In a conference call with reporters, Hillary Clinton supporter and U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn ripped into GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump efforts in reaching out Latino and African American, scoffed the growing appeal as “troubling ties to a hate movement.”
“My parents were Republicans and I take offense to Mr. Trump referring to himself as a member of the party of Lincoln,” Clyburn said. “All these people who seem to be gravitated to the Republican Party like the David Dukes of the world and the alt-right movement all have troubling ties to a hate movement. That is why we are asking Speaker Ryan and Mitch McConnell to denounce this and let them know these groups should not find safe harbor in the Republican Party before they take us to a dark place that nobody wants to go.”
On Trump persuading the black votes over the recent weeks to support his presidency over his Democratic opponent, Clyburn stated his appeal is off base by declining invitation to speak to black groups like the NAACP and The Urban League.
“If [Trump] wants to speak to the African American community, he would go where they congregate,” Clyburn said. The NAACP invited him to speak and he would not go. The Urban League also invited him and refused to go.”
“You don’t go to a 99 percent white audience and talk about us and call that an invitation to us. This is insulting, the ultimate insult and I have no idea what this man is and I just don’t think there is a core to him.”
Clyburn added that any black voters voting for Trump will lose their “dignity and self-respect.”
“I’ll tell you what African-Americans have to lose — dignity snd self-respect. No self-respecting African-American would dignify his campaign.”
Regarding Clinton pandering to the black votes and her past usage of using the term “Super Predator” once said in 1996 as First Lady, Clyburn stated this issue shouldn’t used against Clinton, using the recent killing of basketball star Dwayne Wade’s cousin in Chicago this past weekend to justify the term used.
“I do not hold it against her for the term she used, the ‘super-predator’ term,” Clyburn said. “She was not talking about every African-American, or talking in general. She was talking about a specific issue.”
“It applies to those few that it is applied to and for those surrogates who keep trying to say that she applied that term to every African-American is really beyond the pale.”
2016 Presidential RaceHillary ClintonRep. Jim Clyburn
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