Former Black Panther Party leader David Hilliard praised Trump, calling the presumptive Republican presidential nominee a “friend of African-Americans,” in a recent interview, but Hilliard’s grandson later claimed his relative had cognitive impairment and was speaking about the past, not the current political situation.
Hilliard, a former chief of staff and founding member of a radical black liberation group, said he knew Trump in the 1960s and made the bizarre claim that the then-budding real estate tycoon “owned all of Harlem” and funded the Black Panther Party in its heyday.
“Trump is an honorable man and he supported the Black Panther Party,” Hilliard said. He said in a TikTok interview on Sunday. With influencer Carol Mitchell. “He was the one who gave us money, and Trump was a good guy.”
“Trump is a friend of African-Americans…. He’s not a racist. He’s a white man who’s not a racist or a fascist. He supported black people,” he continued.
Ms Hilliard then reiterated that Mr Trump loves “Africans in America” and “black people”.
“He was always a friend to black people. That’s how I know him.”
Hilliard’s grandson, Eric Jones X-Tuesday harshly criticized MitchellShe said she published the interview with his grandfather “without any permission,” and Jones said his grandfather “suffers from dementia.”
Jones, who was sitting next to Hilliard, added that his grandfather’s comments were “spoken purely in the past.”
“This is not an indication of support for today’s political climate, Donald Trump or any other candidate,” Jones said, adding that Hilliard was “absolutely correct.”
in Another articleJones said his grandfather “doesn’t even know that Trump is a politician. He has had cognitive impairment since 2014 and can only remember the past.”
the 1970 May Day student strike; Getty Images
The Trump campaign is working to win the black vote ahead of the 2024 election, when he will face President Biden, and is focusing its outreach on traditionally Democratic areas, as demonstrated by Trump’s recent rally in the South Bronx.
Polls show the 45th president has enjoyed record support among black voters in this election, with 23% backing the Republican presidential candidate in a New York Times poll last month – the highest black support for a Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In 2020, Biden won 92% of the Black vote. Pew Research Center.
Jeffrey Pollack, a pollster for the Biden campaign, acknowledged that the Times survey raised concerns among the president’s supporters.
“All the data consistently shows that our campaign needs to do better with younger voters, Black voters and Hispanic voters,” Pollack said. He told The New Republic Speaking on the “Daily Blast” podcast, he added: “If Donald Trump could win 20 percent of black voters and essentially the same percentage among Hispanic voters, that would be his best showing with non-white voters since the Civil Rights Act. So I feel like that’s a little bit aggressive and a little bit over the top.”
The Biden campaign launched ads targeting black voters ahead of Trump’s Bronx rally, reminding minorities in New York of Trump’s past comments calling for the execution of the “Central Park Five,” who were acquitted of sexually assaulting a woman while jogging in a Manhattan parkland in 1989.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s inquiries.
