Donald Trump and the black journalists

Half of politics is showing up, even for a roomful of critics. That’s the best way to think about Donald Trump’s appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Chicago on Wednesday.

In her opening question to Mr. Trump, Rachel Scott from ABC News told Mr. Trump that “a lot of people” didn’t think he should be invited. “You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals … saying they were not born in the United States”; told “four Congresswomen of colour … to go back to where they came from”; and “attacked black journalists” saying the questions they asked were “stupid and racist,” Ms. Scott said.

Mr Trump called the question “rude” and “disgraceful,” but he had to know this wouldn’t be a love-fest. Mr Trump also said, oddly, that Kamala Harris was “always of Indian heritage” and he “didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black.”

That’s the identity politics trap Democrats want Mr. Trump to fall into, and he dived right in. Ms. Harris is multiracial and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus as a Senator and went to Howard University, a historically black college. Mr Trump’s answer stepped on his own best campaign message.

Mr Trump has a good case that his economic policies helped black voters in his first term, especially compared to the Biden-Harris inflation that has cut real wages. Mr Trump also cited his support for historically black colleges and universities, as well as low inflation, robust economic growth, and border controls as reasons to support him.

That’s an argument journalists should want to hear and report to inform the public, instead of arguing to deplatform candidates they don’t like in the tradition of university cancel culture. In the run-up to the event, journalist Imara Jones tweeted that “When I accepted my NABJ Journalist of Distinction award in 2022, I said that we have to resist our training which says that the truth always has two sides.” That’s not journalism; it’s politics.

Ms. Scott said the NABJ is working to schedule an event with Kamala Harris in September. Ms. Harris originally declined the association’s invitation to appear in person, and she’s doing almost no interviews these days where she might get a hard question. Give the NABJ credit for standing by its invitation to both candidates, and Mr. Trump for facing a hostile crowd.

The Wall St Journal