Former President Donald Trump claimed in a new interview published Friday that he can’t be racist because he has “so many Black friends.”
“I have so many Black friends that if I were a racist, they wouldn’t be friends, they would know better than anybody, and fast,” Trump said in a wide-ranging interview with Semafor when asked how he responds to Black voters who call him racist.
“They would not be with me for two minutes if they thought I was racist — and I’m not racist!” he added.
The former president also repeated comments that some Black voters relate to him because he is also “being discriminated against” by the criminal justice system.
“I think it’s through osmosis. They see what’s happening. And a lot of them feel that similar things have happened to them,” Trump said. “I mean, they’ve expressed that to me very plainly and very clear. They see what’s happened to them.”
In recent months, the former president’s campaign has attempted to make inroads with Black voters as enthusiasm for President Joe Biden has been waning among the key demographic.
An April NBC News poll showed Biden leading Trump among Black voters 71% to 13%, but that’s down from 2020 exit polls, which found an 87% to 12% margin for Biden.
This weekend, Trump is set to visit a church in Detroit, a city with a predominantly Black population. He also held a rally in the Bronx recently in a bid to win over Black and Latino voters.
Black men are also included among the potential vice presidential picks for Trump, including Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
In fact, a super PAC affiliated with the GOP senator launched a campaign last week to attract voters of color to the Republican Party.
Trump has often touted how popular he believes he is with Black voters.
During the 2020 presidential race when he was in the White House, Trump said he had done more for Black people than anyone except for maybe President Abraham Lincoln.
“I’ve said this and I say it openly and not a lot of people dispute it: I’ve done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. Nobody has even been close,” he said at the time.
Trump’s past actions have long been criticized by some Black voters, including his calls for the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers in the 1989 Central Park Five case.
He was also a key driver in the “birther” conspiracies, fueling the false claims that former President Barack Obama, the first Black president, was not born in the United States; in 2020 he echoed fringe attacks that Vice President Kamala Harris was not eligible to run for office because her parents had immigrated to the United States.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
