Donald Trump Outrages Black Voters by Telling Them “You’re Living in Poverty” and Twitter Responded

Donald Trump told black voters they're living in "poverty" and Twitter had a lot to say about it.

August 20, 2016

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump made his case for black voters once again in Michigan Friday, saying this time that they should vote for him because they have “nothing to lose.” The way Trump sees it, “You’re living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs.” These comments didn’t sit well with black voters, a dumbfounded Hillary Clinton who quickly responded, and Twitter, which had a lot to say.

Trump made the comments at a Dimondale rally.

“What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump?” he said. “What do you have to lose? You’re living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs. 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?”

He added, “I will produce. I will produce the inner cities and I will produce for the African Americans. And the Democrats will not produce. All they’ve done is taken advantage of your vote... If you keep voting for the same people, you will keep getting exactly the same result.”

On Tuesday, Trump asked black people to vote for him because unlike his rival he doesn’t “pander” to their community. He said his campaign opposes "the bigotry of Hillary Clinton which panders to and talks to communities of color and sees them only as votes."

Clinton, who has had her own troubles with black voters when her 1996 comments calling black children “super predators” resurfaced, responded to Trump’s comments by calling them "ignorant."

Clinton campaign's Senior Spokesperson Karen Finney also tweeted a response.

From comparing Trump's speech to his scripted remarks, it appears this particular tangent was thought up by the Donald himself on the spot.

Here's how people elsewhere on Twitter reacted to Trump's comments.

Trump’s comments seem to be the result of him trying to correct his incredibly low numbers with black voters in recent polls. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed 91 percent of black voters favoring Clinton in comparison to one percent of black voters favoring Trump. At a rally in June, Trump showed he was in touch with black voters by singling out a black man in the crowd and calling him “my African American.” Maybe he should leave the work to former The Apprentice contestant Omarosa Manigault, his director of African American outreach.