Newsnight With Abby Phillip: Representative Byron Donalds On His Jim Crow Comments

Source:CNN anchor Abby Phillip interviewing U.S. Representative Bryon Donalds (Republican, Florida)

"CNN’s Abby Phillip presses Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), a potential vice presidential candidate for former President Donald Trump, on his comments comparing the status of Black families during the Jim Crow era to the present day." 

From CNN

"Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) was on the defensive on Wednesday as Democrats attacked him for comments he’d made the night before praising Black families under the era of racial segregation in America.

“During Jim Crow the Black family was together,” Donalds said during a Black GOP outreach event in a gentrifying part of Philadelphia on Tuesday, and criticized decades-old policies from former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson for promoting a culture of dependence. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were — not just conservative, because Black people always have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively.”

From POLITICO

From what my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about this yesterday. 

"I guess they didn't teach history where Bryon Donalds went to high school in New York City in the 1990s. If he really thinks African-Americans were better off under Jim Grow, he should get into that MAGA political time machine that wants to take the country back to the 1950s and 40s when it comes to race, ethnicity, culture, lifestyle, women's place in the world. But go back to the 1920s instead and try to introduce himself to Jim Crow as a young, African-American man, perhaps the son, or grandson of African slaves and see if he can even survive that experience." 

From The New Democrat

Fine! Representative Donalds didn't actually say that African-Americans were better off under Jim Crow. So he's not a complete idiot or complete liar. Good to know. 

But, especially when you are campaigning to be the leader of the MAGA movement in America vice presidential nominee and you know that a lot of his supporters (whatever the number is) are actually supporters of the Jim Crow era and oppose all of the civil rights laws that were passed to deal with the racial discrimination that African-Americans were facing under law, from their own government, why would you enter Jim Crow in a conversation, when talking about the state and history of the African-American community? 

I know all about political ambition and wanting to be Vice President of the United States and becoming the frontrunner to become the next Republican nominee for President of the United States. But my question is at what cost: 

What is Representative Donalds willing to give up about himself, just for a shot at Donald Trump picking him to be his Vice President? 

And what happens if he doesn't get the nomination, would all of this be worth it for him politically, if chooses to moderate in the future?

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