A much anticipated meeting between Donald Trump and about 100 black pastors and religious leaders was abruptly canceled when it became apparent that a lot of them would not endorse the candidate.
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“I saw it. So many people saw it”, said Trump, who, in the race for the November 2016 election, has been among the most vocal of the Republican candidates in expressing skepticism about Muslims in the United States.
“I think this issue exists on its own island”, said Steve Schmidt, a Republican political consultant who ran Sen. The campaign, they said, had mischaracterized their meeting.
But that press conference and endorsement event got downgraded to an “informational meet and greet”, according to a note from the Trump campaign Sunday.
Initially, Trump’s campaign had said he already locked up the religious leaders’ backing.
“And probably some of the Black Lives Matter folks called them up, say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be meeting with Trump because he believes that all lives matter, ‘” he continued. “Mr. Trump routinely uses overtly divisive and racist language on the campaign trail”, they wrote.
But Trump was endorsed by some members of the group, including the Rev. Darrell Scott of the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and Pastor Steve Parson, a Richmond-area minister in Virginia.
Scott told CBS News that the meeting was initially supposed to be smaller gathering of pastors – “about thirty or forty”. “The rest are praying about it”.
And the way the Trump campaign handles the candidate’s meeting with those African-American pastors will be interesting to watch, because it will force Trump to deal with one of his less-than-factual statements in something like real time.
“Donald Trump is already very well-known for being brash and outspoken and is appealing to a group of people – a minority of American voters, but a large minority – who seem to like that kind of tough talk”, said John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. Jeb Bush has strongly come out against Donald Trump’s plans, and tried to present his own vision of America, but has ultimately failed to unseat the outlandish frontrunner thus far. “Not a press event”, he tweeted.
Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Rob Gleason says Trump is doing well in polling and that the party’s donors would like to hear from him at the $1,000-a-head Commonwealth Club luncheon December 11.
Trump is “all over the map, misinformed at best and praying on people’s fears at worst”, Bush said. “I do think there was pressure put on them”.
“I don’t want to discuss that”, he said.
Earlier this month, a black protester was roughed up by Trump supporters at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama.
This sentiment echoes many of his prior comments on the Black Lives Matter movement.
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“The only thing that disqualifies anyone from being president is not getting enough votes or not being a us citizen or 35, other than that, nothing disqualifies you”, Christie said.
