Last week, Donald Trump invested a fair amount of resources in an outward display of wooing black voters. First, African-American Outreach Director Omarosa spoke of how Trump’s critics would “bow down” once he became president. Then, Trump slammed Hillary Clinton as a “bigot” who “panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes.” And on Friday afternoon, Trump addressed black voters (actually, he was talking to a rally audience in predominantly white Dimondale, Mich.) by painting them as a community lacking all hope, who could only be helped by Trump: “What do you have to lose?” He then “guaranteed” that, in four years, his reelection campaign will win “95 percent of the African-American vote.”
This was one bizarre infomercial, and not many folks bought what Trump was saying. Over the weekend, several prominent polls showed Trump running in fourth place (far behind Clinton) among black voters. Now, Trump VP candidate Mike Pence has shown that even he doesn’t know what to make of Trump’s bombastic claims about minority outreach. Or at least, he finds the “95%” claim to be a source of irresistible humor. During a prerecorded Fox News interview with host Ainsley Earhardt, Pence hears the “95%” quote and immediately gives a little chuckle. Earhardt then breaks into an irrepressible grin and asks, “Why are you laughing?”
Pence stuttered a bit, but recovered: “Well, that’s Donald Trump.” And he added that Trump is “a truth teller.” Pence then explained Trump’s position that Democrats have failed inner-city voters, and Pence believes that support will grow for Trump among all communities because of all “the new jobs, the new opportunities, the new educational choices.” However, Pence did admit that this “optimistic” declaration was “pure Donald Trump.”