Trump Has Racist Meltdown Before Black Journalists

One has to wonder what Der Trumpenfuhrer's handlers were thinking when they allowed him to appear at the National Association of Black Journalist convention.  Perhaps Trump over ruled their objections, but in any event Trump's appearance and reaction to legitimate questions quickly turned into a complete shit show as Trump revealed his ugly racist self and was furious that he was not receiving friendly softball questions. Rather than making a case for black voters to support him, he instead made the case why they should run screaming from Trump and into the arms of Kamala Harris. Trump has a long history of being a racist, some examples even going back to the Norfolk, Virginia, area in the 1970's where Trump owned properties discriminated against blacks and was forced into a settlement with the Justice Department.  Add to that his promotion of the lie that Barrack Obama was not American, his behavior towards many blacks, including the with hunt against young blacks wrongly accused of assaulting a woman jogger in New York City. How anyone though Trump's appearance is baffling save for those hoping Trump would show his true self, something he did in spades.  A piece at The Atlantic looks at Trump's debacle:

Onstage at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention today, Donald Trump complained bitterly that technical difficulties had delayed his appearance, but he had no trouble squeezing plenty of inflammatory comments into a shortened interview.

The former president refused to condemn the violent rioters on January 6, 2021. He gave only faint support for J. D. Vance’s preparedness to serve as president. He wouldn’t refute  allies’ claim that his presumptive presidential opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is a “DEI candidate.” And in the most eye-popping moment, he questioned whether Harris is really Black.

Who knows what Trump is talking about? Harris was born in the United States to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father. She attended Howard University, one of the country’s most famed historically Black institutions, and has never shied away from her Black heritage during her career as a politician. But Trump has long engaged in these kinds of racial-purity tests.

As is often the case with Trump, the facts are beside the point. Trump may have been trying to undermine Harris’s bona fides with Black voters. His strategy to beat President Joe Biden included drawing some Black voters away from the Democratic Party and hoping that other Black voters—who, polling suggested, were unenthusiastic about Biden’s candidacy—would just stay home. Biden’s replacement by Harris threatens that path by energizing Black voters. If Trump’s goal at NABJ was to build a friendly rapport with the Black community, however, he approached it in a curious manner.

Some NABJ members questioned the decision to invite Trump at all . . . . Trump’s appearance showed why the invitation was worthwhile, though. The former president seldom conducts interviews that are not either with friendly outlets or on his own territory (most often at Mar-a-Lago), or both. He doesn’t often have to answer hard questions before a hostile or even skeptical audience, and when he did today, it went off the rails fast.

“A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today,” Scott said. “You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congresswomen of color who were American citizens to go back to where they came from. You have used words like animal and rabid to describe Black district attorneys. You’ve attacked Black journalists, calling them a ‘loser,’ saying the questions they ask are ‘stupid and racist.’ You have had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. My question, sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you: Why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?”

Every one of Scott’s statements is true, and Trump should have been prepared to answer her question. But he’s so accustomed to friendly and fawning interviews that he was furious.

Trump said the message he wanted to impart at the conference was that immigration was bad for the Black community, but when Trump says that immigrants are taking “Black jobs,” many people hear him categorizing low-skilled or manual jobs as “Black.”

We can likely expect no more interview of Trump anywhere other than Fox News and similar promoters of lies and falsehoods who will only give Trump friendly, softball questions and that will never challenge his lies.