What’s not being said about Trump’s remarks about Black people and ‘scams’

TheGrio takes a closer analysis of the president’s comments with these three key takeaways.

President Donald Trump’s remarks about Black Americans and so-called “scams” unsurprisingly went viral on social media, garnering rebukes from critics who found the statement to be unsavory.

“I got the biggest vote with Black people. They know a scam better than anybody. They know…what it is to be scammed,” Trump said as he dismissed criticisms that calling U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Somali immigrants “garbage” was racist or discriminatory.

A closer analysis of the president’s comment reveal three key takeaways.

Trump’s support among Black Americans

While Trump is right to suggest that his support for Black Americans has increased, he’s sort of exaggerating. Only 15% of Black voters supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election, compared to 8% in 2020, according to Pew Research Center. That means an overwhelming majority of Black voters supported former Vice President Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump. The modest increase among Black voters was largely due to Trump performing better with Black men (21%), while 92% of Black women voted for Harris.

And though President Trump has garnered more support among Black voters than any Republican in half a century, it pales in comparison to the pre-New Deal era when Republicans garnered as much as 30 to 70% of the Black vote.

According to Forbes, prior to 1936, a majority of Black voters supported Republicans, due to the Republican Party’s historic role in ending slavery. From 1936 to 1960, Republicans garnered a significant share of the Black vote, averaging 30% during that time, based on data from The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.

Things took a major shift for the Republican Party in 1964 after presidential nominee Barry Goldwater opposed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in public spaces, and the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ended racial segregation in public schools. Goldwater received only 6% of the Black vote.

Trump’s use of immigration to court Black support

In making his remarks about Black people on Tuesday, the president tried to use his perceived support from Black Americans to justify his racialized comments about Black immigrants.

Whether Somalis, whom he recently called garbage, including Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, or Haitian immigrants in Ohio, who he and J.D. Vance, now the vice president, claimed were eating cats and dogs during the 2024 presidential election, Trump has repeatedly tried to use the issue of immigration to galvanize support from Black Americans for his MAGA agenda.

“Coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs,” Trump infamously said in 2024 during a panel interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).

Trump was accused of trying to drive a wedge between Black and immigrant communities with his anti-immigration rhetoric, suggesting that the economic conditions of Black Americans was a direct result of allowing too many immigrants into the United States.

Black Americans not doing well in Trump’s economy

It’s worth noting that President Trump’s comments were made at a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, where he was supposed to focus his message on the economy and affordability.

While he pointed to his modest support among Black Americans, ironically, they are suffering the most in his economy. The Black unemployment rate has steadily increased to 7.5%, which is nearly double the national rate and the highest has been since the pandemic in 2021.

According to a report for the Center for American Progress, Trump’s economic policies, including his global tariffs on foreign trade, are disproportionately hurting Black Americans and Black businesses, which have a higher rate of job creation for Black workers.

Not to mention, Trump’s cuts to health care from Obamacare subsidies to Medicaid and programs like SNAP are hurting Black Americans who disproportionately rely on these programs.

“We’ve lost the plot. We’ve lost democracy,” U.S. Congresswoman Summer Lee previously told theGrio. “This is now about who has power and who they are willing to hurt to keep it, and it is working families and it’s the disenfranchised Black and Brown communities that get hit the hardest every time.”