The WWE Hall of Famer was seen making racist jokes, commenting on Harris’ Indian roots and asking if she was a “chameleon” at an event promoting his new beer on Monday night.
He also suggested “body slamming” Harris, eliciting cheers of “Yeah!” from the crowd.
The incident occurred three weeks after Hogan attended the Republican National Convention to support Trump and as the first night of the Democratic National Convention began.
Hogan’s comments, which he quickly blamed on alcohol, are likely to reignite tensions caused by widely condemned comments Trump made at a National Association of Black Journalists conference in July.
There, Trump falsely said Harris primarily introduced herself as Indian American and then “just happened to be black.”
Harris then doubled down on it, sharing a video on Truth Social in which Harris spoke about her Indian identity and commenting, “Crazy Kamala says she’s Indian, not black. This is a big deal. Total hypocrisy. She’s using everyone, including her racial identity!”
Harris responded by calling the comments a “business as usual” spectacle of “divisiveness” and “disrespect.”
“You want me to tell Kamala to drop her leg?”
Excerpts from Hogan’s appearance Monday night follow below:
“Do you want to go crazy?” Hogan asked the crowd, erupting in cheers with each question.
“Are you telling me to throw more beer? Are you telling me to body slam somebody? Are you telling me to body slam Kamala Harris?”
“I said, ‘Do you want me to body slam Kamala Harris? Do you want me to drop her legs?'” he continued, referring to one of his signature wrestling moves.
He then spoke about Harris’ racial identity.
“Kamala is a chameleon? Indian? Sure, sure,” he said, raising his hand in a gesture typically understood as a Native American greeting. “How,” he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
Hogan quickly appeared to backtrack, saying: “I’m going to get criticised for this. It wasn’t me, it was Beal who did the talking.”
WWE fighters have always embodied extremely violent and often offensive caricatures, both in and out of the ring.
When contacted by Business Insider, Hogan’s talent agency doubled down on its Trump-style attack.
“When Kamala was a prosecutor, she described herself as the first Indian prosecutor,” said Linda Bose, an employee at the Empire Agency, pointing to a Times of India headline that highlighted her Indian roots.
“Now she’s running for president and trying to get the votes of black Americans. She and the media are focusing on her second identity. She’s now the first black presidential candidate.”
Bose added that Empire Agency co-founder Richard Paraiso is black and that he doesn’t believe the comments were racist.
Of course, Kamala Harris won’t be the first black US presidential candidate or the first Indian prosecutor, but if she wins, she will achieve some firsts, including becoming India’s first female president.
Harris, whose mother is Indian and father is Jamaican, is the first Indian-American senator in the United States.
She attended a historically black college and has spoken about different aspects of her mixed race identity throughout her career.
Some Republicans seem unable to resist.
Hogan’s case is likely to do little to ease the fears of those in the Republican Party who worry that the Trump campaign is focusing on racial and gender attacks at the expense of the party’s policy platform.
In July, after multiple Republican comments mocking Harris as a “DEI hire,” House Speaker Mike Johnson warned the party not to attack Harris because of her ethnicity or gender.
Several Republican lawmakers, including Kellyanne Conway, Sen. Lindsey Graham and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, have also called on Trump and his party to tone down the personal attacks.
But that apparently didn’t stop Trump and his surrogates from obsessing over her identity.
