Former President Donald President Trump shocked the audience within minutes of his appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention on Wednesday. The Republican presidential nominee insultHe claimed the moderators (three black women) asked him the first question in a “terrible manner.” Trump didn’t even say “hello, how are you?” and he was clearly offended by the question about his record of disparaging black people.
And things got worse.
“Are you from ABC?” Trump continued. “Because I think they’re a fake news network, a horrible network. And I think it’s embarrassing that I came here with good intentions.”
The tense exchange immediately set the tone for the Q&A session, where Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris with racist descriptions. “I didn’t know she was black until she happened to be black a few years ago, and now she wants to be known as black,” Trump said.
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Trump attacked the interviewers as “obnoxious” and “disgraceful,” while insisting that as president he had “done a lot for the black community.”
The audience gasped at the remark as interviewers (Kadia Goba of Semaphor, Rachel Scott of ABC News, Harris Faulkner of Fox News) repeatedly asked the former president whether he would pardon the Jan. 6 rioters. “If they were innocent, I would pardon them,” he said, claiming Harris had failed the bar exam and had to take a cognitive test. (Harris eventually passed and was admitted to the California bar in 1990.)
Trump also said, “Black jobs are jobs for people.” “That’s it.” Again, the crowd gasped.
The announcement Monday that President Trump would attend the convention sparked strong backlash, with some black journalists arguing that the former president should not be invited because of his long record of attacking black female journalists.
Bobby Henry, president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, which represents more than 240 black-owned newspapers, said before the event that he opposed Trump’s presence because it “risks undermining NABJ’s values of inclusion and solidarity and normalizing his harmful behavior.”
NABJ tried to quell the criticism by insisting that interviewers would prepare questions about “the most pressing issues facing the Black community.” NABJ added that Trump’s appearance did not signal the group’s endorsement.
NABJ is working to schedule a similar debate with Harris in September.
