Former President Trump made baseless assertions about Vice President Kamala Harris’ racial identity during a combative interview at a Black journalism conference Wednesday, while polls showed his opponent had notched significant gains in battleground states.

Trump’s question-and-answer session with three reporters at the annual convention of the National Assn. of Black Journalists grew heated from the start, when Rachel Scott, senior congressional correspondent for ABC News, rattled off a series of Trump’s inflammatory comments — including that former President Obama was not born in the U.S. — and asked why Black voters should trust him.

He responded by lambasting Scott for a “disgraceful” start, adding, “I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country.”

When Scott asked him about other Republican politicians’ comments that Harris was a “DEI hire,” Trump asked for her definition of DEI. He challenged her response that the acronym means “diversity, equity and inclusion,” before saying of Harris, “She was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn, she became a Black person.”

Harris, a Black and Asian American woman of Jamaican and Indian descent, was invited to speak at the convention but her campaign declined due to a scheduling conflict, according to NABJ. The association said it was planning a separate conversation with the vice president in September.

Former President Trump engaged in a combative interview at the National Assn. of Black Journalists convention on Wednesday in Chicago.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“Today’s tirade is simply a taste of the chaos and division that has been a hallmark of Trump’s MAGA rallies this entire campaign,” Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said Wednesday.

When pressed by the ABC reporter to say why Black voters should trust him, Trump said he had already answered the question and added: “I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”

Throughout the panel, Trump complained that the interview started more than an hour late and that the sound system was not working properly. In a turn from his typically friendly rally crowds, Trump faced a roomful of Black journalists, who at turns laughed, gasped or jeered at his responses. One attendee walked out as he questioned Harris’s racial identify and another screamed, “Sir, have you no shame?”

The audience booed as he exited the stage.

“You have to really take your hat off to former President Trump for accepting the invitation to come but, outside of that, it was just a real train wreck,” said Charles Ward, a journalism professor at Morehouse College who attended the session. “Members really thought it would’ve been an opportunity to articulate something other than what we’ve heard on the campaign trail, and that was the same thing today — even though there were questions asked directly of him about his intentions with the Black community and we never got a full answer on that.“

Journalist Roland Martin listens as former President Trump speaks in Chicago.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Some of Trump’s supporters saw his performance Wednesday as proof of his tenacity in the face of a hostile crowd.

“President Trump flew to Chicago, took tough question after tough question from the press, and crushed it. Kamala didn’t have the guts to show up,” wrote Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley on social media.

Others watching the interview were put off by Trump’s meandering and at-times abrasive responses.

Hope Moses, 22, a Milwaukee native and graduate student at Northwestern University, said it was important for her to be in the room to bear witness as a student reporter and a young Black voter. Moses said she felt Trump had gone “a little bit off track.” It disturbed her to hear the former president acknowledge he did not know the details of the shooting of Sonya Massey, an unarmed Black woman shot to death earlier this month by an Illinois sheriff’s deputy.

“I don’t even remember him offering his sympathies and really connecting with the audience and understanding that each of us could’ve been her.” Moses said. “Most people in the audience can agree that this was entertaining but wasn’t necessarily informative.”

Trump’s appearance elicited controversy before he even arrived, as many journalists condemned the organization’s decision to invite the former president. Karen Attiah, a columnist and global opinions editor with the Washington Post, announced Tuesday she was stepping down as co-chair of the convention.

“While my decision was influenced by a variety of factors, I was not involved or consulted with in any way with the decision to platform Trump in such a format,” Attiah said in a social media post.

Immediately following the interview, Trump posted on his Truth Social account: “ABC FAKE NEWS, ONE OF THE WORST IN AMERICA!”

“Today’s biased and rude treatment from certain hostile members of the media will backfire massively,” Trump senior advisor Lynne Patton said in a statement. “You would think that the media would have learned something from their repeat episodes of fake outrage ever since President Trump first came down the escalator in 2015, but some just refuse to ‘get it.’ This will be their undoing in 2024.”

The Chicago event came as Harris continues to ride the wave of momentum that has propelled her for the past 10 days since President Biden stepped aside as the leading Democratic candidate for president. A groundswell of groups quickly coalesced to organize almost nightly online calls to recruit volunteers and raise millions of dollars for her campaign. Polls are beginning to show her impact.

A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll, released Tuesday, shows Trump is still ahead by 4 points with registered voters in Pennsylvania and 2 points in North Carolina. But support for Harris is climbing in other crucial swing states — most notably in Michigan, where she leads by 11 points. In Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada, she leads by 2 points. The poll showed the two candidates tied in Georgia.

Tuesday’s poll marks a contrast to an April survey from Bloomberg News/Morning Consult, which showed Biden trailing Trump in every state except Michigan, where Biden led by 2 points.

Former President Trump’s appearance at the NABJ came as some polls show a boost for Harris since she entered the race.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

According to an Associated Press-NORC poll released Wednesday, the overwhelming majority of Democrats support Harris as the party’s new leading candidate, even if many aren’t entirely convinced of her ability to beat Trump. It found that about 80% of Democrats agree she would make a good president, with almost as many saying they’d be satisfied with her as the nominee.

But only 71% of Democrats believe Harris is likely to win the election, compared with 88% of Republicans who believe the same of Trump.

Harris is expected to name her running mate soon. Speculation focused on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro after her campaign announced that she and “her future running mate” would campaign together next week, starting in Philadelphia. Seen as a top contender for the role, Shapiro could help Harris secure needed support in the battleground state.

Moore and Jennings reported from Chicago, Rainey and Pinho from Los Angeles.