‘His Mind Is Stuck in the 1950s’: Donald Trump Looked Into the Camera with a Straight Face and Told Black America Exactly What He Thinks Their Place Is
President Donald Trump is facing a furious backlash over racist remarks he made when describing so-called “Black jobs” a day before the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a better-than-expected monthly jobs report.
It happened Thursday during an Oval Office event where Trump announced a new $700 million investment in the coal industry.
A reporter asked the president about the disparity in job numbers for Black Americans. While the average unemployment rate is 4.3 percent, and it remained steady last month, too, the unemployment rate for African Americans is nearly double that at 7.3 percent.
Trump then launched into a tangent about “Black jobs,” a term he first used during an anti-immigration rant at the June 2024 presidential debate. Trump accused immigrants then of taking “Black jobs,” but he never specified then what those jobs entailed.
“Well, we’re doing very well with ah the Black jobs, African American jobs. We’re doing, I saw some numbers, we’re doing really well,” Trump insisted Thursday. He added, “But where we’re really going to do well is when all these plants are open. You know we’re building many car plants.”
But he doubled down, describing a “Black job” as factory work and suggesting Black people belong on assembly lines.
“We’re bringing cars back from Germany. You know we lost the car industry years ago. Fifty-four percent of the industry went to Germany, Japan, Canada, Mexico. It’s all coming back. It’s amazing. And where your Black worker is really going to do well is when those factories open. So, I think they’re going to be great. We’ve been, it’s been a big focus for me,” he claimed after blatantly stereotyping Black people into manufacturing roles.
Social media exploded after Trump’s comments, calling out the president for his tone-deaf remarks and overall efforts to take African-Americans back to the “Jim Crow” era.
“Trump says Black workers are gonna do well with the factory jobs that are coming. The racism, degradation, Jim Crow politics all on full display,’ Threads user and NAACP general counsel Kristen Clarke noted.
Others chimed in.
“Kick us out of corporate America and government jobs and put us in factories lmao. Get rid of DEI and Affirmative action and give us Walmart and Amazon lol. The American Dream ladies and gentlemen,” this Threads poster stated.
“This man’s mind is stuck in the 50’s. I swear he’s just a mascot out there saying and doing dumb sh-t to keep the MAGA crowd hyped. And he can stick his imaginary factory jobs up his loose bowel a–!” another angry poster proclaimed.
This professional worker was confused by Trump’s assertions. “MF I’m a data analyst. TF is he even talking about. Someone please turn his mic OFF. Permanently.”
Another user pointed out, “This is exactly where they want us. Hard labor for low wages. That’s also why they reclassified what they consider professional.”
The commenter is referring there to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed Congress last summer and caps student loans for some graduate programs, including nursing, although the Education Department is denying it will affect undergraduate borrowing.
Critics contend the caps will prevent lower- and middle-class students from attending better colleges and universities.