(NewsNation) — Journalist Geraldo Rivera said former President Donald Trump’s comments about Vice President Kamala Harris’ race were “nasty and unnecessary.” 

Rivera joined “NewsNation Now” to discuss comments Trump made at a conference of Black journalists in Chicago on Wednesday. Trump said Harris was “always of Indian heritage” until “she happened to turn Black.”

Rivera said he is “particularly sensitive” about this issue because he also grew up with parents of different ethnicities. 

“I had my late parents, my Puerto Rican Catholic dad, and my New Jersey Jewish mother,” Rivera said. “People would say, particularly non-Puerto Ricans, would say, ‘He’s not really Puerto Rican, he’s Jewish’ or ‘He’s not really Jewish, he’s Puerto Rican.’”

He continued to defend Harris, saying that it was “insulting” for Trump to “belittle” her.

“Kamala Harris has been a Black woman and an Indian woman her whole life,” Rivera said. “She has self-identified herself as a Black Asian woman, as a Black woman whose mother was Asian.”

Rivera said that Trump needs to stop Harris’ “exponential growth in terms of voter preferences” but that his comments at this event will not help him.

“This was the most consequential event since Kamala’s ascension to likely nominee of the Democratic presidential ticket,” he said. “President Trump hoped to broaden his appeal to the black voters … but this was a trainwreck.”