I guess there is still some hope that race-baiting, anti-white racist, Trump-Deranged, dumb-as-a-shoehorn journalist April Ryan is slowly sliding into oblivion where she belongs. Once she was a CNN correspondent, which admittedly is nothing to be proud of, but now she toils for the Grio, a racist, race-baiting, American television network and website that says its area is “black news.” Funny, I thought news was news for everyone! Oh well, live and learn. Next on Ryan’s career freefall? Oh, maybe Hip Hop Weekly? But never mind.
April has a long Ethics Alarms dossier, the most recent entry in 2020, when she reprimanded reporters for writing about a leaked recording of Joe Biden making unpalatable comments about the “defund the police” movement. As Jonathan Turley said at the time, “[W]e are moving dangerously close to a de facto state media with the cooperation of Big Tech companies. Ryan believes that it is outrageous to rely on unapproved material if it is critical of Joe Biden (despite her use of such material for the last four years against Trump).”
Indeed she does. My favorite Ryan episode was in 2017, when she hectored Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the end of a press briefing in which Sanders confirmed the administration’s position that toppling statues of historical figures is both bad history and bad civics by shouting, “Sarah, is slavery wrong? Sarah, is slavery wrong? Does this administration think that slavery was wrong? Sarah, does this administration believe slavery was wrong?”
A class act, to be sure.
The latest April Ryan sighting came as Donald Trump bravely and appropriately agreed to take questions in Chicago today from members of the National Association of Black Journalists. Ryan, of course, was in the camp of the members who have pledged to follow the “Trump is a racist” narrative, contrived though it is. “The reports of attacks on Black women White House correspondents by the then president of the United States are not myth or conjecture, but fact,” Ryan tweeted, or Xed. The group’s co-chairwoman of the convention, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, resigned in protest: after all, why give a Presidential candidate a chance to change minds that have already been made up? Yeah, this is the perfect group for April Ryan.
At the event, Trump John Wayned the unforgivably hostile start of his interview launched at him by ABC’s Rachel Scott. She began,
“I want to start by addressing elephant in the room, sir. A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congresswoman of color who were American citizens to go back to where they came from. You have used words like animal and [rabid? rabbit?] to describe black attorneys. You’ve attacked black journalists, calling them losers, saying the questions that they asked are, “stupid and racist.” You’ve had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. So my question, sir, now that you were asking black supporters to vote for you, why should black voters trust you after you have used language like that.”
“Well, of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked the question so — in such a horrible manner, first question. You don’t even say hello, how are you? Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the black population of country. I’ve done so much for the black population of this country, including employment, including opportunity zones with Senator Tim of South Carolina, which is one of the greatest programs ever for black workers and black entrepreneurs and done so much. And, you know, and I say this — historically black colleges and universities were out of money. They were stone cold broke, and I saved them. And I gave them long term financing and nobody else was doing it. I think it’s a very rude introduction.”
“I don’t know exactly you would do something like that. And let me go a step further. I was invited here and I was told my opponent, whether it was Biden, Kamala, I was told my opponent was going to be here. It turned out my opponent isn’t here. You invited me under false pretense and then you said you can’t do it with Zoom. Well, you know where’s Zoom? She’s [that is, Kamala] going to do it with Zoom and she’s not coming! And then you were half an hour late. Just so we understand, I have too much respect for you to be late. They couldn’t get their equipment working or something was wrong.”
Mr. President, I would love you to answer the question on your rhetoric…and why you believe that black voters should trust you with another four years.
I have been the best president for the black population since Abraham Lincoln. That’s my answer. That’s my answer.
Better than — better than President Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act?
And for you to start off the question and answer period ,especially when you’re 35 minutes late because you couldn’t get your equipment to work in such a hostile manner, I think it’s a disgrace. I really do think it’s a disgrace.
Ethics Alarms 
It was interesting that the crowd of black journalists seemed to enjoy Trump. I don’t think I would say (as many in conservative media are saying) that they necessarily agreed with everything Trump said, but they seemed to enjoy the dressing down of Scott. I noticed some annoyance with one of the organizers that they invited both candidates, Trump and (insert Democratic candidate here) and only Trump showed up. I suspect there was some annoyance in the crowd that the candidate who is touting herself as a ‘black candidate for president’ can’t be bothered while Trump showed up.
Maybe Trump should use that as a campaign slogan for minorities in this country?
“You voted for them but they can’t be bothered to do anything for you. You didn’t vote for me but I showed up anyway.”
I liked, “You don’t even say hello, how are you?” How could anyone argue with that?
Trump should have answered the “DIE hire” question with, “I have no idea if she is a DIE hire or not. Ask President Biden – he said he chose her because she was a black woman not solely on her experience, competence, or qualifications. As for her qualifications, she ran for the job in 2020. She was the first candidate out of the race with a campaign hemorrhaging money with less than 1% of the vote and zero delegates. The DNC rejected her but now, four years later she is somehow the savior of the Union? Explain that.”
jvb
The mainstream media is portraying this as Trump’s first major attempt to reach out to the black community in this election blowing up in his face. The fact is that they are determined to see Harris elected, and now they can say that Trump was insufficiently deferential to a woman of color. There seems to be this idea that when a woman of color speaks, everyone else needs to be silent.
I did not see the whole thing, but it appeared he was fairly friendly to Harris Faulkner, though he complained that he could not hear her because of the lousy equipement.
-Jut
When I was reading an article on Althouse’s blog, she mentioned that Kamala was not interested in the Daily Presidential briefings that the VP (among others) gets. At some point, Kamala asked them to quit giving her the briefings altogether.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2024/07/by-saturday-july-20-former-president.html?m=1
Now we have Kamala not coming to this activity. This seems to be additional confirmation of my suspicion that she is a careless, empty suit. Someone who is trying for the Presidency cannot behave like this. If she, as VP, cannot take her job seriously enough to get briefings, how can she be anything but a totally incompetent President? If she can’t show up to campaign, why would we think she would choose do anything as President?
Kamala’s character is horrific. Frankly, the fact that she slept her way to any position invalidates her totally in my mind. If this woman is elected President, we will have told girls that the only way to get anywhere is to spread them. Nothing else is important or good for a woman who wants to compete with men. Intelligence, competence, personality, rhetoric, or any other form of good character is irrelevant and your only defining characteristic is “how good are you at pleasing men?” I am ashamed of my whole sex for the attitudes we have held that are responsible for the existence of this woman, and I am ashamed of the opposite sex for their role in creating her too.
Kamala Harris is one of the people whom I would vote against unless her opponent was the Beelzebub/Pazuzu ticket. Therefore, perhaps I am making a bigger deal out of her absenteeism than I should and my bias is making me stupid. However, with her successive failures, her inability to even put forth the bare minimum effort, and her character that makes the perpetually icky Donald freaking Trump look good, she seems like a poor choice for President.
I’m glad Trump decided not to be a weenie last night, but I think that the Democrats should be getting a huge black eye out of the whole thing rather than Trump as the media seems to be suggesting.
You have to admire the guy agreeing to step into the starving alligator pit, knowing full well he is going to be treated like that. He showed up and didn’t cave in to the pressure. Good on him.
jvb