detroit.- Former President Donald J. Trump, courting black voters at a church on Detroit’s west side this Saturday, tried to capitalize on animosity toward migrants crossing the border, sanitized his record on race and sold himself as the best president for black Americans since Abraham Lincoln.
While speaking to about 200 people, Trump largely ignored his history of racist statements and his decades of calls for tougher policing, which have fueled his three presidential campaigns.
Instead, during brief remarks to a group of black Detroit residents at the city’s 180 Church, Trump tried to brand Biden as anti-black, focusing on the president’s role in crafting the Control Act. Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a far-reaching law that criminal justice experts say laid the foundation for mass incarceration that disproportionately harmed black communities in the United States.
At one point, Trump seemed determined to make sure Biden’s role on the crime bill was the focus of the event. He falsely accused Biden of coining the term “superpredators” and insisted that attendees should not forget Biden’s role, as a U.S. senator, in championing the bill and helping to pass it.
“He was the one of the superpredators,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Biden. “So please remember that if you’re going to vote Democrat, because you shouldn’t vote Democrat.”
Trump’s visit was part of a broader effort by his campaign to chip away at traditional support for Democrats among Black voters as he seeks to reverse his 2020 loss to Biden.
Although black voters have overwhelmingly favored Democrats since the civil rights era, recent polls have shown the party losing some of its support. In May, a New York Times-Siena College poll of battleground states showed that 23% of black voters supported Trump, a record level. In 2020, Trump only won 8% of black votes nationally.
In his attempt to appeal to black voters, Mr. Trump often cites his record as president, but the reality is more complicated than he often presents
In Detroit, Mr. Trump highlighted the funding bill he signed for Black higher education institutions, which Congress passed. And he celebrated his role in the First Step Act of 2018, his criminal justice reform bill.
But critics have said Mr. Trump’s frequent pro-police rhetoric while president often undermines his work on criminal justice reform. And although he often takes credit for a low black unemployment rate during his presidency, he frequently exaggerates his role in it and ignores other economic indicators.
Saturday’s roundtable in Detroit attracted a more diverse audience, and a higher proportion of black attendees, than is typical at a Trump campaign event, even though a significant number of the roughly 200 people in the audience were white.
Angelo Brown, 61, an independent black voter, said he came to the event because he was still unsure which candidate he would vote for. And he added: “The chances of an independent running are almost zero.”
Although he did not support Mr. Trump in the previous two elections, Mr. Brown, who is retired, said he was open to a candidate who would help improve the economy and end the war in Ukraine.
In church, Trump stuck to the themes that have animated his outreach to black voters. He again tried to take advantage of pessimism about the economy by blaming Biden for inflation and high rents.
Mr. Trump also sought to stoke resentment toward immigrants, arguing that Mr. Biden had allowed the surge of migrants crossing into the United States, which he said had hurt the economic prospects of black Americans. And he falsely claimed that “100%” of job growth under the Biden administration had gone to illegal immigrants.
“They come to your community and take your jobs,” Trump said, echoing an idea that successfully motivated his base of white working-class voters in 2016.
Trump’s appeals to black voters in recent months have been aggressive and direct, but sometimes clumsy.
Shortly before Mr. Trump arrived at the church, his campaign began a renewed outreach effort to black Americans, “Black Americans for Trump,” that included endorsements from black politicians, former professional athletes and entertainment figures such as the model and singer Amber Rose and rapper Kodak Black, whom Mr. Trump pardoned.
This year, Trump has sold gold sneakers to young people of color and suggested that black people identify more with him after having his mugshot taken in Atlanta last year. He told a group of black Republicans that they liked him because he, too, had been unfairly persecuted by the criminal justice system. And he has frequently accused the black prosecutors investigating him of “reverse racism.”
After the church rally, Trump spoke at a convention organized by Turning Point Action, an arm of Turning Point USA, an increasingly influential conservative group that courts young voters. Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk has been criticized for statements and social media posts with anti-immigrant or racist views.
The juxtaposition of the two events reflects the extent to which Trump’s campaign is trying to weave a mixed — and sometimes fractious — coalition that expands beyond his conservative base as he seeks to win back battleground states he lost in 2020, including Michigan.
“It’s an honor to be here,” Mr. Trump said at the church after taking the stage. “It’s a very important area for us.”
Such sentiment was markedly different from the years in which Mr. Trump has denigrated Detroit, a majority black city, which he previously referred to as one of the “most corrupt political places in America” while making broad and unsubstantiated claims. foundation of electoral fraud in the 2020 elections.
And during his 2020 campaign, as Mr. Trump was frequently trying to stoke suburban fears about violence and crime in cities, he said in an interview that living in Detroit and other cities was “like living in the hell.”
Jasmine Harris, Mr. Biden’s black media director, criticized Mr. Trump for sanitizing both his past comments “deniguring and disrespecting black Americans” and his record while in office.
“We have not forgotten that Black unemployment and uninsured rates skyrocketed when Trump was in the White House,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. “And we surely haven’t forgotten that Trump repeatedly cozies up to white supremacists and demonizes black communities for his political benefit, because that’s exactly what he will do if he wins a second term.”
Trump’s speech at the Turning Point event, before thousands of people, took place in the same convention center where his supporters had tried to interfere with the counting of mail-in votes in the 2020 election.
During his remarks, Mr. Trump repeated his blatantly false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and again cast doubt on the integrity of the upcoming election.
As it’s usual. Trump, who turned 78 on Friday, attacked Biden’s cognitive abilities. But while he argued that he is more mentally fit to be president, he referred to his White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, as “Ronny Johnson.”
Drawing on his comments about the economy in the church, Mr. Trump accused Mr. Biden of an “inflation-causing spending spree.” He then appeared to attack Mr. Biden’s commitment to Ukraine with an aside about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I think Zelensky is perhaps the best salesman of any politician who has ever lived,” said Mr. Trump, who this year tried to block efforts to provide more aid to Ukraine. “Every time he comes to our country, he leaves with $60 billion.”
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