GOP Nominee Pledges to Make Republican Party ‘Home of the African-American Voter Once Again’
Calling their current situation “a total catastrophe,” GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said Saturday that black Americans should vote for him because “there is so little spirit” and, “We need a cheerleader.”Â
In an interview with Fox News reported on by ThinkProgress, Trump was asked about his statement Friday in Michigan, where he told a mostly white crowd that black voters should support him because, “What the hell do [they] have to lose?”Â
In the Fox News interview (video above), Trump again cited faulty statistics, saying the unemployment rate among young black people is 58 percent. (As The Washington Post points out, this figure misleadingly factors in high school students who don’t have jobs.)
“It’s just a like a total catastrophe, the unemployment rates, everything is bad, no healthcare, no education, no anything, and poverty is unbelievable,” Trump said, before repeating his claim that if he defeats Democrat Hillary Clinton, he’ll capture 95 percent of the black vote in 2020.Â
Asked by Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro for specifics about what he’d do to improve the lives of black Americans, Trump said, “Well, I’d get jobs.”
“You know, you need jobs,” he said. “I’d also create spirit. We have a president who is absolutely a divider. I call him the great divider, and there is so little spirit, and there is such great division, and we need a cheerleader.”Â
Trump then referenced his trip last week to flood-ravaged Louisiana, saying President Barack Obama “doesn’t know what’s going on” there. While in Louisiana, where he was criticized for using the visit as a photo opp, Trump visited a predominantly white Baptist church led by anti-LGBT hate group leader Tony Perkins.
Earlier Saturday, Trump told another mostly white crowd in Virginia that he wants the GOP — which he noted is “the party of Abraham Lincoln” — to be “a home of the African-American voter once again.”Â
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