'Tone it down': Black pastors press Trump on his rhetoric during private meeting

Politics

‘Tone it down’: Black pastors press Trump on his rhetoric during private meeting

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump met with a group of black pastors — some of them polarizing figures in their own right — despite objections from other African-American clergy and academics who have assailed what they call Trump’s racially charged rhetoric. While some left the gathering at Trump’s skyscraper in midtown Manhattan with hopes that their message had resonated, Trump said afterward that he had no plans to change his approach, which he said had taken him to “first position in every single poll.” He described the day as terrific, but several pastors who met in New York with the billionaire real estate mogul said the session was a bit more complicated.

The meeting with the pastors was originally promoted by the campaign as an endorsement event, but many of those invited to the meet-and-greet objected to that description, saying they had accepted the invitation only because they wanted to challenge Trump about what he has said as a candidate. According to the New York Times, the meeting captured Trump’s efforts to court African Americans in the midst of bigotry accusations. The Rev. Victor Couzens, from Cincinnati, Ohio, said he felt an obligation to attend the meeting to hear what Trump had to say. "It’s very unfortunate the way he has talked to not just the African-American community, but things he’s said about women and Mexicans and Muslims,“ Couzens said. Some attendees emerged expressing full-throated support for Trump. "What we were able to do today was allow people to see his heart for themselves and to make up their own minds about him,” said Darrell Scott, a senior pastor in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who helped to organize the meeting.