Harris works to energize Black male voters while Trump continues to attack immigration policy

Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — 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.

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.

A small shift among any group could swing the election.

Harris told Charlamagne that despite the persistence of racial bias, no one has a pass to sit out the election.

“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.”

During the town hall the former president sidestepped questions about the erosion of abortion rights, leaning instead into the nation’s culture wars by vowing to ban male-born athletes from competing in women’s sports.

Pressed on how he would enforce a ban, Trump responded: “You just ban it. President bans. You just don’t let it happen.”

Trump also stood by his recent description of his political opponents as “the enemy within” — rhetoric that evokes authoritarian regimes.

Earlier, Harris stopped by a Black-owned art gallery, joined by actors Don Cheadle, Delroy Lindo and Detroit native Cornelius Smith Jr., for a conversation with Black men focused on entrepreneurship.

Harris this week announced a series of new proposals dubbed the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men,” meant to offer Black men more economic advantages — including providing forgivable business loans of up to $20,000 for entrepreneurs and creating more apprenticeships. The plans would also support the study of sickle cell and other diseases more common in Black men.

The focus on Black men sharpened last week when former President Barack Obama campaigned for Harris in Pittsburgh and said he wanted to speak “some truths” to Black male voters, suggesting some ” just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”

The vice president’s campaign says it doesn’t believe Black men will flip in large numbers to supporting Trump, especially after strongly backing Democrat Joe Biden, with Harris as his running mate, in 2020. They are more concerned about a measurable percentage of Black males opting not to vote at all.

Meanwhile, Harris’ support among women has been generally been solid since she took over the top of the Democratic ticket, but Trump is aiming to narrow the margins on Election Day. That could be tough since the former president has seen his support among women, especially in the suburbs of many key swing states, soften since his term in the White House.

A September AP-NORC poll found more than half of registered voters who are women have a somewhat or very favorable view of Harris, while only about one-third have a favorable view of Trump. To reverse the trend, Trump has sought to cast himself as being able to personally shield women from various threats.

“You will be protected, and I will be your protector,” Trump said at a September rally. He’s also suggested that, should he win, women will no longer have a reason to think about abortion, after three Supreme Court judges that he appointed helped in 2022 to overturn the landmark ruling.

Harris said Tuesday that it was comical for Trump considered himself a president for women, particularly as maternal mortality is rising and roughly 1 in 3 women live in states with increasingly restrictive abortion bans.

“And they want to strut around and say this is in the best interest of women and children? And they have been silent on Black maternal mortality?” she asked.

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Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in New York, Jill Colvin in Chicago and Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.