Donald Trump appeared this afternoon with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Chicago, an appearance that led to its co-chair resigning and stoked uproar elsewhere.
On Monday, the NABJ announced that Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, would participate in a Q&A session at the convention on Wednesday, with the intention of concentrating “on the most pressing issues facing the Black community.”
However, Trump’s participation led to its co-chair Karen Attiah’s resignation ahead of the meeting. Attiah said although a “variety” of factors influenced her decision, she said she wasn’t consulted about giving Trump a “platform” at the convention.
According to a press release announcing the Q&A session, Trump’s campaign said the former President has “accomplished more for Black Americans than any other president in recent history by implementing America First policies on the economy, immigration, energy, law and order, and foreign policy.”
Trump has continued to use media platforms to share misleading and untruthful claims throughout his campaign, including via major networks. Newsweek found many of Trump’s claims did not hold water.
Newsweek has contacted media representatives for Donald Trump via email for comment.
“Kamala refused to attend”
Donald Trump began making misleading claims even before the Q&A began, saying on Truth Social on Wednesday morning that Kamala Harris had refused to attend the event.
“Crazy Kamala disrespectfully refused to attend the National Association of Black Journalists Conference, but I am on my way to meet with them now in Chicago. Because of which, she’ll probably end up doing, she has no choice, but remember—it is only for that reason!” Trump wrote.
However, NABJ states it had been in contact with Harris for an in-person panel before President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. It is now “in conversation” with the Harris team to schedule a Q&A session at some point in September.
NABJ President Ken Lemon said: “The last update we were provided (earlier this week) was that Harris would not be available in person or virtually during our Convention.
“We are in talks about virtual options in the future and are still working to reach an agreement.”
Trump later complained about NABJ saying he had been told he could not do the event via Zoom, later learning that Harris “is doing the Event on Zoom.”
“WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” he said.
A spokesperson for Harris told Newsweek that Trump’s claim about her “refusal” to join was incorrect.
Newsweek has contacted the NABJ for comment.
While Harris may have declined or been unable to attend the event, Trump’s claim that she had “refused” to do it makes it appear that Harris’ decision has been guided by principle, not scheduling, which there seems to be no evidence of.
Trump created “one of the greatest programs ever for Black workers”
After complaining about his introductory question, Trump praised his record on creating employment opportunities for Black Americans, mentioning “Opportunity Zones.” Part of Trump’s 2017 tax plan, the Opportunity Zone program offered millions in capital gains tax breaks to developers to invest in low-income zones chosen by the states.
“I’ve done so much for the Black population of this country, including employment, including Opportunity Zones with Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, which is one of the greatest programs ever for Black workers and Black entrepreneurs,” Trump said.
The evidence that it had a positive impact on Black workers is mixed. A 2023 paper published in the Journal of Urban Economics found Opportunity Zones had “small positive effects” in areas with above median Black population in some states, although the effect was muted elsewhere.
There does not appear to be other analysis that suggests the program was “one of the greatest” for Black workers.
“Saving” Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Trump also said that he provided funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and “saved them” at a time when “nobody else was doing it.”
“Historically Black Colleges and Universities were out of money,” Trump said.
“They were stone-cold broke and I saved them and I gave them long-term financing and nobody else was doing it.”
The significance of Trump’s contributions is disputed.
In 2019, Trump signed a bipartisan bill intended to provide more than $250 million a year to historic Black colleges, reported the Associated Press.
However, speaking to The Washington Post, Marybeth Gasman, a Rutgers professor and authority on HBCUs, said Trump’s involvement was likely to have been limited.
“Congress does all this work and presents it to him in the budget, and he can choose to sign it,” Gasman said.
“Under Trump, the White House Initiative for HBCUs was moved to the White House and is quite quiet compared to the work under President Obama’s administration,” Gasman added.
As stated by PolitiFact in 2020, HBCUs received funding during Barack Obama‘s presidency under the same program that Trump signed and there was little change between the two presidents in total funding.
Kamala Harris “turned Black”
Trump would also claim that Kamala Harris had “turned Black” when asked a question related to accusations from Republicans that Harris was a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) hire.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. 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,” he said.
“So, I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris has spoken at length about her mixed heritage, as the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother. She has said that her mother deliberately raised her and her sister as Black because of how the world would see them. She also attended Howard University, an HBCU in Washington, D.C.
In her 2019 autobiography, The Truths We Hold, Harris wrote about being raised with an appreciation and understanding of both Indian and Black culture.
“My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”
Kamala Harris is the “border czar”
Trump criticized what he called Kamala Harris’ appointment as a “border czar” saying that the vice president was “allowing” the interception of millions of undocumented migrants.
“She’s the border czar, she’s the worst border czar in the history of the world,” Trump said.
While Kamala Harris was appointed under the Biden administration to lead diplomatic efforts to “address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras”, the White House has said that she was not put in charge of the border, as the term “border czar” could suggest.
Trump says inflation “in my opinion” is worst ever
While conceding that according to some had been at its worst in “58 years”, Trump suggested that, in his view, U.S. inflation had been at its worst rate ever during the Biden administration.
“We had in my opinion, the worst inflation we’ve had, they say it’s 58 years, but I think it’s much more than that,” he said.
“It’s been devastating.”
Apart from the fact that inflation is calculated, not speculated, Biden’s high of 9.1 percent has been surpassed considerably in U.S. history, even more recently than 58 years ago hitting 14 percent in 1980.
Trump also falsely claimed that interest rates increased from 2.4 percent to “10 percent” under Biden, a figure not supported by data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis which shows the annual rate hit 8 percent in 2022 compared to highs of only 2.4 percent under Trump.
Prosecutors said Biden was “incompetent”
While addressing charges relating to his possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump attacked President Biden, saying that prosecutors hadn’t pursued him of similar charges because he had been deemed “incompetent.”
“He had 50 years worth of documents, and they ruled that he was incompetent and therefore he shouldn’t stand trial,” Trump said.
This is a misleading characterization of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report into Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Hur said that if Biden was charged, it would take years to bring to trial, at which point the president would be “well into his eighties”, an age that would make such a trial more demanding.
Hur said a jury would likely view him as “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” However, Hur did not make any assessments about Biden’s ability to stand trial, and he did not call him “incompetent.”
“Nothing happened” to rioters in Seattle and Minneapolis
Trump was also asked about January 6 and his pledge to pardon rioters. In response, Trump asked about other protests.
“How come the people that tried to burn down Minneapolis, how come the people that took over a large percentage of Seattle, how come nothing happened to them?” he said.
This appeared to refer to protests that took place across the country following George Floyd‘s death in May 2020. There are multiple records of arrests and sentences for the destruction caused following arrests in Minneapolis and Seattle.
In 2021, Victor Devon Edwards, 32, was sentenced to 100 months in prison for “burning, looting, and damaging stores and businesses in downtown Minneapolis on August 26, 2020” while Dylan Shakespeare Robinson, 23, was sentenced to four years in prison for his role in a police station fire in Minneapolis,
Margaret Aislinn Channon, 26, was sentenced to five years in prison for setting five police cars on fire during protests in Seattle, reported Fox13 Seattle.
The Associated Press found in a review of court documents that in the more than 300 federal cases that followed the George Floyd protests, more than 120 defendants pleaded guilty or were convicted of federal crimes.
As the Associated Press notes, however, some defendants received lenient deals, including no prison time or time served.
Other false claims Trump repeated included that other countries had opened up their “mental institutions” to flood the U.S. with undocumented migrants, a claim that has been previously debunked by Newsweek.
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