“I think I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln,” former President Donald Trump boasted on Wednesday — just one of many of absurd lies and outrageous insults he delivered in a televised interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago.
Trump continued his recent attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who will become the first woman, second Black person, and first person of Indian descent to lead our country if she is elected president. He even mispronounced “Kamala” at times as a sign of his contempt.
“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,” Trump said of Harris, feigning ignorance about her background. “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
My response: Why not just call her the vice president?
Trump’s implication was clear: Harris recently changed her identity for political advantage. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Harris is the daughter of a mother from India and a Black father from Jamaica. She has long said that she embraces both parts of her identity and has been immersed in Black culture since she was a child. She graduated from historically Black Howard University, where she was a member of a historically Black sorority. She has never downplayed her Black identity.
Trump was interviewed by three Black female journalists for 34 minutes, after which he cut off abruptly at his campaign’s request. The session began with Trump’s angry outburst at Rachel Scott of ABC News, when she asked him a perfectly legitimate question about why Black Americans should trust him, given his past comments and actions hostile to Black people.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question so, in such a horrible manner. A first question, you don’t even say hello, how are you … and I think it’s disgraceful,” Trump said angrily.
Undoubtedly, he would have preferred to have Scott ask him why he was the greatest leader in the history of the world and let him ramble on unchallenged for an hour, but she is a highly skilled journalist whose job isn’t to flatter his gigantic ego.
Trump has a decades-long history of attacking Black people as criminals and with a whole range of racist tropes. He falsely claimed for years that Barack Obama, America’s only Black president up to now, was ineligible for the office because he was supposedly born in Africa. Obama’s birth certificate shows he was born in Hawaii.
If Trump thinks his insult-fest will help him pick up Black votes, he’s sorely mistaken. But maybe that wasn’t his goal. Maybe Trump wanted to provoke a confrontation with journalists who were just trying to do their jobs so that he could show his MAGA base that he stood up to these women and put them in their place. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Flattering himself, as he so often does, Trump said Wednesday: “I love the Black population of the country, I’ve done so much for the Black population of this country.” He then launched into a litany of lies and misleading statements regarding his record.
As documented by Politifact in greater detail than I have room to give, Trump falsely claimed, among other things, that:
- Unauthorized immigrants are “taking Black jobs.” Trump has tried mightily to pit Black Americans against immigrants, even though immigrants strengthen our economy and help expand employment for everyone. In fact, the Biden-Harris administration achieved the lowest Black unemployment rate and the lowest Black poverty rate ever recorded.
- “Everybody” wanted to see the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide overturned so that each state could adopt its own laws on reproductive rights. In fact, national polls and ballot questions voted on in several states show support for abortion rights is greater than opposition. Trump also falsely claimed Democrats support abortion “in the ninth month” and support killing babies after birth.
- Unauthorized immigrants and other noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections.
- Police allowed rioters who wanted to overturn Trump’s reelection defeat to enter the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In fact, the Justice Department has charged over 1,200 people with crimes for the riot. Trump said Wednesday that he would pardon convicted rioters as president if he determined they were innocent. Videos taken on Jan. 6 show many of those convicted breaking into the Capitol and some assaulting police.
In addition, Trump exaggerated the rate of inflation under the Biden-Harris administration, along with the number of unauthorized immigrants who have entered the U.S. Trump also falsely claimed he was indicted on criminal charges in federal court and courts in Georgia and New York (where he was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records) only because he is a Republican running for president
Since President Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to succeed him, Trump has called the vice president “crazy” and “dumb as a rock.” Some of his supporters have said she advanced in her career only because of her race and gender under policies to promote DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).
Asked at the convention of Black journalists if Harris was vice president because of DEI, Trump said “I really don’t know, could be, could be.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Trump added that she is “the worst vice president in history.” No one other than Trump and his allies has made that assertion, but a survey of 154 historians and other experts on the presidency rated Trump the worst president in American history.
Trump’s disgraceful behavior at the conference looks like a preview of the old worn-out 20th-century political playbook filled with outdated racist and sexist rants that he believes will give him the advantage in a close presidential contest.
The performance of the former president showed that he remains a divider and not a uniter, trying to turn back the clock to the days when Black people and women were marginalized and treated like second-class citizens.
The contrast couldn’t be greater with Harris, who is focused on building a better and more prosperous future for all Americans and making our nation the United States in fact and not just in name.
Donna Brazile is a political strategist, a contributor to ABC News and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. She is the author of “Hacks: Inside the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”