DETROIT— Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris warned Tuesday that Republican Donald Trump would “institutionalize” harsh policing tactics that disproportionately affect Black men, while Trump blamed Harris’ immigration policies for “devastating” Black and Latino communities.
“Any African American or Hispanic that votes for Kamala … you’ve got to have your head examined, because they are really screwing you,” Trump said of Harris, who is African American, at an evening rally in Georgia.
Earlier, during a radio town hall moderated by Charlamagne tha God, Harris promised to work to decriminalize marijuana, which accounts for arrests that also have a disproportionate impact on Black men. And she acknowledged that racial disparities and bias exist in everyday life for Black people — in home ownership, health care, economic prosperity and even voting.
Harris works to energize Black male voters and denounces Trump support of ‘stop and frisk’
AP correspondent Haya Panjwani reports on Kamala Harris’ efforts to reach Black voters.
Just 21 days before the final votes are cast in the 2024 presidential season, Harris and Trump are scrambling to win over Black voters, women and other key constituencies in what looks to be a razor-tight election. Harris, a daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, hopes to maintain her party’s traditional advantage with voters of color, while Trump is showing modest signs of momentum among Black men in particular.
“We should never sit back and say, ‘OK, I’m not going to vote because everything hasn’t been solved,’” she said. “This is a margin-of-error race. It’s tight. I’m going to win. I’m going to win, but it’s tight.”
The vice president took questions that listeners called in, but also from a series of people who joined in-studio, including Pastor Solomon Kinloch Jr., pastor of Detroit’s Triumph Church.
When asked about reparations, or potential government payments to the descendants of enslaved people, Harris said the notion “has to be studied, there’s no question about that.” It’s a position she’s taken before, but which Trump’s campaign immediately pounced on, saying the vice president was “open” to payments that could cost billions.
Trump has called for a return to “proven crime fighting methods, including stop and frisk.” The tactic, deployed by the New York City Police Department, involved stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking people deemed “reasonably suspicious.” It disproportionately affected Black and Hispanic men, and in 2013 the policy was found to have violated the U.S. Constitution.
Harris said part of her challenge is that Trump’s campaign is “trying to scare people away because otherwise they know they have nothing to run on. Ask Donald Trump what is his plan for Black America. Ask him.”
Trump did not respond to Harris’ criticism during multiple stops Tuesday, including a Fox News town hall with an all-female audience and a nighttime rally in Atlanta, where he railed against Democrats and the media and focused especially on immigrants in the country illegally.
He insisted that immigrants are “devastating” people of color by taking their jobs. He called President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris’ border policies a “complete and total betrayal of African American communities and Hispanic communities.”
