Rep. Byron Donalds said former President Donald Trump’s comments about Vice President Kamala Harris are being blown out of proportion.

The former president has come under fire in recent days for suggesting last week that Ms. Harris hid her blackness — her father is Jamaican and her mother Indian — until recently because of political convenience.

Mr. Donalds, who is Black, said Sunday that “I don’t really care [and] most people don’t” about the remarks, but still offered a qualified defense.

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“This is really a phony controversy,” Mr. Donalds said on ABC’s “This Week”. “But if we’re going to be accurate, when Kamala Harris went into the United States Senate, it was AP that said she was the Indian-American United States senator. It was actually played up a lot.”

Mr. Donalds, Florida Republican, went back and forth with host George Stephanopoulos on the issue, and wound up calling it a “side issue, not the main issue.”

Last week while doing a Q&A at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Mr. Trump questioned Ms. Harris’ racial identity after he was asked about Republicans considering Ms. Harris a mere “DEI hire.”

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SEE ALSO: Harris rejects Fox debate with Trump

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“She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Mr. Trump said.

The comments were quickly criticized. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t hold back when asked about Mr. Trump’s comments that same day, calling them “repulsive” and “insulting.”

The Harris campaign, responding to the Q&A with Mr. Trump, said, “the hostility Donald Trump showed on stage today is the same hostility he has shown throughout his life, throughout his term in office, and throughout his campaign for president.”

Campaign Communications Director Michael Tyler said, “Donald Trump has already proven he cannot unite America, so he attempts to divide us.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said Sunday that Mr. Trump should be criticizing her on other fronts, which he said are plentiful, and that how she has presented her heritage is not a fight worth having.

“So here’s what I would say to President Trump. The problem I have with Kamala Harris is not her heritage, it is her judgment,” Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, said.

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SEE ALSO: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp hits back at Trump, tells him to stop talking about his family

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“Every day, we’re talking about her heritage and not her terrible, dangerous liberal record throughout her entire political life is a good day for her and a bad day for us,” he said. “So I would encourage President Trump to prosecute the case against Kamala Harris’s bad judgment.”

But former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Mr. Trump’s comments were very on-brand for him.

“This is what happens, George, and this is how you can tell that this race is changing, because what happens is, when Donald Trump’s ahead and he feels like he’s comfortably ahead, he is willing to go with conventional, smart political advice,” Mr. Christie, a Republican, said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday.

Mr. Christie ran for the GOP presidential nomination before dropping out and was Mr. Trump’s harshest critic during that campaign. He said Sunday that resorting to personal attacks on non-issues is Mr. Trump’s default setting.

“As soon as he thinks it’s getting close, he goes back to the greatest hits. You saw this at the convention when he didn’t think he was getting the reaction he wanted from the beginning of the speech, he went back to the greatest hits,” he said. “You saw it at the NABJ, and you saw it last night in Atlanta.”

“In Atlanta” referred to Mr. Trump continuing his feud with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who refused to back Mr. Trump’s stolen election claims. The former president called Mr. Kemp “a disloyal guy” and “a very average governor,” and went after his wife Marty for her refusal to endorse him.