President Barack Obama said Wednesday that Hispanic evangelicals overlook President Donald Trump’s “racist” statements because they are opposed to gay marriage and abortion.
Obama made the comments during an appearance on the Breakfast Club radio show, where he discussed the outcome of the 2020 election. Exit polls showed that Trump won a far larger share of the Hispanic vote than any Republican presidential candidate in recent history, a demographic shift Obama argues is due to Hispanic American’s religious opposition to gay marriage and abortion. While Trump has said he is pro-life, there is no reason to believe he is against gay marriage.
Obama on @breakfastclubam: “… There’s a lot of evangelical Hispanics who, the fact that Trump says racist things about Mexicans, or puts undocumented workers in cages, they think that’s less important than the fact that he supports their views on gay marriage or abortion.” pic.twitter.com/8OpocwYrLV
— The Recount (@therecount) November 25, 2020
Obama also pointed to the Trump administration’s detaining of illegal immigrants in “cages” while they are in U.S. custody, a practice that began under the Obama administration.
Exit polls from 2020 showed Trump making huge gains among Hispanics over his performance against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Clinton won the demographic by 27 points, 40 points, and 41 points in Florida, Georgia and Ohio respectively, while Biden won by just 8 points, 25 points and 24 points respectively, according to CNN. (RELATED: Twitter Flags Trump Campaign Tweet Calling South Carolina Race For President Trump)
The shift has more to do with Hispanic’s views on Trump’s economy and his law-and-order message than with socially conservative leanings, according to NBC News.
“This year, the law-and-order rhetoric used during the campaign really resonated with an already predisposed population to question things like Black Lives Matter,” Bernard Fraga, an associate professor of political science at Emory University told NBC. “If your starting point is that not a single Latino should vote for Trump, then of course you are going to need a more complex explanation for understanding why Trump would win 25 to 35 percent of the [Latino] vote.”
Obama also dissected the Republican Party along racial lines, arguing Republican politics increasingly revolve around the idea that “white males are victims.”
Obama on @breakfastclubam: “You’ve seen created, in Republican politics, this sense that white males are victims … Which obviously doesn’t gibe with both history and data and economics … How you unwind that is gonna be not something that is done right away.” pic.twitter.com/V7q58uIsMV
— The Recount (@therecount) November 25, 2020
