Vice President Kamala Harris warned black men not to support Donald Trump, suggesting they fell for a false promise that the former president cared about them.
Harris spoke about Trump and his appeal to black men in an interview released Monday with former NFL star Shannon Sharpe on his “Club Shay Shay” podcast.
‘Don’t think you belong to Donald Trump’s club… you don’t. He won’t think about you,” Harris said. “Do you think he’s inviting you to dinner?”
Harris appeared on the podcast and toasted Sharpe with a glass of Le Portier Cognac, but said she would not drink it, citing the need to stay awake for a meeting with former President Barack Obama later in the day.
Kamala Harris spoke with former NBA star Shannon Sharpe about the election on his podcast
Recent polls show Harris struggling to gain the same level of support from black men as her predecessors.
Surveys show that Barack Obama gets 81 percent of black men between the ages of 18 and 44, with this share dropping to 63 percent under Hillary Clinton, 53 percent under Joe Biden and 41 percent under Harris.
Harris argued that she cared more about black men than Trump because she was focused on tackling colon cancer and prostate cancer.
She said: ‘Do you think when he goes away, when he’s with his friends, his billionaire friends, he thinks about what we need to do to address something, for example my work around what I’m doing to address the inequalities in the black ? men’s health around colon cancer, around what we need to do, around screenings, what we need to do around prostate cancer?’
Harris urged black men to ignore Trump’s place in popular culture and focus on who he would be as president.
“Let’s not be distracted by who he was on The Apprentice, let’s not be distracted by any building in any city that has his name on it,” she said.
Harris specifically addressed the “myth” that Trump sent individuals a stimulus check during the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that it was Black Democrats in the Democratic-majority Congress who pushed them into the law.
“People like Maxine Watters, people like Hakeem Jeffries,” she said. “Remember, Congress holds the purse strings. Congress wrote those checks,” she said.
Democratic presidential candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, raises a toast with former NFL star Shannon Sharpe
She accused Trump of refusing to rent property to black families in the past, published an ad condemning the Central Park Five, and reminded the public of his “birtherism” castigation of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
“He has not earned the right to be president of the United States,” Harris said.
She was defensive about her record as vice president and pointed out the “misinformation” spreading online.
“To be honest, I think there’s unfortunately some misinformation out there about who I am and what I’ve done,” Harris said. “Because when people know the facts, they will know that almost everything I talk about as president is built on a foundation of work I’ve been doing for years.”
She also pointed to Trump’s comment about immigrants stealing “black jobs.”
US First Lady Michelle Obama speaks during a meeting with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris at the Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan
Former US President Barack Obama cheers on US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during a campaign rally at James R Hallford Stadium in Clarkston, Georgia
“Let me tell you what I define as a black job,” she said. “Vice President of the United States,” she said.
Harris and Sharpe argued about her age, after he remarked during a conversation about music that she was “a few years older than me.”
The comment prompted a sharp response from the vice president.
‘Come now! I’m your guest!’ she said laughing. “Just keep moving because I’m about to give you a shovel!”
Harris has stepped up her outreach to black voters as a new TIPP Tracking Poll shows Trump making “significant progress” with black voters.
The poll found that black voters supporting Trump increased by eight points over the past two weeks. The TIPP tracking poll surveyed 1,288 likely voters.
Former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have also stepped up their campaign activities, with black voters expressing disappointment that black men would even consider voting for Trump over Harris.
Michelle Obama spoke specifically to black voters about voting for Trump, suggesting that doing so would be a betrayal of their ancestors on the issue of civil rights.
“I pray that those of us who are considering voting for Trump or not voting at all will come out of the fog we are in,” she said. “I pray that we reflect on the decades of sacrifice and struggle of all our ancestors, the people who marched, sacrificed and shed their blood for us. We must ask ourselves: Is a vote for Trump, or no vote at all, the way we honor their lives?”
Barack Obama sparked controversy earlier in October after suggesting black men were sexist or misogynistic by refusing to endorse Harris.
“Part of me thinks you just don’t like the idea of having a woman as president, and you think of other alternatives and other reasons for that,” he said.
