Rep. Bryon Donalds (R-FL) believes that black voters in support of former President Donald Trump are people who have dealt with an unfair justice system.
Donalds expressed his views during a Sunday conversation with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” when he was asked about a statement Trump made during a speech to a summit of Black conservatives in South Carolina on Friday.
“And then I got indicted a second time and then a third time and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that’s why the black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as– I’m being discriminated against. It’s been pretty amazing,” the GOP presidential candidate had said while highlighting how the Republican Party has gained more Black voters in recent times.
“Every day, we are welcoming more black voters back home to the Republican Party.” — President Trump at the Black Conservative Federation Gala in Columbia, South Carolina pic.twitter.com/MbDSIEeZnz
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) February 24, 2024
Welker brought up Trump’s remarks during her discussion with Donalds, stating, “Congressman, it sounds like Donald Trump was implying that he can win black voters because they get indicted all the time too. Is that what he was saying?”
In response, Donalds said that he thinks “that’s part of it.”
“When you layer on the fact that, yes, this is political persecution from the Department of Justice and from radical DA’s throughout our country, this is something similar that black people have to deal with, with the justice system themselves. So there are look of it is real simple. Well dang if the government going after him with foolishness, he can’t be that bad, especially considering the fact that Joe Biden is terrible at his job,” he stated.
Biden’s campaign have criticized Trump for his remarks which the campaign Co-Chair Cedric Richmond called “plain racist.”
Per NBC News, Richmond said, “Donald Trump claiming that Black Americans will support him because of his criminal charges is insulting. It’s moronic. And it’s just plain racist.”
In reaction to Richmond’s accusation of racism, Donalds accused the Democrat of “trying to play racial politics.”
Defending Trump’s claims further, Donalds said that minority voters support Trump because he “did a great job as president.”
“Our country was secure, the economy was great. These are all the things that Donald Trump talked about on Friday night,” he stated.
Pivoting to the president’s legal troubles, the lawmaker added, “He also did talk about the indictments. What Americans don’t wanna see, especially Black Americans and everybody else, they don’t want to see a politicized Justice Department. They don’t want to see a two-tiered system of justice. They want justice to be followed. They want justice to be blind. That’s what the American people want. That’s what Black voters want. That’s what everybody wants.”
