Some Americans needed to see Trump implode before NABJ panel of Black female journalists

Donald Trump took to the stage at the annual conference of the National Association of Black Journalists on Wednesday afternoon, and the former president imploded immediately.

With the very first question, ABC Correspondent Rachel Scott held Trump to task for his history of racist statements as he declares himself “the best President for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln” and campaigns for Black votes this November: “Why should you Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?”

The question was both pointed and relevant. Trump, not surprisingly, hated it.

“Well, first of all,” Trump responded, “I don’t think I’ve been asked a question in such a horrible manner… Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network.”

Trump's personality shone through the NABJ interview

If you’ve been paying even sporadic attention the last eight years, you could have probably predicted this. No matter what side of the political aisle you sit, there’s no denying Trump’s personality, his presentation. He is brash, combative, and self-indulgent. His supporters count these traits as positives, as proof of his ability to demand respect as leader of the free world without kowtowing to the interests of others.

On the other side, however, Trump’s performance was the latest reminder that he’s a narcissist ill-equipped for the highest office in the land, that he is using American politics as the backdrop for the newest iteration of his reality show. It’s why, even before he joined Scott, Harris Faulkner of Fox News and Semafor’s Kadia Goba for the delayed panel (reportedly a result of Trump’s initial refusal to agree to live fact-checking), a number of Black journalists questioned why he’d been invited to attend in the first place.

“Why would the NABJ ALLOW HIM TO BE ON THE STAGE,” April D. Ryan, White House correspondent for The Grio and MSNBC contributor, wrote on X. “

It’s an understandable reaction, particularly when considering the Black women who were the subject of Trump’s ire, who shouldn’t have to be ridiculed or subject to insult in the course of doing their jobs. After falling quickly off the rails, the panel never fully recovered. Trump evaded questions, offered non-answers, flat-out lied, and even questioned Kamala Harris’s Blackness.

It was ridiculous, and it was disrespectful — not just to the Black journalists in attendance and the Black community at large, but to the millions of Americans who understand that someone must win in November, even if it’s not their candidate.

Hopefully, viewers saw Trump for who he is, unfiltered

But for all of the predictability, I still think this event — in front of a Black audience and on stage with Black women — was necessary.

With the election less than 100 days away, we still tend to talk about this race in terms of the people who’ve already decided — the Patriots vs. the never-Trumpers, red-cap MAGAs and folks who tell you to Vote Blue No Matter who. But that isn’t where the election will be won, not this year. In January of 2025, the electee who stands at the U.S. Capitol, inaugurated before all of America, will be the one who captures the most significant portion of the messy middle — those who have yet to decide who to vote for and those who, as of now, plan to abstain from voting altogether.

For those people, many of whom have no understanding of Black folks beyond what they see in the media or hear from Trump and his acolytes (the requisite shout-out to Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, came early in the panel), Trump’s performance should be a revelation wrapped in glittering bow.

They’ve likely not seen Trump like this — out of control, flustered and frustrated, on the real-time receiving end of public jeers. At the NABJ conference, where his lies were met laughs and frustrated groans, all past assertions of his appeal to Black voters felt like reckless self-aggrandizement. In the face of direct follow-up questions — “What exactly is a Black job, sir?” — his purported intelligence flagged. “A Black job,” Trump explained, “is anybody who has a job.”

I’m not naive enough to suggest that Trump’s performance will thoroughly tank his campaign, but I am hopeful that there are people who were able to see him for the first time — without the handlers and the pre-planned questions, without the supportive audience and the friendly moderators who refuse to push back when they should.

As a Black female journalist, I understand the frustrations of people who feel that it wasn’t the responsibility of Black women to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of declaring what most of us already knew to be true. But I am thankful for them nonetheless, just as I am thankful for the many Black women who came before, including those who were subjected to the fire houses and attack dogs of the Civil Rights Movement, Black women who put themselves on the front lines while the world was forced to watch.

Andrea Williams is an opinion columnist for The Tennessean and curator of the Black Tennessee Voices initiative.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Trump lashes out during NABJ panel and shows his true colors