Kamala Harris Tells Black Men They’re Not in Donald Trump’s ‘Club’

Vice President Kamala Harris warned Black men that they are not in former President Donald Trump’s “club” like they may believe.
The Democratic presidential nominee sat with former NFL star Shannon Sharpe on his Club Shay Shay podcast Monday to discuss her vision for the country and why her opponent is not for the people. Sharpe asked Harris about her plans for the economy as well as her support for Black voters. She replied that Trump has “never been understanding of the issues that affect the community about disparities.”
“Don’t think you’re in Donald Trump’s club. You’re not. He’s not going to be thinking about you,” Harris said. “You think he’s having you over for dinner? You think that when he’s with his buddies, his billionaire buddies, he’s thinking about what we have to do to deal with addressing for example my work [with Black men’s health disparities]?”
She said her opponent has not “earned the support of folks to be president of the United Staes again.”
“The question for everybody is should he be president of the United States. That’s the question,” Harris said. “Should he have the ability to sit behind the seal of the president of the United States when he says he wants to terminate the Constitution of the United States?”
She listed a few reasons, from economic needs to Trump allegedly sending COVID-19 tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin “for his personal use while Americans were dying every day.”
“He has not earned the right to be the president of the United States,” Harris said. “It’s one thing if he has a television show that’s very popular. He can put his name on a building, even though we all know we wasn’t a great businessman which is why he filed for bankruptcy six times.
“To be president of the United States means to find common ground, to build consensus, to lift up the American people instead of trying to beat people down all the time….Does anybody think Donald Trump thinks that way?”
Harris told Sharpe that her approach is about “really understanding the culture, understanding the needs and then trying to fix problems.”
“I love fixing problems with commonsense solutions,” she said. “Donald Trump is never going to relate…to the kind of folks I’m talking about who are on the ground and just need to be seen and heard. Let’s address the problems. Let’s address the challenges to not just let them get by but get ahead.”
Polling from ABC News/Ipsos, published on Sunday and conducted online between October 18 and 22 with a random sample of about 2,800 people, showed that Harris has a greater advantage among likely Black voters than President Joe Biden had in the 2020 exit polls, with 83 percent support to 75.
A poll released by the NAACP showed 63 percent of Black voters favor Harris over Trump (13 percent). However, the gender disparity is noticeable. While support for Harris among Black women remains strong at 67 percent, it falls to 49 percent among Black men under 50.
Among early voters in swing states, a poll conducted by Harvard University, HarrisX and The Harris Poll between October 11 and 13 found that Harris led among female, Black and Latino voters as well as urban and suburban voters.
However, less than three-quarters of Black likely voters in Georgia plan to vote for Harris, according to a poll conducted by the University of Georgia’s survey research center. The polls found that 73.8 percent said they would vote for Harris to 7.6 percent for Trump, with 17.6 percent undecided.
Harris and her campaign have been working to capture the Black male vote, as former President Barack Obama has joined the trail and the vice president has spoken on other podcasts like with NBA players CJ McCollum and Chris Paul on PlayersTV.
Harris told the National Association of Black Journalists that it’s important to not work from the assumption that “Black men are in anyone’s pocket.”
She released policy proposals geared toward Black men, ranging from fully forgiving loans of up to $20,000 for Black business owners to focusing on Black men’s health outcomes.