In the final days of the election, Donald Trump’s campaign has said it will look to depress turnout of black voters who support Hillary Clinton by highlighting her 1996 comment about “super predators” when referring to children in gangs.
Trump, however, has on many occasions praised both Bill and Hillary Clinton for their relationship with the black community. In 2011, Trump discussed how the Clintons were labeled as racist during the 2008 primary campaign against then-Senator Barack Obama, comparing it to how he was being labeled a racist for pushing the conspiracy theory about Obama’s birthplace.
“Clinton was made into a racist by Obama, and he’s never forgotten it,” Trump said in New Hampshire in August 2011, according to The New Hampshire Union Leader. “And there’s nobody that’s less of a racist than Bill Clinton.”
“Here’s two people, Hillary and Bill Clinton, who really devoted a lot to African Americans,” Trump said. “They did probably as much as anybody, and he made them into racists.”
The comments mirror ones Trump made to radio host Sean Hannity on his show in September of that year.
“Whether you like them, or don’t like them, they have done so much for the African Americans,” he said of the Clintons.
In multiple appearances on Fox News, Trump defended Bill Clinton against claims of racism, calling him at one point, “the least racist person that you will ever meet.”
In 1996, Clinton made a speech in New Hampshire touting the 1994 crime bill her husband passed into law. In the speech, Clinton said, “Just as in a previous generation we had an organized effort against the mob. We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels, they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators — no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel.”
Black activists have criticized and publicly challenged Clinton this election cycle for the comment. She apologized in a statement to the Washington Post, saying, “Looking back, I shouldn’t have used those words, and I wouldn’t use them today.”
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not return a request for comment.