Trump Touts Minority Unemployment ‘Before the China Plague’ to Rebut Biden’s Claim He’s ‘First’ Racist President
During his daily White House press briefing, President Donald Trump pushed back against the charge made by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden that he is the nation’s first racist president, citing in his defense criminal justice reform, opportunity zones, and minority unemployment rates “before the China plague.”
Earlier on Wednesday, at a virtual town hall, Biden railed against the long public track record of racist comments by Trump, who infamously pushed the Birther lie for years. The Democratic presidential nominee specifically called out Trump’s repeated use of the “China virus” to refer to Covid-19 as proof of “the way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where they’re from.”
“Would you like to respond to Joe Biden who today described you as the first racist to be elected president. Those were his words,” a White House reporter asked.
“It’s interesting because we did criminal justice reform. We passed criminal justice reform, something Obama and Biden were unable to do. We did opportunity cities. We did the greatest, if fou look at what was done with Opportunity Zones, nobody has ever even thought of plan like that,” Trump began, before repeating the same loaded phrase that Biden called him out for using hours earlier. “Prior to the China plague coming in, floating in, coming into our country and really doing terrible things all over the world, doing terrible things, we had the best African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, almost every group was the best for unemployment. The unemployment numbers were the best.”
Trump then went on to claim his first term was more beneficial to African-Americans than that of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who passed the Civil Right and Voting Right Acts, and reprised his past boast that his administration might’ve been better than the president who won the Civil War, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and passed the 13th Amendment through Congress.
“So, you look at employment. You look at Opportunity Zones and maybe most importantly you look at criminal justice reform. You look at prison reform,” Trump said, circling back to his original list. “I have done things that nobody else, and I’ve said this and I say it openly and not a lot of people dispute it, I have done more for black Americans that anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. Nobody has even been close.”
“Thank you very much everybody,” Trump then said, wrapping up the briefing and exiting the podium.
Watch the video above, via Fox News.
