Former President Donald J. Trump is firmly stating that he is the Black people’s political savior, even as he continues to pursue the presidency.
Trump, while looking into one of the cameras during his NBC town hall last week, made a comment that has turned into a running motif of his re-election campaign.
“Apart from Abraham Lincoln, I have done more for the African American community than any president.”
Trump has been shouting this at Black voters throughout some of his campaign rallies and even from the White House balcony.
This phrase has evolved, becoming more restrained in the fall of 2019.
Related stories
“We’ve done more for African Americans in three years than the broken Washington establishment has done in more than 30 years. No president has done more for our Black community this year.”
In a lengthy one-hour interview conducted last week for Dr. Phil Primetime, the former president restated his claim that he is the most suitable option for people of color.
Trump claimed, “Black people are seeing that I’m the best president for them since Abraham Lincoln.”
He has previously compared President Abraham Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863 to help the Union defeat the Confederacy and provide a way for enslaved people in Southern states to enlist in the Civil War, with his politically motivated acts based on race.
He belonged to the Republican Party, much like Trump. The 16th president’s ideas on race are sometimes disregarded. He believed that Black people should not have the same rights as White people and suggested moving Black people to Liberia and Central America so that White people would not have to coexist with them.
“Black people are coming off of this, but they are used to voting for Democrats,” Trump continued.
But they possess intelligence. They are observing what is happening and are observing changes in the criminal justice system, Black colleges, and universities. They have funding because of me, and they can see everything I’ve done. What I achieved was unattainable by anyone. It’s true that these people do grin occasionally, as I have mentioned.”
Regarding criminal justice reform, Trump approved the First Step Act in 2018 while serving as president.
The bill included a new evaluation of prisoner rehabilitation initiatives, lowered life sentences for some drug-related offenses, and more.
Trump takes great satisfaction in the fact that he has pardoned 73 prisoners and commuted the sentences of 70 others.
The 212 pardons were among the 1,927 acts of clemency that former President Barack Obama issued during his two terms in office.
His record falls second to Harry Truman, who served as the commander-in-chief from 1945 to 1953.
He approved a law in 2019 that gives $250 million annually to HBCUs and other institutions with a focus on minorities.
The institutions “never had better champions in the White House,” he declared.
But the money did not originate under his administration; rather, his signature only restored financing that had expired during his tenure although he inherited the declining trend that has been in place since 2000.
He has also attempted to claim credit for the decrease in violent crime that has occurred nationally.
The former President has attempted to claim that criminal activity has decreased because, in contrast to Obama, he supports and praises police officers.
Trump has also praised himself on several occasions for attaining “the lowest Black and Hispanic unemployment rate in our country’s history.”
Before the epidemic, black employment increased, but these increases were not attributable to Trump’s presidency.
Despite all of this, Trump is the target of several indictments, two of which accused him of trying to rig the results of the 2020 presidential election which he lost to former Vice President Joe Biden—Trump declared his candidacy for re-election again in November 2022.
