Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump for repeatedly claiming that he appeals to Black voters due to his felony conviction, saying the Republican candidate’s racist efforts to succeed in Black People are “insulting.”
Harris, the primary Black American, South Asian American, and lady to be vp, made the remarks in an interview with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski that aired on Monday. Through the interview, Brzezinski requested the Democrat her ideas on the indicted ex-president’s try to attach with Black voters through his authorized struggles, in addition to his oft-repeated declare that he can’t be racist as a result of he has Black buddies.
“Well, on the first point, as connected to the second point, it’s insulting,” Harris answered. “It’s insulting for a number of reasons, including [that] he has reduced the whole population of people down to a sum total of what is, in his mind, who they are. And he’s wrong, and he’s wrong.”
Trump was convicted final month on 34 felony counts associated to his hush cash trial, one in every of many instances for which the previous president has been indicted, together with costs associated to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election he misplaced.
“I got indicted for nothing ― for something that is nothing. … I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time,” Trump stated in February on the Black Conservative Federation Gala in South Carolina.
“And a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” he continued. “It’s been pretty amazing. Possibly ― maybe there’s something there.”
The Republican candidate repeated the declare in an interview with Semafor revealed earlier this month, alleging that Black voters have informed him “very plainly and very clear” that they “feel that similar things have happened to them.”
On the time of Trump’s February feedback, the Biden marketing campaign stated that the Republican “peddled racist tropes” that mocked Black voters.
“This might come as news to Trump, but pushing tired tropes, wannabe Jordans, and mugshot t-shirts isn’t going to win over Black voters who suffered through record high unemployment and skyrocketing uninsured rates under his leadership,” Biden spokesperson Sarafina Chitika stated in an announcement. “Trump is showing Black voters exactly what he thinks of them ― and his ideas to win them over are as corny and racist as he is.”
Sean Rayford through Getty Photographs
Trump has a protracted historical past of racism, having famously known as for the Exonerated 5 ― the Black and brown teenage boys falsely accused of rape in New York ― to obtain the demise penalty within the Eighties. He additionally led the right-wing conspiracy that falsely accused former President Barack Obama of getting been born in Kenya and never the U.S., and known as white nationalists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, “very fine people.” Simply final month, a producer for Trump’s former actuality TV present, “The Apprentice,” alleged that there’s a recording of the then-businessman utilizing the N-word in reference to a Black contestant.
“I have so many Black friends that if I were a racist, they wouldn’t be friends, they would know better than anybody, and fast. They would not be with me for two minutes if they thought I was racist ― and I’m not racist!” Trump informed Semafor this month, a declare he has typically repeated regardless of the fact that having Black buddies doesn’t cancel out acts of racism.
Regardless of repeatedly denouncing the hush cash trial that made him the primary U.S. president to ever be convicted of a felony, Trump now proudly wears his responsible verdict along with his 2024 marketing campaign saying it has since obtained an enormous inflow of contributions.
“Every time the radical-left Democrats, Marxists, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great, great badge of honor,” Trump informed the South Carolina viewers in February. “Because I’m being indicted for you, the American people. I’m being indicted for you, the Black population. I’m being indicted for a lot of different groups by sick people.”
In a Pew Analysis Middle ballot launched final month, 18% of Black respondents stated they might vote for Trump ― double what it was through the 2020 election. About 77% stated they might vote for Biden, and 65% stated they consider Trump broke the legislation in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
Days away from the primary presidential debate of the 2024 election, Trump introduced that he had chosen his choose for vp, although he wouldn’t reveal who it was. Amongst the checklist of potential contenders are two Black Republicans, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) and Rep. Byron Donalds (Fla.) ― the latter who lately prompt that Black People have been higher off below America’s racist Jim Crow period.
“I don’t know who he’s going to pick. I try to spend not too much time thinking about how he thinks,” Harris stated Monday. “But listen, I think it’s clear there’s a litmus test. And he is going to pick someone who will be more loyal to him than to their country … and is more likely to bring in someone who’s going to be a rubber stamp.”
