Newly leaked audio shared with Politico reveals Donald Trump bragging about low Black turnout in the 2016 election.
According to the report, “In a private meeting inside Trump Tower days before his inauguration, Donald Trump told a group of civil rights leaders something most Republicans wouldn’t dare publicly acknowledge: lower turnout among Black voters did, in fact, benefit him in the 2016 presidential election.”
“Many Blacks didn’t go out to vote for Hillary ’cause they liked me,” Trump said, according to Politico. “That was almost as good as getting the vote, you know, and it was great.”
As MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart said on Saturday morning, “When John Lewis was marching over that bridge in Selma, Alabama, it was a march to Montgomery to demand the right to vote. President Trump has made it pretty clear that he wants to stand in that way.”
Video:
Leaked audio caught Trump bragging about low Black turnout in the 2016 election. #ctl #p2 #amjoy pic.twitter.com/dDuE0bsAS4
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) August 22, 2020
Trump needs low turnout to win the election
Whether it’s spewing lies about mail-in voting or actively sabotaging the U.S. Postal Service, Donald Trump openly acknowledges that suppressing the vote is a central key to winning a second term.
The RNC is helping him achieve this goal as they’ve partnered with Trump to limit voting in at least 17 states, many of which are swing states.
Donald Trump and his GOP loyalists know that if turnout is high in 2020, particularly among African American voters, Trump doesn’t stand a chance of winning a second term in the White House.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
