78-year-old’s vitriol against Harris, whom he falsely accused of having identified as Indian but then, “all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she became a Black person.”

Harris, 59, has long identified as Black and graduated from a historically Black university.

“So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” asked Trump during a heated interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference.

Harris later denounced the attacks as “the same old show” of “the divisiveness and the disrespect” from Trump.

The combative remarks by Trump, who has been eager to improve his performance with Black voters, are likely to send shockwaves through the 2024 White House contest.

They come as the former president, convicted two months ago of felony fraud related to hush money payments to a porn star, struggles to formulate a new strategy less than 100 days before the election.

Later Wednesday, he held a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, a battleground state where he narrowly survived an assassination attempt earlier this month, and continued the verbal assault on his rival.

“Everything about Kamala Harris’ rollout, it’s phony,” he told the crowd, adding Harris “tried to outbrand a new Southern accent” when she addressed a large rally Tuesday in Atlanta, Georgia.

“The contrast could not be more stark,” he said. “On the one hand you, have a radical left puppet candidate who is fake fake fake, and, on the other hand, you have a president who will fight fight fight for America.”