Posted on 11/28/2015 10:14:29 AM PST by conservativejoy
When a group of black pastors agreed to meet with Trump on Monday, they did not anticipate that meeting would turn into a de facto endorsement of the Republican frontrunner.
Several members of a group of prominent African American ministers scheduled to meet with Donald Trump Monday are making clear that they have made no commitments to endorse the real estate magnate. Their public declarations of non-endorsement come after a press release from the Trump campaign announced a coalition of 100 African American religious leaders will appear with the real estate mogul shortly after the meeting to endorse him.
Bishop Clarence McClendon, a Los Angeles-based minister who was invited to the Monday meeting with clergy, posted to Facebook after the Trump campaign announced the coming endorsements.
"I am not officially endorsing ANY candidate and when I do you will NOT need to hear it from pulpitting courtjesters who suffer from intellectual and spiritual myopia," he wrote.
Bishop Corletta Vaughn, the Senior Pastor of the Holy Spirit Cathedral of Faith in Detroit, posted a message on Facebook after she said her inbox was "blowing up with inquiries" after her name was included on a list of pastors meeting Trump.
"Let me be clear," she wrote. "I was invited to attend a gathering of clergy to listen to Mr. Trump on Monday November 30. I respectively (Sic.) declined as I do not support nor will endorse Donald Trump."
"I was asked 2 meet with Mr Trump too but I refused because until he learns how to respect people you can't represent me thru my endorsement," Bishop Paul Morton, a prominent pastor in Atlanta tweeted on Friday.
The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about which ministers will endorse him on Monday.
In fact, of the pastors scheduled to meet with Trump earlier in the day, so far only one, Pastor Darrell Scott, has said he will attend the press conference to endorse Trump.
In an interview with the Daily Beast on Friday, Scott said that he had organized Monday's meeting between Trump and black clergy, but that his invitation
Black Pastors To Trump: What Endorsement?
"Some of these pastors have never even met Trump yet," Scott said. "They told me, 'I don't know if I'm ready to endorse yet. I want to see him and I want hear his heart'."
Some might not endorse Monday, he said. Some might not endorse at all.
"All of these guys are my friends and they know me," he said. " I let them know I am endorsing but that doesn't mean you are endorsing."
The Trump camp's own announcement that 100 black ministers will endorse Trump has been greeted in the black faith community with a combination of confusion and anger, particularly after a week in which Trump has mocked a New York Times reporter with a disability, suggested that a black protester who was kicked and punched at a Trump rally in Alabama "deserved it," and when Trump himself has suggested Muslims be surveilled at certain mosques.
Recent polls show Trump getting between three and 10 percent support from African Americans. Trump has assured his crowds he will win the black vote.
"The 100 pastors they say are endorsing Donald Trump? I don't know where those 100 are coming from," said Rev. Jamal Bryant, a prominent AME pastor based in Baltimore. Bryant, who earlier this year ran for Congress as a Democrat, said he had spoken with a number of the pastors attending the Monday meeting who were taken aback by the Trump announcement about the endorsements. "I don't know what policy these pastors could mobilize around. I can't find a strand of any policy he has that the larger black community would be respond to."
Bryant said that he finds Trump's larger message to minorities to be disturbing and troubling. "It's a cross between Archie Bunker and reality television," Bryant said. "It's frightening and unnerving that the Republicans would be at this point with him as their frontrunner."
Scott said he expected there would be "a number" of pastors endorsing Trump, but did not know who or how many. He described his own reasons for endorsing Trump as personal, political, and spiritual.
He considers Trump a friend and said that his message resonates with him personally. Scott also said that Trump has never offered him money, as many have suggested, nor would he accept it.
"If God raises up somebody who can speak the word of God to Trump who he will listen to, and God feels I can help provide an avenue for him to have a dialog with African American, then I embrace that position," Scott said. "If that does happen, it's God that did it."
I would say FOX is somewhat less liberal. At least they have given considerable attention to Benghazi and support for Israel.
When I first read about it, it sounded like an outreach to the black community to me. However I am sure some of the Pastors will support Trump. Then there will be some who will not and the media will interview those and run with it.
Sounds like the government controlled media is trying to make something into a big ‘I know better’ story....they couldn’t report the events any where without lying about it...
News is ‘garbage’ as far as I’m concerned, remember when we used to wrap up our ‘fish guts and bones’ in the rags? That is a good use for them...I used to use them to line my dog kennel, and my bird cage...
Now I think they float around the gutters of the cities in the United States for the trash that they are...
Cruz is actually doing better polling against hitlery.
What scares me if that if Trumps says something REALLY out there during the general (and it is possible) there’s no turning to another candidate at that point.
Regarding that jerkoff reporter with the neurological problems, people on this board may know that is his way of gesturing, but i didn’t, and a lot of people watching the 6pm news wont either.
And i’ll get clobbered for saying it, but some of these things will be remembered by the idiotic independents.
Cruz is all class and will win. We have to have faith like we did in Reagan. Well, I was 12, but like my parents did.
Are Diamond and Silk going to be in attendance?
Mr. Cruz will take out Trump’s if his own mouth doesn’t cause his exit. Not that it matters to Trump supporters that he lies and has changed positions more times than the other GOP combined. They just like Trump sticking it to people. So did I for a while. That is not the job of a president.
Had Trump not entered the race, I think Jeb Bush would have rec’d the full endorsement and bucks to go with it from the RNC, but with Trump now in the lead, Cruz goes with him.
Cruz can not get the same cross section Trump can get. He’s hated by the establishment, and of course the liberals too.
But he can convince a lot of people when he talks.
This is Trump’s time. Cruz and rest can run in the future, they can apprentice to Trump and be part of a dynamite coalition.
The sooner we all coalesce around Trump the better.
1 is a number.
Ouch.
...but is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.
Source?
Most Blacks are not going to support Trump. He’s not in the racist slave party. I hope he knows not to waste his time. They will stab him in the back.
Some of these pastors have been, um, less than truthful in my view.
That smarmy one from Baltimordor in particular.
Are you sure you have enough facts to draw that conclusion?
Me, I’ll wait a bit longer, because we know the press is 70 pct scum.
Yes personally I hope the nominee is Cruz but I don’t know if he can beat Hitlery plus you KNOW the treasonists are going to go on about Cruz eligibility non stop all the way till the election no matter what he says.
Yes, his campaign announced an endorsement. And his people are not dummies, by any stretch. And they know there’s a bunch of scumbags in the press. So they know the scumbags are going to push any negative they find or can make up.
Trump’s people announce a gathering of pastors that will endorse Trump for president. He’s met them before and they’ve agreed.
So pretend for a moment you’re working with the scumbag press. What do you do to attack? You scour social media to see if there’s any hint of some disgruntled pastors. You find some, do a quick phone or text interview, and you print crap that sounds like the Trump team doesn’t have the endorsements when in fact they have plenty of endorsements. Propaganda is part of war.
Cruz can beat Hillary like a drum. He is eligible and there will be more challenges that will put that issue to rest.
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