‘We’re talking about somebody who is producing amazing results…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) CNN analyst Van Jones warned Democrats that President Donald Trump’s “effective” campaign among African–American voters is going “to cause us problems.”
And according to African–American Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., Jones is right.
In 2016, Trump won 8% of the African–American vote. That number has grown since then, leading Scott to predict that Trump “can be between 14% and 16% in 2020.”
If that happens, Scott said it would be “game over” for the Democrats.
“We’re talking about somebody who is producing amazing results,” Scott said, citing the decrease in unemployment and the increase in wages. “He’s actually in the middle of one of the best runs a president has had in my lifetime.”
Trump touted his accomplishments for the African–American community during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, and Jones admitted that “what [Trump] was saying to African Americans can be effective” during a follow-up CNN panel.
“You may not like it but he mentioned HBCUs [Historic Black Colleges and Universities],” Jones explained.
Scott noted that many HBCUs have struggled recently to stay afloat.
“A bunch of them have gone under,” Scott said.
However, Trump “threw a lifeline to them in real life in his budget,” he added. “He talked about this. He talked about criminal justice reform. He talked about Opportunity Zones.”
The latter point was a reference to a proposal Scott himself had advanced in the Senate, for which Trump gave him a shout-out in Tuesday’s speech.
Democrats have tried to argue that Trump’s rhetoric has put distance between his administration and minority voters, but that “that ain’t necessarily so,” Jones noted, invoking the famous words of the musical “Porgy and Bess.”
“I think what you’re going to see him do—you may not like my rhetoric, but look at my results and my record for black people,” Jones said. “If he narrow casts that, it’s going to be effective.”