Former Obama White House adviser Van Jones came to President Trump’s defense Friday saying the brash billionaire did “good stuff for the black community,” and didn’t get the credit he deserved for his work on criminal justice reform.
“Donald Trump — and I get beat up by liberals every time I say this, but I’m gonna keep saying it — he has done good stuff for the black community,” Jones said on CNN, where he is a frequent contributor. “Opportunity zone stuff, black college stuff. I worked with him on criminal justice stuff. I saw Donald Trump have African American people, formerly incarcerated, in the White House — embraced them, treated them well. There’s a side to Donald Trump that I think he does not get enough credit for.”
Jones said part of the reason Trump’s accomplishments didn’t break through were because of the “incendiary stuff” the president said. He also accused Trump of violating “the No. 1 rule of blackness, which is, ‘I don’t mess with people who mess with people I don’t mess with,'”
On the debate stage Thursday, Trump touted his own accomplishments in the black community, repeating his frequently stated position that he had done more for black Americans than any other president since Abraham Lincoln — something CNN anchor Jake Tapper dismissed as “false” and a “crazy thing to say.”
The moment left Jones with predictable criticism from the Twitter peanut gallery, with one person calling the commentator “an idiot” and another noting they “change the channel every time he appears on CNN.”