CNN
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Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a Republican who’s seen as a possible working mate for Donald Trump, is defending himself amid Democratic criticism of feedback he’d made Tuesday suggesting that Black households had been “collectively” in the course of the Jim Crow period of racial segregation.
Donalds’ feedback, which come as Trump’s marketing campaign seeks to make inroads with non-White voters, had been made at an occasion in Philadelphia with Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt, one other Black Republican supporter of the previous president.
“You see, throughout Jim Crow, the Black household was collectively,” Donalds stated on the Tuesday occasion, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
“Throughout Jim Crow, extra Black individuals weren’t simply conservative — as a result of Black individuals have all the time been conservative-minded — however extra Black individuals voted conservatively,” he stated.
That ended, he advised, attributable to a tradition of dependence promoted by the federal authorities’s welfare system within the Fifties, together with the institution of the Division of Well being, Schooling and Welfare — the federal company now often called the Division of Well being and Human Companies — and civil rights efforts that adopted beneath President Lyndon B. Johnson within the Nineteen Sixties.
“After which HEW, Lyndon Johnson — you go down that street, and now we’re the place we’re,” Donalds stated.
These feedback drew harsh rebukes Wednesday from President Joe Biden’s marketing campaign, which stated on X, “Trump VP contender Byron Donalds claims life was higher for Black Individuals throughout Jim Crow,” in addition to from different Democrats.
Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries took to the Home flooring on the conclusion of votes to name out Donalds.
“That’s an outlandish, outrageous and out-of-pocket commentary,” the New York Democrat stated Wednesday. “We weren’t higher off when a younger boy named Emmett Until may very well be brutally murdered with out consequence due to Jim Crow. We weren’t higher off when Black ladies may very well be sexually assaulted with out consequence due to Jim Crow.”
He added: “How dare you make such an ignorant commentary? You higher test your self earlier than you wreck your self.”
Rep. Steven Horsford, the Nevada Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, stated in an announcement that Donalds’ feedback replicate “a sample of embracing racist ideologies that we see again and again throughout the MAGA Republican Occasion.”
“Rep. Donalds is enjoying his position because the mouthpiece who will say the quiet elements out loud that many is not going to say themselves,” Horsford stated.
Donalds responded in a video posted on X Wednesday, saying that Biden’s marketing campaign and Jeffries ought to “test your sources and cease mendacity to the American individuals.”
“They’re making an attempt to say that I stated Black individuals had been doing higher beneath Jim Crow. I by no means stated that. They’re mendacity,” Donalds stated.
“What I stated was is that you just had extra Black households beneath Jim Crow, and it was the Democrat polices beneath H.E.W., beneath the welfare state, that did assist to destroy the Black household. That’s what I stated,” he stated. “I additionally stated that you just’re seeing a reinvigoration of Black households right now in America, and that may be a good factor.”
The controversy over Donalds’ remarks comes as polls present Trump making positive aspects with Black and Hispanic voters in comparison with his efficiency within the 2020 election. Although Philadelphia, the place Donalds’ feedback occurred, is overwhelmingly Democratic, Pennsylvania is poised to as soon as once more function one of the vital swing states in November’s election.
CNN’s Package Maher and Haley Talbot contributed to this report.