Moderate Republicans and people who style themselves Republican-leaning independents who were still thinking of holding their nose and voting for Trump are getting cues from conservative commentators that it’s OK to go in another direction.
Trump
- Trump goes racist grandpa in National Association of Black Journalists Q&A
- Trump, MAGAs go racist at Kamala Harris: ‘Dumb as a Rock,’ ‘DEI hire’
- Trump takes first shot at Kamala Harris: Hits, not surprisingly, at race, gender
“He walked into a room of Black journalists, and it kind of seemed like he was blurting out loud what he says privately with his advisors,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former top adviser to Trump, who has transitioned to a spot on the panel of “The View.”
“Like, he didn’t even try to hide or mask the racism, and that to me is a sign of decline. He was asked should he take a mental acuity test. I think he should. He does not seem right,” Griffin said.
That’s a stunning admission there from Griffin, who pretty clearly said there that Trump is a racist behind the scenes, and used to be better at masking it, before mental decline that has him just blurting out what he’s really thinking.
Wow, right?
Former Fox News mainstay Bill O’Reilly took Trump to task, telling Chris Cuomo on NewsNation that Trump “blew it” with his disastrous showing in the Q and A, “and the happiest person in the country tonight is Kamala Harris. She’s sitting there cackling, saying, look at this, look at Trump, he’s just alienated millions of Black voters who aren’t going to get what really happened there.”
Add to the voices from the right willing to point out the obvious the CNN political commentator Shermichael Singleton.
“To question the vice president’s ethnicity, I can’t even really say what I want to say about this, but I just think this was a calculated mistake, and I would not have advised that,” said Singleton, a Black Republican strategist with a degree from Morehouse and a background that includes having worked on the Ben Carson presidential campaign.
“Overall, I just don’t see what the net gain here was, and I think a lot of Black people will watch this appearance, and then they will point to the former president, and they will point to the Republican Party, and say, this is exactly why we will never give you all the majority of our support,” Singleton said.
“It would be ridiculous for me as a Black man, regardless of my political beliefs, to come on this network and pretend that was a great moment when I know it wasn’t,” Singleton said.