Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida on Thursday defended comments he made this week that invoked Jim Crow — a period of racial violence and segregation — as a time when “the black family was together.”
“I never said Jim Crow was better for black people,” Donalds, a Florida Republican, told MSNBC’s Joy Reid during an interview with “The ReidOut” Thursday night.
The comments come after Donalds, who is sometimes mentioned as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, sparked outrage after saying Tuesday at a campaign event in Philadelphia for the former president that fewer families Black people had been fractured during Jim Crow.
“Don’t try to impose the fact that marriage rates were better back then – higher and higher, I want to be clear – higher during the Jim Crow era to mean that I think Jim Crow is awesome,” Donalds said. is a lie. This is gaslighting. I would never say such a thing.
At Tuesday’s event aimed at outreach to black voters in battleground Pennsylvania, Donalds, a Trump campaign surrogate, suggested that by embracing Democrats, the situation for blacks had gotten worse. He pointed to programs enacted by President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, which included the expansion of federal food stamps, housing, welfare and Medicaid for low-income Americans.
“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more black people were not only conservative — black people have always been conservative — but more black people voted conservatively,” Donalds told the audience Tuesday.
When Reid pointed out that the Jim Crow South was marked by restricted rights for blacks, such as blocked access to voting, and said Donalds was “inaccurate,” the Florida Republican responded, “No, I don’t I’m not inaccurate.”
“All I talked about was black families,” Donalds said.
Donalds’ comments Thursday echo his previous defenses amid criticism from Democrats, including from members of the Congressional Black Caucus and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who mischaracterized Donalds’ remarks as ” a farcical, scandalous and direct observation.” ”
The Biden-Harris campaign also said in response to comments that Trump “spent his adult life and then his presidency undermining the progress that black communities fought so hard for — so it actually shows that his campaign’s “black outreach” goes to a white person. neighborhood and promising to return America to Jim Crow.
Donalds said Wednesday that the Biden campaign was a “lie” and “gaslighting” because “they’re trying to say I said black people did better under Jim Crow.”