Trump issues many, many falsehoods at Black journalists' convention

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Trump issues many, many falsehoods at Black journalists’ convention

The former president falsely claims nobody was charged for deaths in Black Lives Matter protests.



Donald Trump and Rachel Scott, senior congressional correspondent for ABC News, at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on July 31. (Joel Angel Juarez for The Washington Post)

Analysis by Glenn Kessler
Updated July 31, 2024 at 8:09 p.m. EDT | Published July 31, 2024 at 7:42 p.m. EDT

“You know, nobody died that day, you do know that? But people died in Seattle. Nobody died, but people died in Minneapolis. You know, people died in Minneapolis, and nothing happens. And nobody ever talks and nothing happens to those people. But you went after the J6 people with a vengeance.”

— Donald Trump, in a conversation at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, July 31

In his half-hour sit-down with three journalists at NABJ, the former president and Republican presidential nominee unleashed his usual litany of falsehoods, ranging from a phony story about the ex-governor of Virginia executing a baby after birth to an absurd claim that he “saved” historically Black colleges and universities. To a Black audience, he yet again bragged he did more for Black people than any president since Abraham Lincoln — earning the instant rejoinder (which he ignored) from ABC News’s Rachel Scott: “Better than President Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act?”

Rather than repeat ourselves, we have provided links to previous fact checks at the end of this report.

Instead we will focus on a fresh claim he made. When asked about pardoning people convicted of violence during the Jan. 6 attacks — he said he would — he resorted to whataboutism. He asserted that people died in Seattle and Minneapolis during the social justice protests after the death of George Floyd in 2020 — and nothing happened to those people.

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