Former President Donald Trump’s decision to participate in a panel discussion at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention means the Republican nominee for president is set to return to Chicago for just the second time since massive protests in 2016 forced him to scrap a rally on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus.
Trump is set to take questions from Rachel Scott, of ABC News; Harris Faulkner, a Fox News anchor; and Kadia Goba, of Semafor, about the “most pressing issues facing the Black community” at noon Wednesday at the Hilton Chicago on Michigan Avenue.
Trump traveled to Chicago just once as president, in October 2019, and has not traveled to the city since losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden or since launching his bid for a second term in office.
“While NABJ does not endorse political candidates as a journalism organization, we understand the serious work of our members, and welcome the opportunity for them to ask the tough questions that will provide the truthful answers Black Americans want and need to know,” NABJ President Ken Lemon said in a statement.
Democrats are set to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris for president at the party’s convention Aug. 19-22 in Chicago. Harris was also invited to participate in the convention and “her confirmation is pending,” according to a statement from NABJ leaders.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is an enthusiastic supporter of Harris, said in a statement the city was prepared to protect Trump, who survived an assassination attempt on July 13 in Pennsylvania.
“My administration’s values and practice are in complete opposition to former President Donald Trump’s agenda, but I want the people of Chicago to know that city departments and agencies are fully prepared to uphold safety during his scheduled visit,” Johnson said.
Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and other groups announced plans to protest Trump’s appearance, which comes one day before the annual Lollapalooza music festival is set to take over Grant Park, which is across the street from the hotel.
Trump’s aborted rally in March 2016 was one of the first indications that political violence would follow the Republican leader throughout his time in public office. Chicago taxpayers paid $248,000 to a mother who said she was badly beaten by Chicago Police after the rally while protesting with her 13-year-old daughter.
In the weeks leading up to that rally, Trump encouraged violence at his political events, offering to pay the legal expenses of his supporters if they attacked protestors.
Since that rally was canceled, Trump has repeatedly held up Chicago as the embodiment of all that is wrong with urban America — a “war-torn country” rife with voter fraud and consumed with violence and poverty.
In October 2019, Trump traveled to Chicago to speak to a gathering of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Former Supt. Eddie Johnson declined to attend his speech to protest Trump’s efforts to revoke millions of dollars in public safety grants to cities like Chicago because it is a self-proclaimed sanctuary city that prohibits officers from helping federal immigration agents.
Trump used his speech to attack Johnson and falsely label Chicago’s violence worse than Afghanistan’s.
Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot responded by calling Trump’s comments “insulting, ignorant buffoonery.”
Just 8% of Black voters supported Trump over Biden in 2020, but a series of polls showed Biden losing ground to Trump among Black voters before the president dropped his bid for a second term. Those polls have fueled the former president’s efforts to win a larger share of votes from Black voters, making the NABJ convention an attractive opportunity for Trump to showcase his policies designed to help Black Americans.
In his statement announcing he had accepted NABJ’s invitation, Trump’s campaign said he accomplished more “more for Black Americans than any other president in recent history by implementing America First policies on the economy, immigration, energy, law and order, and foreign policy.”
“Black voters know that President Trump is the only presidential candidate who can deliver results on day one because he already has, including landmark unemployment rates for Black Americans, increased median income for Black households, historic permanent funding for HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), comprehensive bipartisan criminal justice reform, and nearly $50 billion in funds to revitalize Opportunity Zones,” according to the Trump campaign statement.
Trump did not mention that the three justices he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities, a decision that is expected to reduce the number of Black students at elite colleges and universities.
That effort comes despite Trump’s long history of making racist statements and evidence that he has repeatedly treated Black people differently than those of other races.
Trump launched his political career after spending years falsely saying that former President Barack Obama, a Chicagoan and the nation’s first Black president, was not born in the United States.