The founder of Black Entertainment Television suggested he’s voting for President Trump over Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“Where I come out as a businessman, I will take the devil I know over the devil I don’t know, any time of the week. And that seems to be what business people are confronting today,” BET founder Robert Johnson said Wednesday on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
“This was like a schoolyard fight over who had the best-looking girlfriend,” Johnson added of the first presidential debate that was held on Tuesday evening. “It was a waste of an hour and a half that gave no guidance, no direction at all as to where the country will go after this election.”
“So you’re endorsing Trump, President Trump?” CNBC anchor Rebecca Quick asked during the interview.
“I’m not endorsing anybody,” Johnson responded. “What I’m saying is, if I’m a businessperson, what you want more than anything else, particularly coming out of something as horrible as this pandemic … the more you know about who will be pulling the levers of economic growth, economic development, taxes, stimulus, regulation. In my opinion, you’re better off dealing with somebody you know where they’re gonna be than somebody you really have no idea what decisions they will make at such a critical time.”
“I absolutely do not know what Vice President Biden will do. I haven’t heard anything coherent out of what he said he will do.”
Earlier this year, Johnson slammed Biden for a comment he made about the black community.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden told The Breakfast Club in May.
Johnson said that Biden’s comment should have prompted him to “spend the rest of his campaign apologizing to every Black person he meets.”
“Vice President Biden’s statement today represents the arrogant and out-of-touch attitude of a paternalistic white candidate who has the audacity to tell black people, the descendants of slaves, that they are not black unless they vote for him,” Johnson said at the time. “This proves unequivocally that the Democratic nominee believes that black people owe him their vote without question; even though, we as black people know it is exactly the opposite. He should spend the rest of his campaign apologizing to every black person he meets.”
Johnson added in his recent CNBC interview that, “if we don’t get clear and concise direction as to what the benefit of changing horses at this time … I would rather know who I’m going to deal with in the White House, I want to know what regulatory decisions they’re gonna make, what fiscal policy decisions, what monetary policy decisions they’re gonna make, than to be taking a chance, particularly when you have the turbulence of a pandemic.”
