I’m an outlier about the value of the disastrous interview Donald Trump just did with three Black women journalists: Rachel Scott, Kadia Goba, and Harris Faulkner. I think the interview will help Trump reclaim the attention of the press. I think he used it to seed spurious attacks on Vice President Harris that will work to placate his dumb trolls. And I think journalists are falling into the same patterns of enabling this atrocious behavior as they have for years.
The interview was delayed a half hour. Journalists involved said a fight over whether the journalists could fact check in real time caused the delay. Trump claimed there was a sound problem.
Scott started by asking what Trump would say to Black voters after the shoddy treatment he has given to Black people (this Aaron Fritscher thread documents that all of them were things Trump himself said, but they include his attack on the Squad and other Black journalists) and his hosting of Nick Fuentes. Trump responded by accusing Scott of being rude and ABC of being fake news. He filibustered. His mispronounced “Kamala.” She asked for an answer.
She then asked if it was appropriate for other Republicans to call Harris a DEI hire. Trump deflected the question by asking Scott to define the term. Ultimately, he didn’t answer that question. He then falsely claimed that Harris switched her identity from Indian to Black. “All of a sudden she became a Black person.”
Trump’s most noxious supporters were prepared for that attack line, with Laura Loomer releasing Harris’ birth certificate, claiming that because it lists her father as Jamaican, she’s not Black. Others posted old articles that describe her as South Asian without ever saying she’s not also Black.
As is the general pattern, journalists ran to ask Republicans in Congress about Trump’s disgusting behavior. As is normal, they instead gaslighted, daring journalists to call them out, yet another means by which Trump disciplines Republicans, by demanding they act stupid for him in public.
And then a bunch of mainstream outlets parroted Trump’s words, without labeling them clearly as false, much less demonstrating that Trump staged his tantrum to attract attention by being as outrageous as possible.
It’s certainly possible that, this time, it’ll be different. It’s certainly possible that, this time, Trump won’t succeed in reclaiming the media attention without ever paying a price for his racism. It’s certainly possible that Kamala Harris will be able to flip this tired old script.
It’s certainly possible, too, that American voters are simply uninterested in the latest Birther conspiracy peddled by a conman.
But to my mind, one of the most important takeaways is that the former President couldn’t even take this damned interview to term: According to Scott, his handlers halted the interview after around 35 minutes, just as he got his first question about Project 2025.
He aborted an interview after three smart Black women asked tough questions.