Former President Trump courted Black voters in Detroit on Saturday when he raised President Biden's authorship of the 1994 crime bill, which remains a sore point after three decades.
Headlining a roundtable at the predominantly Black 180 Church as his campaign announced the launch of a coalition of Black voters, Trump noted that rising crime rates hurt the community of his audience the most.
“Look, crime is more widespread here and in African-American communities,” Trump said Saturday in Detroit. “More people see me and say, 'Sir, we want protection. We want the police to protect us. We don't want to be robbed, assaulted, beaten or killed because we want to cross the street to buy a slice of bread.'”
Trump took aim at Biden and the Biden-Harris campaign during his remarks, recalling how Biden, as a senator in 1994, wrote the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which Biden has since called a “mistake.”
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Former President Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, speaks at a campaign event on Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Detroit, as Itasha Dotson and Carlos Chambers listen. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
“Biden wrote the devastating 1994 crime bill, talking about 'super predators'. That was Biden. You know, now he's out there talking about the black vote. He's the king of the 'super predators,'” Trump said during the event.
Biden authored the Senate version of the bill when he served as senator from Delaware. The bill, signed into law by President Clinton, has been accused of mass incarceration that disproportionately affected the black community.
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Former President Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, receives a birthday cookie after participating in a community roundtable at Church 180 in Detroit on June 15, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Passage of the bill came on the heels of the crack epidemic that gripped black communities in the 1980s and early 1990s.
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Biden had a long history of authoring legislation that was considered tough on crime at the time but is now considered controversial and contributing to rising incarceration rates in the United States.
As crack use skyrocketed in the 1980s, for example, Biden co-sponsored another bill that soon became controversial, the Anti-Drug Act of 1986. That legislation, which was signed into law by President Reagan, established prison sentences harsher sentence. for possession of crack cocaine rather than the powder drug. Crack and cocaine have a similar chemical composition, but black Americans used crack disproportionately compared to their white counterparts, sparking protests that the bill unfairly targeted black Americans.
President Biden speaks during a campaign event at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center in Philadelphia on April 18, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Biden has since distanced himself from the 1986 and 1994 legislation, saying of the 1986 drug bill that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” The Washington Post reported in 2019. He added, before the election of 2020, that the 1994 crime bill was a “mistake” because of its effect on the Black community.
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In his comments, Trump suggested that Biden was referring to the criminals of the 1990s as “super predators.” Biden referred to criminals of that era as “predators” who were “beyond the pale,” but Biden did not use the specific phrase “superpredators.”
Former President Trump, Republican presidential candidate, arrives to participate in a community roundtable at Church 180 in Detroit on June 15, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Instead, first lady Hillary Clinton used the phrase in 1996 while speaking favorably of legislation her husband signed into law in 1994 and has since apologized for the phrase.
“Just like the previous generation, we had an organized effort against the mafia. We have to stand up to these people,” he said at the time. “They are often connected to the big drug cartels; they are no longer just gangs of children. They are often the type of children who are called super predators. No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to subdue them.”
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Former President Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, speaks at a campaign event at 180 Church on Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Amid Clinton's failed White House bid against Trump in 2016, a Black Lives Matter activist confronted her about the phrase, prompting the former Secretary of State to retract the comment.
“Looking back, I shouldn't have used those words, and I wouldn't use them today,” Clinton told the Washington Post in 2016.
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Trump's speech to black voters in Detroit comes as polls indicate Trump is gaining popularity among the voting bloc. Last month on CNN, a data analyst seemed stunned when the network explained that Trump's support among Black voters more than doubled to 22% compared to 2020, while Biden saw a 12% drop. Overall, Biden still maintains a strong lead over Trump among black voters.
President Biden speaking in Los Angeles (AP Photo/Damián Dovarganes)
Biden won Michigan by three points in the 2020 election, but a recent New York Times poll conducted in six battleground states last month found Trump leading in a handful of key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. The poll, released last month, found Biden has more favorability in a battleground state: Wisconsin.
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After the roundtable, the Biden-Harris campaign responded that the 45th president's audience at the church was “remarkably empty and white” and that his “last-minute” outreach to Black voters “isn't fooling anyone.”
Guests pray at the end of a roundtable discussion with community leaders and former President Trump, a presidential candidate, at Church 180 on June 15, 2024, in Detroit. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“Donald Trump thinks the fact that he has 'a lot of black friends' excuses his entire life for denigrating and disrespecting black Americans, but black voters know better, and Trump's last-minute attempt to 'reach out' to black people is not fooling anyone,” Biden said. Harris 2024 Black Media Director Jasmine Harris said in a press release.
“Black voters have not forgotten that this man entered public life calling for the death penalty for the innocent Central Park Five and entered political life spreading racist conspiracy theories about Barack Obama. We have not forgotten that unemployment rates and black uninsured people shot up when Trump was in the White House. And we sure haven't forgotten that Trump repeatedly reached out to white supremacists and demonized black communities for his political gain, because that's exactly what he'll do if he wins. a second term with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020, and they are ready to make Donald Trump a double loser in 2024.
Former President Trump leads a spring retreat for Republican National Committee donors in Palm Beach, Florida, on May 4, 2024 (Donald Trump 2024 Campaign)
Trump's newly formed black coalition, Black Americans for Trump, launched just days before Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and is celebrated on June 19 each year.
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“It has never been clearer that Joe Biden's reckless reversal of President Trump's America First policies is the real reason Black communities have been completely decimated under his administration with sky-high food and transportation prices. gasoline, unsustainable housing costs, an invasion of illegal immigrants. and rampant violent crime,” Lynne Patton, a senior adviser to Team Trump, said in a statement in the campaign's press release.
“On day one, Donald Trump will restore all of his proven policies on immigration, law and order, energy and the economy and put Black America first.”
Detroit skyline May 12, 2020 (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
Trump was joined by Black leaders and supporters during Saturday's roundtable, including former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Michigan Republican Rep. John James and former Detroit Police Chief James Craig.
Church 180 Pastor Lorenzo Sewell joined “Fox & Friends First” on Friday before the panel discussion and praised Trump's visit as one that “means a lot” to the community.
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“Sometimes we forget about the black vote. Sometimes we forget the power of what it means to vote for those in office, and in urban America, our voice matters. That's why it means so much to us that former president come and value our voice,” Sewell said.
