Donald Trump chimed in by phone to tell Black supporters that his mugshot, taken in Fulton County jail when he was indicted by District Attorney Fani Willis on election racketeering charges, has been followed by a supposed surge in Black and Latino support for his campaign.
"But since this has happened, like the mugshot, the mugshot is the best," he bragged. "It just beat Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra by a lot. By the way, beat it by a lot. But that’s the number one mugshot of all time."
The occasion for Trump's remarks was a "Black Americans for Trump" event at a barbershop in Atlanta, the largest city in the swing state of Georgia, where Biden's 12,000-vote victory in 2020 was sealed with his 88% support among Black voters. Trump, hoping to cut into the deficit, enlisted Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to stump for him at the barbershop while he attended via phone call.
According to the New York Times, the event was sparsely attended, with reporters and staff members far outnumbering voters and potential supporters. Trump, seeming to imply that Black and Latino voters might relate to a candidate facing a criminal indictment, continued to express awe that the mugshot has caused his support among them to "skyrocket."
"It’s been amazing, really been amazing. It’s it’s been actually very nice to see," he said, as Donalds and Carson listened stoically. "You know, in one way, you say, gee, isn’t not too bad. But the truth is, it’s really a lovely thing when I see that we have great support now in the Black community and in the Hispanic community."
Trump's remarks echo those from conservative media personalities, who have been suggesting that the former president's mugshot and indeed criminal convictions would make him more popular among minority voters. Fox News' Jesse Waters claimed to know what people were saying on "the streets," and his impression was that the mugshot made Trump "a martyr" and "a sympathetic character in Black America."
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