“Since [the mugshot] occurred, the assist among the many Black neighborhood and the Hispanic neighborhood has skyrocketed,” Trump mentioned.”It has been wonderful, actually been wonderful.”
Trump praised his mugshot, taken in August on the Fulton County Jail in Georgia, the place he was processed on racketeering expenses associated to an alleged plot to overturn the state’s 2020 election outcomes. “The mug shot is one of the best,” he mentioned. “It simply beat Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra by rather a lot, by the way in which. Beat it by rather a lot. But it surely’s the primary mug shot of all time — it’s actually a tremendous factor.”
This declare comes after Trump confronted backlash in February for the same comment suggesting Black voters favored him extra due to his mugshot. “I received indicted for nothing. They had been doing it as a result of it’s election interference. After which I received indicted a second time, a 3rd time, and a fourth time,” Trump acknowledged. “And lots of people mentioned that that’s why the Black individuals like me as a result of they’ve been harm so badly and discriminated in opposition to. And so they really seen me as I’m being discriminated in opposition to. It’s been fairly wonderful.”
MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart criticized Trump’s feedback, labeling them “unbelievably racist.” Capehart urged viewers to share the clips with Trump supporters to spotlight the problematic nature of the statements.
Moreover, Trump falsely claimed he was tortured on the Fulton County Jail final yr. “They tortured me within the Fulton County Jail, and TOOK MY MUGSHOT,” he wrote in a marketing campaign e-mail. Leveraging the state of affairs for fundraising, Trump is now promoting espresso cups bearing the mugshot, out there for a urged donation of $47 or $100, a nod to his ambition of turning into America’s forty seventh president this November. Trump’s marketing campaign reportedly raised $10 million from the picture in September.