General Discussion

I have to begin by saying my original plan for this visit was to focus on our agenda to help small businesses and entrepreneurs. This week we proposed new steps to cut red tape and taxes to make it easier for small businesses to get the credit they need to grow and hire.

I want to be a small business president. My father was a small business man. And I believe that in America, if you can dream it, you should be able to build it.

And so, we’ll be talking a lot more about small business and about our economic plans in the days and weeks ahead.

But today, here in this community college devoted to opening minds and creating great understanding of the world of which we live, I want to address something that I am hearing about from Americans all over our country.


Everywhere I go, people tell me how concerned they are by the divisive rhetoric coming from my opponent in this election.

And I understand that concern, because it’s like nothing we’ve heard before from a nominee for president of the United States from one of our two major parties.

From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia.

He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party.

His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous.

In just this past week, under the guise of “outreach” to African Americans, Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in such insulting and ignorant terms:

“Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing. No homes. No ownership. Crime at levels nobody has seen." Right now," he said, "you walk down the street and get shot.”

Those are his words.

But when I hear them, I think to myself: How sad. Donald Trump misses so much.

He doesn’t see the success of black leaders in every field, the vibrancy of black-owned businesses, the strength of the black church.

He doesn’t see the excellence of historically black colleges and universities or the pride of black parents watching their children thrive. And he apparently didn't see Police Chief Brown on television after the murders of five of his officers conducting himself with such dignity. He certainly doesn’t have any solutions to take on the reality of systemic racism and create more equity and opportunity in communities of color and for every American.

It really does take a lot of nerve to ask people he’s ignored and mistreated for decades, “What do you have to lose?” Because the answer is: Everything.

Now, Trump’s lack of knowledge or experience or solutions would be bad enough.

But what he’s doing here is more sinister.

Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.

It’s a disturbing preview of what kind of president he’d be.


And that's what I want to make clear today:

A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far, dark reaches of the internet, should never run our government or command our military.

Ask yourself, if he doesn’t respect all Americans, how can he serve all Americans?

Now, I know some people still want to give Trump the benefit of the doubt.

They hope that he will eventually reinvent himself – that there’s a kinder, gentler, more responsible Donald Trump waiting in the wings somewhere.

Because after all, it’s hard to believe anyone – let alone a nominee for president – could really believe all the things he says.

But the hard truth is, there’s no other Donald Trump. This is it.