MSNBC host Joy Reid suggested President Trump was elected in part due to a promise he made to white Americans to deport minority immigrants.
“Donald Trump was very clear,” Reid said on her program over the weekend. “‘This is what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to get rid of these brown immigrants.'”
Reid did not specify which comment Trump made regarding minorities but appeared to be referring to Trump’s hard-line immigration policies as evidence of an appeal to white voters.
She contrasted Trump’s political rhetoric and that of fellow Republicans with Democrats, who she said count on the minority vote each election cycle regardless of changing social or economic dynamics in the country.
“The Democratic Party and Democratic candidates, they take for granted — they build it into their number plan that they’re already going to get those votes,” she said. “And so, there isn’t necessarily an urgency to offer something.”
Republicans, she said, “still make [white voters] an offer” even though a vast majority of white voters are likely to vote for GOP candidates.
Trump has touted his approval rating with black voters during his first three years in office. He promoted the “Blexit” movement, a grassroots political action campaign seeking to encourage black voters to leave the Democratic Party and support him instead.
Trump took the political world by storm in 2015 when he attacked violent gang members immigrating to the United States illegally and promised to “build a wall” to keep them out.
Reid has dedicated large portions of her program to shaming Trump for what she calls his racist rhetoric and the rhetoric of his supporters.
Trump has attacked Reid in the past after she made critical comments about him, mocking her for “low ratings.”
