Donald Trump Jr. Says African American Men See Him as a Hero

Donald Trump Jr. speaks to supporters at a rally for his father, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on February 23 in Charleston, South Carolina. Trump Jr. said African American men come up to him and call him a “hero.”

Donald Trump Jr. has said that he is popular among African American men “now more than ever.”

On the latest episode of his podcast Triggered, published February 26, Trump Jr. said, “The amount of African American men that have come up to me literally like, ‘Hey, man, you’re my hero!'”

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has said it hopes to gain greater support from Black voters for the former president. Chris LaCivita, a GOP political consultant, previously said it would be “an opportunity that we would be remiss if we didn’t exploit,” the Associated Press reported.

Trump Jr., speaking with conservative activist Scott Presler, added that there seems to be a “sort of catching on to just how rigged the system is.”

He continued: “It’s palpable, and I notice the difference versus ’16, where it was like, ‘I don’t dislike you. I’m told you’re a racist,'” before adding, “There seems to be a palpable swing.”

Trump Campaign and Black Voters

On X, formerly Twitter, users reacted by mocking Trump Jr. and his comments.

“I’ll take ‘Things that never happened in any lifetime’ for $1000,” one person wrote.

Another person wrote, “Real heroes are those who work tirelessly for the betterment of all, not just those who claim the spotlight, or need your campaign contributions.”

Newsweek has contacted Trump Jr. via an email to the Trump Organization outside of normal working hours.

Some polling in recent months has suggested Trump could be on course to win a higher share of the Black vote than any Republican candidate since Richard Nixon in 1960. Nixon received 32 percent of the vote share, according to Politico.

Trump winning an estimated 13 percent of the Black vote in 2024 would be the highest number of votes a Republican presidential candidate has ever received. This is due to a population increase and higher voter turnouts.

Pew Research Center analysis of validated voters in 2020 said 8 percent of Black voters cast their ballots in favor of Trump during that year’s election.

National and swing state polls reviewed by Bloomberg in January said Trump has between 14 percent and 30 percent of the Black vote share.

An NBC News poll released in early February said Biden still holds a major advantage over Trump in the polls with 75 percent of the vote, but his likely Republican opponent is up to 16 percent.

A total of 25 percent of Black adults said they viewed Trump in a favorable light in an AP–NORC Center poll conducted in December.

The poll also found that 50 percent Black voters said they approved of Biden, down from 86 percent in July 2021.

Steven Cheung, Trump’s campaign spokesperson, previously told Newsweek that “Black Americans are turning their back” on President Joe Biden and his policies.

Newsweek has contacted the Biden and Trump campaigns for further comment via an email outside of normal working hours.

Jasmine Harris, the director of Black media for the Biden-Harris campaign, previously said: “Donald Trump has been showing Black Americans his true colors for years: An incompetent, anti-Black tyrant who holds us to such low regard that he publicly dined with white nationalists a week after declaring his 2024 candidacy.

“Come November, no matter how many disingenuous voter engagement events he attends, Black Americans will show Donald Trump we know exactly who he is.”

Donald Trump’s comments

Harris made her statement before Trump spoke to the Conservative Black Federation in Columbia, South Carolina, on February 23. He told gala attendees he believes the criminal indictments against him have made him more popular among Black voters.

“A lot of people said that’s why the Black people liked me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against,” the former president said.

Trump is facing 91 criminal charges across four indictments in Georgia, New York, Florida and Washington, D.C. He has said the four criminal indictments are politically motivated against him, and he has pleaded not guilty to each.

Referring to historical incidents of anti-Black discrimination in the U.S. legal system, Trump said Black Americans “see what’s happening to me happens to them.”

He also cited his infamous mug shot, taken in Atlanta, saying Black Americans “embraced it more than anyone else.”

Even though Trump’s comments at the gala were met with some applause, MSNBC correspondent Garrett Haake said Trump’s speech might not be as well received by Black Americans outside the gala.

“When these clips are played around the country to that broader African American audience, whom he is desperately trying to make some inroads with, I think that’s when you have the real problem here,” Haake said Saturday on The Weekend.

“How would Garrett Haake, of all people, know anything about outreach?” Cheung said when approached by Newsweek.

But Lavern Spicer, a Republican congressional candidate running in Florida’s 24th District, wrote on X that Trump “killed it” in his speech.

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