After keeping an audience of questioners waiting, Donald Trump finally took the stage more than an hour late for his appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention on Wednesday. He said the delay was due not to a furious behind-the-scenes debate between NABJ and his campaign over whether it was real in real time, but to organizers’ failure to calibrate the sound equipment in time for the highly contentious panel discussion. “This is a disgrace,” he snarled.
When ABC’s Rachel Scott opened the session by asking the former president why he was addressing black journalists, women and Chicagoans in the crowd, Trump called the question “horrible” and called Scott “disgusting” before turning up the bluff meter to 11.
He declared himself the best president for “the black population” since Abraham Lincoln. He balked at the idea of Kamala Harris identifying as black. (“She was Native American and then she suddenly turned around and left.”) He pronounced the word with such disdain that it sounded like he was coughing up a hairball — buh-LAAAAA-kuh. Meanwhile, the crowd’s reactions veered from incredulous laughter to deep groans. At one point, the discussion turned to Sonya Massey, the latest Black person to be unlawfully killed by police. “Are you talking [the one] “With water?” Trump asked, amid audible gasps.
Relating to: Black journalists respond to Trump’s ‘disaster’ panel at annual convention
Before that, there was open anger among many NABJ members who saw Trump’s decision to attend the annual conference and career fair as a betrayal of the association’s core values. The Washington Post reported Karen AttiahHe was among a number of black journalists who resigned from their positions as co-chair of the convention organizing committee in protest, criticizing the association’s decision to invite the presumptive Republican nominee.
NABJ president Ken Lemon defended the decision as part of a tradition of questioning national party leaders — from presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush to candidates Barack Obama and Bob Dole. Lemon further said that they had invited Harris but that his campaign would only do a video interview. But Trump was happy to attend in person. How could he pass up the opportunity to meet with “black people” face to face?
Trump hasn’t exactly been subtle in his courting of Black voters, from bringing in former video diva Amber Rose for a speaking role at the Republican national convention to promoting his criminal record and assassination as forms of street cred. Lemon and others at the NABJ leadership used the Trump panel as an opportunity to hold his feet to the fire. But it was the attendees who were ultimately delayed, with many panels being postponed and canceled entirely to make room for Trump, leading to more convention defections.
After waiting hours to get into the venue, it’s surprising more didn’t change their plans sooner, a huge auditorium at the end of an impressive ballroom. The security check, conducted by the Secret Service, was more thorough than the typical airport experience—it was fresh in the minds of some attendees who had rushed straight from the plane. As more people filed in, funk music blasted overhead, giving Trump’s appearance more of a concert feel. A few pulled out their camera phones to take photos with Trump’s empty stage chair in the background. A projection screen just behind him bore a graphic of the NABJ conference logo in large letters: “Journalism over disinformation.” You can understand why people might be upset. “I’m not sure if surreal is the right word,” Brittny McGraw, NASA’s chief news officer, told me, “but maybe I would use that word.”
When Trump finally took the stage, he played his hits — vowing to close the border (again), reduce inflation (how?), and “get mad, baby, get mad.” To his three-woman interview team, which included Semaphore’s Kadia Goba and Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, he reserved all his insults for the “rude” Scott — who seemed unhappy to have to put up with this nonsense and stood firm in the face of mounting attacks.
When she interrupted Trump in the hopes of getting to another question before time ran out, Trump exploded: “You’re the one stalling me!” Trump’s backlash seemed to have caught another black woman’s eye. If he weren’t so fixated on bashing Joe Biden for being old, he could have spent more time directing his attacks at Harris; it didn’t matter that all her complaints about not being able to hear questions on stage made her seem even older at that moment. Thankfully, it was over after about 35 minutes.
In theory, being questioned by three black women should have done something against Trump. No doubt many of his supporters will take his performance as confirmation of his fitness to take on Harris. But to many in the room who could see through the bluff, Trump seemed like an old maniac who barely hears or thinks, which somehow made it seem racist. When Goba asked how he would know if he was too old to stay in the job, Trump didn’t hesitate to attack Scott again. “Look, if I had come on stage and been treated so rudely, I wouldn’t have This “Woman,” he said, still hurt by her sharp questions. HE It was the response NABJ was hoping for, and Trump has never looked more vulnerable.