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Trump Blasts Immigrants For Taking Jobs As He Courts Voters At A Black Church, MAGA Event In Detroit
Detroit – As he wooed disparate groups of Black voters and hardline conservatives in pivotal Michigan on Saturday, Donald Trump blasted immigrants for stealing jobs and government resources.
The previous Republican president also leveled several fresh, unfounded accusations against the country’s voting system.
However, as Trump worked to put together a fragile political alliance at both a Black church and an organization known to draw white supremacists, his ferocious remarks on illegal immigration—long a cornerstone of his unabashed message—marked a common thread in downtown Detroit.
Trump | AP News Image
Trump Blasts Immigrants For Taking Jobs As He Courts Voters At A Black Church, MAGA Event In Detroit
“The people coming across the border — all those millions of people — they’re inflicting tremendous harm to our Black population and to our Hispanic population,” Trump declared to thousands of conservative activists gathered in a large convention hall.
People, they are not. Later, alluding to members of violent immigrant gangs, he added, “They’re beasts.
As Trump seeks to deny Democratic President Joe Biden a second term, his varied weekend agenda highlights the changing political factors influencing the presidential election this autumn.
Considering Biden won Michigan by less than three percentage points four years ago, few states might be more important in November. And among Democrats, few vote blocs are more important than African Americans, who comprised the majority of Biden’s 2020 political base. Less than five months before Election Day, though, Black voters are beginning to show some minor indications of dissatisfaction with the 81-year-old Democrat.
Trump vies to seize his seeming opening when he turns 78 on Friday.
When he visited 180 Church earlier in the day, the gathering was significantly smaller but equally welcoming. Outside the small brick structure with “Black Americans for Trump” placards posted were abandoned cars. BBQ smoke and rap music came from a Black Conservative Federation group pre-event.
“It’s a very important area for us,” the mostly white churchgoers heard Trump say. He pledged to return for a sermon “some Sunday.”
He maintained that illegal immigrants are “hurting” the Black community.
They are encroaching on your employment, he declared.
Earlier in the day, Trump delivered a similar speech to the “People’s Convention” of Turning Point Action, a group that the Anti-Defamation League claims has ties to several extremists.
Not too long after the former president spoke, well-known white nationalist Nick Fuentes walked into the ballroom surrounded by a crowd of applauding followers. Although security swiftly led him out, Fuentes caused political issues for Trump in 2022 when he had a private lunch at his Florida home with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West and the former president.
Though the Anti-Defamation League warned that Turning Point “continues to attract racists,” the organization has been a powerhouse in GOP politics during the Trump era, especially in his “Make America Great Again” campaign.
“Numerous individuals associated with the group have made bigoted statements about the Black community, the LGBTQ community and other groups,” the global anti-hate organization ADL stated in a background note. Although the leaders of TPUSA (Turning Point USA) claim to repudiate white supremacist ideology, known white nationalists have shown up for their gatherings.
Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet dismissed the ADL’s portrayal as “smears and lies.” For years, he said, Turning Point has been preventing Fuentes from attending its gatherings.
The ADL breeds divisiveness and poison and is a curse on America. Kolvet called the ADL’s criticism “a badge of honor” and added, “They’ve completely lost the plot.”
Democrats, meantime, presented another viewpoint from a distance.
“Donald Trump is so dangerous for Michigan, dangerous for America, and dangerous for Black people,” African American Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II declared. “Obscene” was his description of Trump’s speech to the Turning Point conference, held at the same convention hall that served as “the epicenter of their steal the election effort.”
The day after the 2020 presidential election, when absentee ballots were being tallied, thousands of angry Trump supporters yelling, “Stop the count!” poured into the TCF Center, now known as Huntington Place. Local media documented scenes of protestors outside and within the lobby. Police stopped them from going into the area designated for counting.
Trump | AP News Image
Trump Blasts Immigrants For Taking Jobs As He Courts Voters At A Black Church, MAGA Event In Detroit
Voting officials in both parties, the legal system, and former administration members of Trump have all thoroughly refuted the myth that Biden profited from rampant election fraud. Trump nevertheless keeps disseminating this kind of false information, which reverberated throughout the Republican gathering over the weekend.
Turning Point CEO and founder Charlie Kirk erroneously said that the conference venue was “the scene of a crime” while speaking from the main stage.
Carrying the discussion on, Trump brought up the prospect of electoral fraud this fall.
The vote has to be watched. We must protect the vote, Trump urged. The entire electoral process is so dishonest.
With Black voters, Trump doesn’t seem to have suffered from such strong language.
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released in March found that Biden’s support among Black adults had declined from 94% when he began his term in January 2021 to only 55%.
According to an AP-NORC poll taken in June, eight out of ten Black voters had a negative opinion of Trump, with around two-thirds stating they have a “very unfavorable” opinion of him.
According to AP VoteCast, Trump received 8% of the Black vote in 2020. Furthermore, even a little change could have a big impact on an election that is predicted to be tight.
Participating at the church event, Detroit restaurant owner Omar Mitchell said he backs Trump because “money was pumping” under his administration.
Trump | AP News Image
Trump Blasts Immigrants For Taking Jobs As He Courts Voters At A Black Church, MAGA Event In Detroit
Mitchell recalled, “We used to think that being Black automatically made you a Democrat. That’s out the door these days.
Trump claims his message of economics and border security will attract more Black votes, and his felony convictions make him more approachable. “The crime is most rampant right here and African American communities,” he said at the church on Saturday afternoon, vowing to “bring back the auto industry.”
Pastor Lorenzo Sewell said Biden attended an NAACP banquet in the city “but never came to the hood,” Kimberly Taylor, who was welcomed on stage by the Trump campaign, thanked Trump for “coming to the hood.”
The preacher inquired of Trump how to “keep the Black dollar in the Black community.”
“The Black community needs to stop the crime,” Trump declared.
SOURCE – (AP)
