8/21/2016

Trump wants GOP to court blacks -- then calls rails against voter rights - CNNPolitics.com

Trump wants GOP to court black voters -- then slams

voting rights for felons
By Ashley Killough and Karl de Vries, CNN
Updated 11:12 AM ET, Sun August 21, 2016

Story

highlights

"The GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln,"

Trump said
The call continued an e ort in recent days by
Trump to appeal to black voters

Fredericksburg, Virginia (CNN) Donald Trump

acknowledged Saturday that the Republican Party "must do
better" in appealing to African-Americans.
But in the same speech here, he again slammed an order by
the state's Democratic governor, Terry McAuli e, to restore
voting rights to some convicted felons who have completed
their sentences, a move McAuli e says could help AfricanAmericans who were disproportionally a ected by laws that put
lifetime bans on felons.

"The GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln," Trump said. "I want our party to be the home of the African-American
voter once again."
He continued: "I've asked the African-American community to honor me with their vote," adding that he "fully
recognize(s) the outreach to the African-American community is an area where the Republican Party must do
better."
Trump and African-Americans: A history

The call continued an e ort in recent days by Trump to appeal to black

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/20/politics/donald-trump-african-american-voters-virginia-voting-rights/

voters. On Friday, Trump described an

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8/21/2016

Trump wants GOP to court blacks -- then calls rails against voter rights - CNNPolitics.com

The call continued an e ort in recent days by Trump to appeal to black voters. On Friday, Trump described an
African-American community beset by crumbling inner cities, failing schools and high unemployment, and
suggested that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have taken the black vote for granted while doing nothing
to help the community.
"What the hell do you have to lose?" said Trump, asking for black voters' support.

Yet on Saturday, Trump -- who has publicly raised the specter of a "rigged" election in recent weeks as polls have
shown him trailing Clinton -- ripped McAuli e, a longtime Clinton friend and ally, for his decision earlier this year to
restore voting rights to thousands of convicted felons.
McAuli e's order -- which he said in May was intended to lift "a policy of disenfranchisement that has been used
intentionally to suppress the voices of qualied voters, particularly African-Americans, for more than a century" -was struck down by the state Supreme Court last month. But The Washington Post reported Saturday that he will
announce next week the restoration of voting rights to 13,000 felons via executive order, and lay out his plan to
ultimately restore the rights of more than 200,000 felons.
In April, shortly after McAuli e issued his original order, Trump called the move "crooked politics."
And on Saturday, he again alleged that McAuli e's decision was aimed at increasing Democratic votes in Virginia, a
swing state.
"Hillary Clinton is banking on her friend Terry McAuli e on getting thousands of violent felons to the voting booths in
e ort to cancel out the votes of both law enforcement and crime victims," Trump said as the audience booed.
"They are letting people vote in your Virginia election that should not be allowed to vote. Sad. So Sad."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/20/politics/donald-trump-african-american-voters-virginia-voting-rights/

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8/21/2016

Trump wants GOP to court blacks -- then calls rails against voter rights - CNNPolitics.com

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If Trump wanted to apologize, here are (more than a dozen) good places
to

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/20/politics/donald-trump-african-american-voters-virginia-voting-rights/

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