Trump Privately Boasted of Low African-American Voter Turnout After 2016 Election in Newly Leaked Audio: ‘It Was Great’
President-elect Donald Trump bragged to a number of civil rights leaders about the depressed African-American voter turnout in the 2016 election during a private, Trump Tower meeting just days before his inauguration.
According to an audio recording of the 2017 meeting recently leaked to Politico, Trump pointed out how the lower numbers of Black voters served to solidify his narrow wins in the election. Among those reportedly present for the newly-elected president’s remarks was William Wachtel and Martin Luther King III, son of the civl rights icon Wachtel’s chief of staff, Tootsie Warhol provided the surreptitious recording of the meeting to Politico.
“Many Blacks didn’t go out to vote for Hillary ‘cause they liked me. That was almost as good as getting the vote, you know, and it was great,” Trump told the assembled group. He went on to boast about having “so many” Black friends and acquaintances and then asked the civil rights leaders about their reaction to Clinton’s surprising loss before misstating his electoral support from African-Americans.
Trump then went on a small rant against Rep. John Lewis, who had blasted Trump and said was not a “legitimate president.”
“It really backfired on him because he’s really, you know, it’s what he said is very bad in terms of a democracy,” Trump told the group. “You run. You win. They even gave me that, right? They gave the Man of the Year stuff in Time. And then he says, ‘Oh, it’s not legitimate.’ That’s really against a democracy, like or not like.”
Lewis, a landmark civil rights activist and icon, passed away earlier this month. Trump chose not to attend the funeral alongside numerous other presidents and repeatedly brought up the the Georgia Congressman’s refusal to attend his inauguration when pressed to opine on Lewis’ “impressive” life story.
The apparent zeal with which Trump discussed certain Americans choosing not to exercise their franchise takes on even more relevance as he floats conspiracy theories about the risks of mail-in voting in the 2020 election.
