Departed President Donald Trump speaks on Day 4 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 18, 2024.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Donald Trump is set to manipulate reporters’ questions at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention in Chicago on Wednesday, as he retools his presidential compete to combat his likely rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Republican nominee’s Q&A before a live convention audience is surmised to focus on the biggest issues facing the Black community, NABJ said.
Trump will be speaking with Fox Statement anchor Harris Faulkner, ABC News senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott and politics reporter Kadia Goba of Semafor. It ordain be livestreamed at 1 p.m. ET on the group’s Facebook and YouTube pages.
The event gives Trump, who won just 12% of Black voters in his 2020 choosing loss to President Joe Biden, an opportunity to directly appeal to voters of color.
But he may have more trouble courting these voters in a tournament against Harris, who is the first Black person, first woman and first person of South Asian descent to adequate as vice president.
Some polls already show that Harris has more support among Black, Latino and childlike voters than Biden did before she replaced him as the de facto Democratic nominee.
On Tuesday, a new Bloomberg/Morning Consult surveying of battleground states found that Harris has effectively eliminated Trump’s lead in the seven battleground states in all probability to determine which candidate wins the Electoral College.
The Trump campaign, in a press release Monday night telling his NABJ appearance, claimed that he “accomplished more for Black Americans than any other president in recent past.”
The decision by NABJ, the nation’s largest association of journalists of color, to host Trump quickly spurred a backlash both private and outside the group.
Convention co-chair Karen Attiah resigned her position on the eve of the event, writing in a social media position, “To the journalists interviewing Trump, I wish them the best of luck.”
She added in follow-up post, “While my decision was played by a variety of factors, I was not involved or consulted with in any way with the decision to platform Trump in such a format.”
NABJ President Ken Lemon, responding to the Trump event, wrote on X that the group understands “the serious magnum opus of our members, and welcome the opportunity for them to ask the tough questions that will provide the truthful answers Black Americans long for and need to know.”
Tia Mitchell, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution correspondent and NABJ program co-chair, defended the move, saying it is “in words with invitations NABJ has sent to every presidential candidate for decades.”
Harris, however, will not be at the convention.
While then-candidate Biden had mapped to attend the event, a person familiar with Harris’ plans told NBC News that the vice president could not fit a gathering appearance into her schedule this week. Harris’ overlapping plans include attending the funeral of late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and the persistent process of selecting a running mate.
That person said NABJ had declined a request by Harris’ team to let the infirmity president appear for a virtual fireside chat, or to schedule an in-person event with the group at a later date.
This is lay open news. Please check back for updates.