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Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley called former President Donald Trump “disgusting” after he said black voters like him more now that he has posed for a mugshot and has been criminally charged 91 times. Trump made the comments as he headlined the B Lack Conservative Federation’s Honors Gala in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday evening, on the eve of the state’s Republican primary, where Haley and Trump appear on the ballot. Haley was asked to respond to Trump’s eyebrow-raising claims as she left her polling place Saturday in her gated community in Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
The 2024 hopeful said “that’s what happens when he goes off the teleprompter, that’s the chaos that comes with Donald Trump, that’s the insult that’s going to happen every day between now and the general election,” Haley said. “That’s why I keep saying Donald Trump can’t win a general election. He won’t do that,” she added.
Haley is Trump’s latest rival in the Republican primaries and was an average of 30 points behind him in her home state of South Carolina heading into Saturday’s vote. Trump made two appearances in the state on Friday: once at a rally in Rock Hill and later at the Black Conservative Federation’s gala dinner. “When I took the mugshot in Atlanta, that mugshot was No. 1. You know who was embraced more than anyone else?” Trump asked the predominantly African-American audience. ‘The black population.’
He complained that he was being sued for “nothing” — claiming that black voters understand that because they see that “what happens to me happens to them.” “Does that make any sense?” Trump asked. He received cheers and applause from the audience. “And a lot of people said this is why black people like me, because they’ve been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they basically saw me as being discriminated against,” Trump said.
“It was pretty amazing, but there may be something there,” the former president added. During the event, Trump also joked, “These lights are so bright in my eyes that I can’t see that many people.” But I only see the black one. I don’t see any white ones.’ “You see, I’ve come this far. That’s how far I’ve come,” he added.
The Biden campaign did not specifically address these comments, but did address Trump’s decision to appeal to Black voters. “Trump’s audacity to address a room full of Black voters during Black History Month as if he is not the proud poster boy for modern racism,” Jasmine Harris, Black Media Director for the Biden campaign, said in a statement on Saturday.
“This is the same man who falsely accused the Central Park 5, questioned the humanity of George Floyd, compared his own impeachment trial to being lynched, and caused the unemployment gap for Black workers to skyrocket during his presidency,” she continued. “For years, Donald Trump has been showing Black Americans his true colors: an incompetent, anti-Black tyrant who holds us in such low regard that he publicly dined with white nationalists a week after declaring his candidacy for 2024,” Harris added .
Trump launched his 2024 presidential bid on November 15, 2022. Days later, he sat down for a controversial dinner at Mar-a-Lago with rapper Kanye West, who is black but has come under fire for making anti-Semitic comments, and white nationalist Nick Fuentes. “Come November, no matter how many insincere voter engagement events he attends, Black Americans will show Donald Trump that we know exactly who he is,” Harris said.
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