September 21, 2016 | No Comments
CLEVELAND — The Trump coalition assembled on stage at a church in a historically African American neighborhood here on Wednesday morning to sell the Republican nominee as the only candidate who can turn the tide for women and minorities — and to flatly deny that he’s racist.
Seated to Trump’s right was Mike Pence, his soft-spoken running mate. To his left, outspoken longtime attorney Michael Cohen. Behind him: famed boxing promoter Don King (“there’s only one,” Trump said), former presidential rival Ben Carson (“tough”), retired Gen. Michael Flynn (“a tough general”), and former Apprentice star Omarosa Manigault (“a wonderful woman”), among others. It amounted to a gathering of Trump’s informal kitchen cabinet.
“I’m different from a lot of Republicans frankly,” Trump said from the pulpit. It showed.
King, whom top GOP officials had pushed not to speak at the Republican convention due to a past manslaughter conviction, was given the prime slot of introducing Trump at a forum billed as a pastors leadership conference. King, who clutched and waved the flags of Israel and the United States, was introduced by Pence at the New Spirit Revival Center.
King, clothed in a sparkling jacket, praised Trump as “courageous and brave and bold enough to take on the system,” while he himself broke with traditional political norms as he dropped the n-word in his Trump introduction.
“The system is the problem and he’s the only gladiator that will take on the system,” King declared.
The system, King argued, has oppressed minorities and women and only Trump can upend it entirely. “Every white woman should cast a vote for Donald Trump,” King said, and he went on an extended riff about the struggles of African Americans.
“I told Michael Jackson, I said if you’re poor you’re a poor negro — I would use the n-word — but if you rich, you are a rich negro, if you are intelligent, intellectual, you’re a intellectual negro, if you’re a dancing and sliding and gliding n—–, I mean, negro,” King said.
When Trump took his turn at the pulpit minutes later, he grinned, “Ah, there’s only one Don King.”
Before King, Cohen, Trump’s attorney, used his time at the church to slash at the “disgusting, liberal, mainstream media” and its casting of Trump as a “racist.”
“The word of the 2016 election has somehow become ‘racist…’” Cohen complained. “I’ve lost count as to how many times the disgusting, liberal, mainstream media have attempted to label Mr. Donald Trump as racist, a xenophobe and a bigot. And let’s not forget, sexist, misogynist, narcissist, Islamophobe, anti-Hispanic, anti-Semite demagogue. And countless others. It’s disgraceful.”
Cohen said, “Not only is Donald Trump not a racist, he believes that all people are part of one race: the human race.”
Cohen pitched Trump simply as a selfless billionaire sacrificing for the nation. “Unlike other politicians, he’s not doing this for the money, the fame or the power,” he said. “He has all of that without running for office.”
When Trump’s own turn at the pulpit came, he spoke without a teleprompter. He recounted his political victories from the primaries to the crowd of pastors seated in the pews, and the states he is now “winning” in the general election.
“The poll numbers are going like a rocket ship for me,” Trump said.
He also shined a light on the men he’s lifted to positions of power in the party, from Cohen to Flynn, and praised Pence, while admitting that Pence’s deep evangelical faith is somewhat foreign to him.
“But he said something after that first 15 or 20 minutes,” Trump said, recalling the first time he met Pence. “He said Donald, may we pray? Now that doesn’t happen too often coming from New York when I leave an office. It’s usually like they have bad thoughts, believe me, bad, bad thoughts.”
“And we did pray, and Mike is great,” Trump said.
He added, in jest, that Pence better watch his back on the campaign trail. “I never want him to get the kind of crowds I get, because I’ll probably then get angry at him and jealous,” Trump joked. “But he’ll teach me not to be jealous.”
The unwritten theme of the event was that Trump’s anti-establishment campaign was the only way to effect true change.
The pastor of the church, Darrell Scott, an early Trump backer, said in his opening remarks, “God has always gone outside of the established order in choosing leaders.” King was characteristically blunt: “The system is the enemy.” Trump sold himself the same way, “True reform can only come from outside the system.”
As the event ended, people on stage put their hands on Trump in prayer. “Give him the anointing,” said Belinda Scott, the pastor’s wife, “to lead this nation.”