Former president Donald Trump suggested his indictments and a mugshot could help him win the black vote in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
Speaking to the Black Conservative Federation, the former president said black voters can connect with him due to being unfairly targeted by the United States legal system.
“I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing,” Trump said.
“They were doing it because it’s election interference, and then I got indicted a second time, and a third time, and a fourth time,” Trump added.
“A lot of people said that that’s why black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as being discriminated against.”
The former president also noted that the “corrupt” United States judicial system is another reason black Americans are now supporting him.
“Some of the greatest evils in our nation’s history have come from corrupt systems that try to target and subjugate others to deny them their freedom and to deny them their rights,” Trump said.
“I think that’s why the black people are so much on my side now because they see what’s happening to me happens to them.”
Trump said support from black voters also led to an embrace of his mugshot from last year.
“My mug shot — we’ve all seen the mugshot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The black population,” Trump said.
“You see black people walking around with my mugshot, you know, they do shirts, and they sell them for $19 apiece. It’s pretty amazing — millions, by the way.”
Trump also accused Joe Biden of being racist, citing his friendship with segregationists such as Strom Thurmond, who the president praised earlier this week.
“The audacity of Donald Trump to speak to a room full of black voters during Black History Month as if he isn’t the proud poster boy for modern racism,” Jasmine Harris, black media director for the Biden campaign, said in response to Trump’s comments.
“This is the same man who falsely accused the Central Park 5, questioned George Floyd’s humanity, compared his own impeachment trial to being lynched, and ensured the unemployment gap for Black workers spiked during his presidency.”
Trump is poised to win more Black votes than any other Republican presidential candidate in history, according to estimates ahead of the 2024 election.
As we reported earlier this year, the national and swing state polls show Trump has between 14 percent and 30 percent of the Black vote share.
The number is staggering and is far beyond the 8 percent of the Black vote the Pew Research Center says Trump won in the 2020 presidential election.
According to an estimation from the NAACP, 5 million African Americans voted in the 1960 presidential election when Richard Nixon won 32 percent of the Black vote.
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