WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an interview Monday, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner seemed to blame Black Americans for not being driven enough to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s policies aimed at helping them.
"The thing we've seen in the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump's policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about, but he can't want them to be successful more than that they want to be successful,” Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, told “Fox & Friends.”
Kushner, speaking eight days before the election, then asserted that Blacks are starting to come around to Trump.
"What you're seeing throughout the country now is a groundswell of support in the Black community because they're realizing that all the different bad things that the media and the Democrats have said about President Trump are not true and so they're seeing that he's actually delivered," Kushner said. "President Trump may not always say the right things, but he does the right things. He says what's on his mind, and he gets results."
Kushner’s comments were trending on Twitter on Monday afternoon, with some users accusing him of racism, while others cast him as someone who was born into privilege and is out of touch with struggling Americans.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), accused him of both.
“Born on third base, thinks he hit a triple,” Beyer tweeted. “Few in US history have been given as much wealth or power without having to earn a thing as Jared Kushner. His father-in-law gave him the position he is failing at miserably, with deadly consequences. We will remember his casual racism.”
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended Kushner.
"It's disgusting to see internet trolls taking Senior Advisor Jared Kushner out of context as they try to distract from President Trump's undeniable record of accomplishment for the Black community," she said in a statement. "From criminal justice reform and record [historically black colleges and universities] funding to record low Black unemployment and record high income increases, there is simply no disputing that President Trump accomplished what Democrats merely talked about."
Trump often makes appeals to Black voters on the campaign trail. He has repeatedly claimed he has done more to help African-Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln, touting the very accomplishments McEnany cited in her statement.
Trump won just 8% of the Black vote in 2016. A New York Times/Siena College poll last week showed the incumbent president still struggling to win over that group — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden had 90% support, Trump had 4%, and 5% were undecided.
Trump has had to defend himself throughout his presidency against accusations of racism, from saying there were some “very fine people” involved in a 2017 neo-nazi and white supermacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, to his claims that he’s saving suburbs from an Obama-era program intended to eliminate racial housing disparities.
Trump also has been dogged by his 1973 settlement of a racial discrimination lawsuit at Trump housing developments in New York. And he has been criticized for his response to this year’s Black Lives Matter protests focused on police brutality, systemic racism and other inequalities.
"He pours fuel on every single racist fire. Every single one,” Biden said at Thursday’s presidential debate. “This guy is a dog whistle about as big as a fog horn."
Kushner also spoke Monday about the protests, saying that a lot of people voicing support for the movement were “just virtue signaling.”
“They go on Instagram and cry or they would put a slogan on their jersey or write something on a basketball court and, quite frankly, that was doing more to polarize the country than it was to bring people forward,” he said.