Trump surrogate attacks Jay Z ahead of Clinton GOTV concert
Supporting a campaign that’s had 99 problems gaining traction with African-American voters, an ally of Donald Trump has started a beef with Jay Z.
Cleveland.com reported Friday that Trump’s Ohio campaign released a statement from Darrell Scott, a Trump campaign surrogate, attacking the rapper. Scott, an African-American pastor, spoke at July’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Scott criticized Hillary Clinton for her planned Friday night appearance with Jay Z at a free get-out-the-vote concert at Cleveland State University, citing it as “pandering” to black youth. The latest polls in Ohio show Trump leading a tight race.
Hillary Clinton’s hypocrisy is on full display again as she raises up Jay Z as a role-model for youth in Cleveland. For all of her talk about fighting for kids, she has no problem sharing a stage with someone who glamorizes acts of violence and having pushed drugs in our local communities. Donald Trump has spent time meeting with our community and has a plan for urban renewal that will allow black youth to achieve their Americans dreams through hard work, while Hillary Clinton continues to resort to stereotypical election year pandering.
Jay Z (real name Shawn Carter) grew up in poverty in the housing projects of Brooklyn and has spoken at length on his time as a drug dealer. The rapper now has a net worth of over half a billion dollars and narrated a short film for the New York Times in September about the failure of the war on drugs. His wife, Beyoncé, has been a supporter of Clinton since last year and is also reported to be appearing at Friday night’s concert.
In 2014, Trump said he “really liked” Jay Z, but offered advice after security camera footage showed the rapper’s sister-in-law, Solange Knowles, attacking him in an elevator:
I really like Jay Z but there is trouble in paradise. When his wife's sister starts whacking him, not good! No help from B leads to a mess.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2014
Trump’s message to black voters has been “What do you have to lose,” but polls show he has plenty of room to gain. A survey in August had the Republican nominee at zero percent among black voters, while an October poll of African-Americans in Pennsylvania had Clinton defeating Trump 90 percent to 1 percent.
The Trump campaign has been a favorite among white nationalist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. The Crusader, one of the organization’s newspapers, officially endorsed Trump in its fall 2016 issue. In response, the Trump campaign denounced the publication, calling it “repulsive.”
In September, Scott hosted Trump for a rally in Cleveland where boxing promoter Don King introduced the candidate. Despite his attacks on Jay Z’s past, Scott did not seem concerned with the fact that King, a Cleveland native, stomped a man to death in 1966. King was convicted of manslaughter and was pardoned after serving several years in prison.
