Ex-RNC Chair Michael Steele Calls ‘BS’ On Trump’s ‘Black Friends’ Claim

Ed Mazza

Updated 17 June 2024 at 8:19 am·1-min read

Donald Trump said he can’t be racist because he has “so many Black friends,” but former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele isn’t buying it.

Steele said racists certainly can have Black friends ― and added that in Trump’s case, there’s a long track record of racism.

“It is more BS from the man who argued for and will argue to this day for the execution of five innocent young Black men,” he said on MSNBC on Sunday, referring to the Central Park Five.

Trump, in 1989, took out full-page ads calling on New York to bring back the death penalty when five young Black men were arrested in the case of a jogger in Central Park who was raped and beaten.

They were wrongly convicted and ultimately exonerated, but Trump has said he will not apologize.

Steele also mentioned Trump’s reported dismissal of nations with large populations of Black people as “shithole countries” and recalled Trump saying there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which turned into a deadly riot.

“So spare me that ‘Donald Trump has Black friends’ BS,” Steele said. “It’s Sunday morning, and I don’t want to have to go to church twice.”

See the full discussion below:

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