A rogue reporter blasting fake news has scurried to remove a video about a founding member of the Black Panther Party supposedly endorsing Donald Trump for president after the activist’s grandson threatened to obtain a cease and desist order.
Eric Jones responded to the video by making it very clear on social media that his 81-year-old grandfather, David Hilliard, is not a Trump supporter and was manipulated in the video due to his ongoing “cognitive issues.”
The video was uploaded to TikTok by Carol Mitchell on Sunday, according to the New York Post. Leading Report, a website known for peddling misinformation, also posted about the interview on X.
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In a reposted version of the video, a Black woman, presumably Carol Mitchell, introduced Hilliard.
“I want you to meet someone who knew Donald Trump, and he’s going to tell you about Donald Trump in his own words,” Mitchell said before passing the camera over to Hilliard.
“My name is David Hilliard, a founding member of the Black Panther Party,” he said. “I knew Trump when Trump was a college student in New York, and he supported the Black Panther Party. That’s how I know Trump.”
After being asked, Hilliard says Trump was “a decent man” and “someone who gave us [Black Panthers] money.”
“Trump is a friend of African Americans, and I knew Trump from the 1960s in New York—where he comes from,” Hilliard continued. “Not a racist as a white man. He supported Black people.”
Hilliard claimed Trump owned every brownstone in Harlem at the time.
Mitchell chimed in that Trump had always been “familiarized with the Black community,” and Hilliard agrees. (Trump Management, headed by Fred Trump in the 1960s, was sued for discriminating against Black renters.) Then, Mitchell asks why Trump was charged in his hush-money case and “why they’re afraid they’re afraid of him to be president.”
“Because Trump likes Africans in America. He likes Black folks,” Hilliard replied. “I think Trump is very qualified and decent.”
Mitchell went on a garbled tangent about Trump being able to help people make money.
“Because he knows how to make money. He knows how to lose money. So, he would be the perfect person to help us get our own again,” she explained with a completely illogical sense of capitalism’s relationship to Black people.
On Tuesday, Jones called Mitchell out for being a conniving opp.
He posted his own video to X, explaining that his grandfather was clearing the air about what he said in the interview, and that Mitchell allegedly “misrepresented some of [Hilliard’s] views on Donald Trump and this 34 guilty verdict-count.”
“Donald Trump was our realtor and such. Most of the properties that we lived in Harlem belonged to Donald Trump,” Hilliard explained. “That’s how our relationship came into existence.”
“That’s purely speaking in terms of the past,” Jones added. “That is not a nod of support to any of today’s political climate—with Donald Trump or with any other candidate.”
“That is correct,” Hilliard acquiesced.
“This is purely historical based,” Jones said. “What Ms. Carol had done, she will be receiving a cease and desist letter from any type of communication from here on further with my grandfather. It’s not OK.”
In a thread on X, Jones added that his grandfather had been dealing with cognitive issues since 2014 and was not even aware that Trump is currently a politician.
“A lie spreads so much faster than the truth smh,” he wrote. “These people done tried to make my Grandpa a Maga representer. Not on my watch.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Mitchell video had been removed, and no link was provided in the Leading Report’s post nor on its website. However, posts and retweets containing the video remained on Mitchell’s X page.
Mitchell is a self-published author of over 40 books, according to her profile on Amazon, including memoirs Democrats, I am Not Stupid—the journey to break with her family’s tradition as members of the Democratic Party—and Letters to Carol—her battle with dissociative identity disorder.
She did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
