Mayor Pete Buttigieg told attendees at a convention for the National Association of Black Journalists on Thursday that President Donald Trump is a white supremacist, joining the growing number of 2020 presidential candidates leveling the charge against him.
“Do you think that President Trump is a white supremacist?” asked Axios reporter Alexi McCammond.
“I do,” Buttigieg replied. “At best, he’s emboldening and empowering people with that ideology.”
He said he could not see into the president’s heart but added that Trump shared the views of white supremacy.
“At worst, he’s propelling it intentionally,” Buttigieg said.
Buttigieg joins a growing number of Democrat presidential hopefuls who have described the president as a white supremacist, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as well as former Congressman Beto O’Rourke.
The South Bend mayor compared President Trump to former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, who ran for president as a Republican in 1992.
He noted that Republicans at the time were horrified by Duke, but he did not mention that Duke ran for president as a Democrat in 1988.
“Now, we see racist tropes emanating from the White House itself,” he said. “And we see others welcomed at the White House or encouraged by the president, and this has got to stop.”
Buttigieg lectured white Americans for failing to recognize the acute racial problems happening in the country.
“If we don’t tackle this in my lifetime, I’m convinced that it stands to unravel the American project, perhaps in my lifetime,” he said.
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