Pictured are President Donald Trump (wearing blue suit and white shirt), the Rev Al Sharpton (wearing gray suit), Maryland Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings (wearing blue suit), former Ohio senator Nina Turner of Cleveland (wearing green-patterned blouse), the national campaign co-chair for the Bernie Sanders campaign for president in 2020, Democratic U.S. Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan (wearing red blouse), Ilhan Omar of Minnesota (wearing head garb), Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts(wearing all black and beads), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York (wearing all black and no beads), and Hollywood director Spike Lee
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com-MONACA, Pennsylvania- President Donald Trump lambasted the media, denounced the Academy Awards, facetiously critiqued his Democratic challengers, bragged on his mediocre poll numbers, and said the nation's Black community has nothing to lose during a U.S. a speech on U.S. energy production turned campaign rally at a construction site in Monaca, Pennsylvania on Tuesday, a speech that went on for more than an hour.
Pennsylvania, like neighboring Ohio, is a battleground state that Trump won in 2016 and is struggling to keep red in 2020.
"They [Blacks] had the worse crime rates, the worse education, the worse everything," Trump said of the state of affairs of Black America as the 2020 election nears and the Black vote remains crucial.
He reiterated his campaign stance of 2016, saying of Black people, "what the hell do you have to lose"?
And while that divisive strategy may have drawn him a few Black votes in 2016 when the Republican real estate mogul edged Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the presidency, Blacks who traditionally vote Democratic will likely do so again in 2020, data show.
A Fox News poll released last week shows that 75 percent of Black voters do not approve of the president's performance while some 22 percent do, Fox News of which is a conservative media venue that routinely leans Republican, an indication that the president's disapproval rate among Blacks may be even higher.
The president also said Tuesday in Pennsylvania that he has lost some three to five billion dollars since he became president in 2017, CNN's Don Lemon later calling his comments falsehoods and adding that Trump is jealous of former president Barack Obama, the president poking fun during his speech at the price tag his predecessor drew for his upcoming book.
The president was, no doubt, courting the Black vote, which fell seven percentage points from 2012 to 2016 when he won the White House over Hillary Clinton, some four million Obama voters who voted in droves when the country's first Black president was elected in 2008 and reelected in 2012 staying home, and Clinton, in 2016, getting six percent less of the Black vote that was handed to Obama in 2012.
The president is in political trouble, this time around with Black leaders, a hurdle he must overcome to win reelection, not necessarily because of the Black vote itself, but because his recent fallout over his racially divisive rhetoric against congressional congress persons of color and Black Civil Rights leaders transcends racial lines, the New York Times publishing an editorial last week that labeled the White Republican resident racist.
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What did the president do exactly to heighten racial tensions in the Black community to the extent that Blacks literally despise him?
His anti-Black policies aside, he publicly accused Oscar winning director Spike Lee, who is Black and urged people to vote Trump out of office during his acceptance speech at this year's Academy Awards of making "a racist hit on the president," the veteran Lee, who has also written and directed such films as "She's Gotta Have It," "Do the Right Thing, and Malcolm-X," winning his first ever Oscar for co-writing "BlacKkKlansman."
He created a fury in mid July by demanding that U.S. Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan go home to the countries they came from, all but Omar, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen who came to America with her U.S. born parents as a child refugee, born in the U.S.
A week after that he went on a rampage against Civil Rights leader the Rev Al Sharpton and seasoned U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, blaming the lawmaker for poverty and disparities against Blacks in housing in the 65 percent Black city of Baltimore, Cummings, in turn, demanding more federal resources for his seventh congressional district
A week later he intensified his attacks on the federal lawmakers, saying in a tweet that the four members of the congressional quartet now dubbed 'the quad' are "incapable of loving our country.”
Other Democratic members of congress, 2020 presidential candidates and world leaders have also lashed out at the president for his flagrant attacks on the four congresswomen of color, longtime Congressman John Lewis of Georgia calling Trump racist and an outright embarrassment to the American people.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
