Joy Reid called out Fox News after one of its hosts stated that Black voters could now relate to Donald Trump because of his RICO arrest.
During Fox Network‘s “The Five,” show, Jesse Watters said, “Black Americans online — some of them are saying I’m voting for Trump now because they too have sometimes felt they’ve been unfairly targeted by the criminal justice system.”
Watters also remarked that “the mug shot unintentionally created a bond between Donald Trump and Black Americans.”
Trump surrendered last Thursday for a fourth time this year, with this case focusing on his efforts to overturn his 2020 general election defeat in Georgia. His brooding mugshot has sparked a slew of memes, and Trump’s camp is working overtime to spin the coverage to their advantage.
“Black Americans, throughout our history, have felt unfairly victimized by the system,” he declared. “Historically, there’s some truth to that.”
The remarks sparked outrage online, with Reid delivering a blistering retort to Watters’ nonsensical commentary.
“Oh bless your heart,” Reid teased. “Good to know, Jesse Watters, that some of your best garbage men are Black. I mean, come on y’all. Y’all don’t really know any black people do you? None, right? None. I figured.”
“Rev, you have been arrested protesting for rights. You have been arrested in civil rights marches. You’re a civil rights leader. You go back and think about people arrested in the 1960s. John Lewis’ mugshot is a badge of honor, but it was what he was arrested for. He was arrested in order to protest for people to vote and have civil rights,” an incredulous Reid told Rev. Al Sharpton.
Sharpton responded, referencing Trump making money from selling merchandise featuring his now-infamous mugshot. “If they raise a lot of money on his mugshot, with 91 counts, let’s see if they raise a lot of money when they put an orange suit on him if he is in fact convicted,” he joked.
Sadly, Watters is not the only Republican to try and push the narrative that the Black community somehow empathizes with the former president because of the arrest.
Donald Trump Jr. appeared on Newsmax Monday evening, echoing Watter’s sentiments.
“I just think — especially, again with the men — they’re going to see through it, because they’ve been dealing with this for a long time,” the former president’s son said. He claimed that several Black security guards approached his father to express their empathy while he was being booked into Fulton County Jail. “It was like they were going out of their way to let me know that they understood exactly what was going on.”
Last month, Trump cited a historic Supreme Court decision regarding the 1931 Scottsboro Boys cases to enhance his request for an April 2026 federal trial date. Trump implored U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who scheduled the trial for March 2024, to push the trial date back to April of the following year. After invoking the infamous case, Chutkan explained why the comparisons were inappropriate and irrelevant because the Scottsboro Boys “were incapable of adequately making their own defense.”
