CNN’s Van Jones said Friday that although it is President Donald Trump’s own fault, he often “doesn’t get credit” for the “good things” that he does for the Black community.
Jake Tapper opened up the conversation by faulting Trump for claiming that he has done more for the Black community than any other president aside from Abraham Lincoln — pointing to examples such as Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Tapper then played a clip from Thursday night’s debate, which shows Trump labeling himself as the “least racist person in this room.”
“Eight in ten black Americans believe that Trump is a racist, according to a Washington Post/Ipsos poll earlier this year,” Tapper pointed out. “Why does the president make comments like that instead of acknowledging that he has said things that seem insensitive but he wants to work on it?”
Jones noted that admitting to wrongdoing is simply not the president’s style before admitting that he thinks Trump has actually done “good things” for the Black community.
“Black college stuff, I worked with him on criminal stuff, I saw Donald Trump have African American people, formally incarcerated, in the White House — embraced them, treated them well,” Jones said. “There is a side to Donald Trump that I think he does not get enough credit for.”
Jones
“But the reason he doesn’t is because he also says the most incendiary stuff, he retweets white nationalists, and he violates the number one rule of Blackness, which is, I don’t mess with people who mess with people I don’t mess with,” he added. “In other words, I’m not friends with people who are friends of my enemies. And so the Black community can appreciate some of the stuff he’s done, but when they see him playing footsie on Twitter with these white nationalist organizations, it just wipes it all out.”
Watch above, via CNN.