In an appearance Monday on Newsmax, Donald Trump Jr. tried to depict his indicted father’s arrest and mugshot in Georgia as some sort of pivotal moment in the effort to win over the support of Black people, who he claimed Democrats are trying to “weaponize.”
On The Balance, host Eric Bolling began by claiming that as a result of the arrest and mugshot, “the African American community—the Black community—is rallying behind Donald Trump.” This supposed turn of events, he said, was an unexpected “phenomenon.”
Trump Jr. agreed with Bolling’s argument, which has also been made several times over on Fox News by host Jesse Watters. He first pointed to the reception his father received while en route to the Fulton County Jail last Thursday night.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The crowds screaming for the motorcade—I mean, they were for Trump!” he said of those who lined the streets, even though some of whom did not support the former president.
Trump Jr. then claimed that when he spoke at an event in Las Vegas the day after his father’s booking, Black security guards told him they sympathized with the former president’s situation.
“The people that actually struck me the most were not people in attendance; it was the security guards at the event. A group of them on like three separate occasions—African American men—came up to me. They go, ‘Hey man, we’re not voting for that other guy. We get all this stuff.’” Trump Jr. claimed.
“It was like they were going out of their way to let me know that they understood exactly what was going on,” he continued, adding that even though Republicans have often strived to make inroads in the Black community yet have come up short, the arrest of his father was “different.”
“Maybe one day, you know, people will realize that... the Democrats have literally done nothing to help the African American community,” Trump Jr. added before claiming the opposition was going to use the Black community to its advantage. “If anything, they've done incredible and perhaps in many cases irreparable damage to those either to that community.”
“I think as they see it further play out, that could be a game-changing demographic,” he added.
“I’m sure that’ll be a demographic that will be attempted to be weaponized. I just think—especially, again with the men—they’re going to see through it, because they’ve been dealing with this for a long time.”
