Former President Trump and a Black reporter engaged in a sometimes incendiary discussion of race Wednesday, with the Republican candidate saying he was the best president for Black people since Abraham Lincoln and falsely accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of shifting the way she described her own racial identity.
Trump’s session with three reporters at the annual convention of the National Assn. of Black Journalists grew heated from the start, when Rachel Scott, senior congressional correspondent for ABC News, rattled off a series of Trump’s inflammatory comments — including the claim that former President Obama was not born in the U.S. — and asked why Black voters should trust him.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner, first question,” Trump retorted. “You don’t even say ‘Hello, how are you?’ Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network and terrible by the way. I think it’s disgraceful.”
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Trump then said he had started “the greatest programs ever for Black workers and Black entrepreneurs,” referring to opportunity zones for Black businesses, and to his work to help “save” historically Black colleges and universities when they were “stone cold broke.”
Trump’s 36-minute session at the annual convention remained intense, as he blamed the organization for starting the event an hour late and charging he had been “invited under false pretenses,” believing that Harris — his expected opponent in the November...
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