Donald Trump has made a direct appeal to black voters, saying: “What do you have to lose?”.
The Republican nominee told a nearly all-white audience in Michigan that African-American voters “are living in poverty” and their “schools are no good”.
Donald Trump promised to “produce” for African-Americans where Democrats had failed.
“If you keep voting for the same people, you will keep getting exactly the same result,” he said.
Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton “would rather provide a job to a refugee” than to unemployed black youths, “who have become refugees in their own country”.
Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump’s remarks “so ignorant it’s staggering”.
The New York billionaire also predicted he would receive 95% of the African-American vote if he went to on to run for a second term in 2020.
President Barack Obama, historically the most popular president among African-Americans in US history, received 93% of the black vote in 2012.
Donald Trump has suffered from dismal support among African-Americans.
Current polls show about 2% of black voters say they will vote for Donald Trump.
The Trump campaign relationship with the black voters thus far can be described as rocky at best.
He has seen strong support among white supremacist groups.
Donald Trump came under heavy criticism after he took days to distance himself from a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan who endorsed him.
On several occasions, African-American protesters have been assaulted by Donald Trump supporters at rallies. A New York Times investigation found supporters frequently use racist language at rallies.
Yesterday speech was the third time this week that Donald Trump sought to appeal to African-American voters.
Some analysts say Donald Trump, trailing badly in national polls for weeks, desperately needs to broaden his appeal beyond his base of white working-class voters.
However, many commentators on Twitter were perplexed by Donald Trump’s approach in courting these voters.
Earlier in the day, Donald Trump announced that Paul Manafort, a seasoned political operative who led his campaign for the past three months, had stepped down.
On August 16, Donald Trump promoted pollster Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager and hired conservative media executive Stephen Bannon as his campaign’s CEO.
The moves effectively demoted Paul Manafort, whose links to the pro-Russian former Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych have drawn scrutiny in recent days.
