Journalists had been invited to Trump Tower in NY today to hear 100 African-American evangelical pastors endorse Trump following the meeting.
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But some of the black pastors planning to attend the meeting pushed back on the notion it was an endorsement, prompting Trump’s campaign to cancel a news conference after the meeting.
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that Muslims around the world were “going wild” to cheer the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“You know what, I actually remember things like that, ’cause I live one town away from one of the towns where, according to my neighbors, they saw with their own two eyes, there were people celebrating”, the Fox host said.
The afternoon event will be interesting to watch, because as many as 100 public figures – many of them very active on social media – are going to walk out of an event with Trump that his campaign seems to have expected to be a slam-dunk triumph. “But definitively, I’ve said this a number of times: It didn’t happen”, Christie said Monday.
After Britain-based liberal newspaper The Telegraph, along with CNN publicized remarks from some pastors who backed off the “endorsement” claim, the campaign chose to forego what would likely have been a rocky press event, but Trump is still meeting with the leaders at the Trump Tower.
Although it’s unknown exactly which ministers will endorse Trump, Pastor Darrell Scott has admitted that he will be at the meeting to endorse Trump.
The announcement followed a torrent of criticism of Trump for suggesting that a Black Lives Matter protester who had been kicked and punched several days before by attendees at a Trump rally in Alabama “deserved” it.
Trump told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday that he had been told the original meeting was to be an endorsement event. “I stick by it. Hundreds of people have confirmed it”, the candidate said.
“I accept part of the blame for that”, Scott said. “As people of God, you are surely aware of the emotional, spiritual, and physical toll continued structural and state violence takes on Black people”.
“A lot of the pastors were concerned they might get backlash if they weren’t one of the pastors that were endorsing at this time”, Pierson said on the show.
The reporter, Serge Kovaleski, has posted articles featuring interviews he’s done with Trump dating back to the 1980s.
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“You demand and you’ve demanded of me pinpoint accuracy when we report on things about you … why shouldn’t we demand the same pinpoint accuracy in the claims that you make?”
