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Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We'll open the phones now for any Black listeners who want to react to the first Republican convention night, specifically to Senator Tim Scott and former NFL star Herschel Walker and the former Georgia State Senator Vernon Jones, a Democrat who resigned his seat to support Trump and other Black pro-Trump speakers being featured as much as they were last night. Of course you can react to any of the other speakers as well. People have already brought up today, the McCloskeys and and others, but Black listeners for Trump, against Trump, or with mixed feelings, how did the evening look to you? React however you reacted 646-435-7280. They certainly were doing a lot to portray Blackness through the lens of this Republican convention script. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. The convention lineup last night featured at least four Black speakers. The headliner, meaning the person who spoke last was Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate who argued that white racism is not as bad or as entrenched as many other public African Americans might argue.

Tim Scott: Because of the evolution of the evolution of the southern heart in an overwhelmingly white district, the voters judged me not on the color of my skin, but on the content of my character. We live in a world that only wants you to believe in the bad news, racially, economically and culturally polarizing news. The truth is our nations arch bends back towards fairness. We are not fully where we want to be, but I thank God Almighty, we're not where we used to be.

Brian: Senator Tim Scott last night, who stood in contrast to Kamala Harris, who compared Joe Biden's commitment to racial justice to Donald Trump's. In an ABC News interview on Sunday, she said this about Biden.

Kamala Harris: He has a deep sense of awareness and knowledge about racial disparities, inequities and systematic racism. Joe speaks the words and actually knows how to say the words Black Lives Matter. Contrary to what the current president of the United States does, which is to sow hate and division full-time and has never spoken those words and will never speak the words Black Lives Matter. You can talk to Joe, he's been outspoken on those issues. I know where his heart is.

Brian: By contrast the Republic convention did not acknowledge anything like systemic racism coming from mostly white institutions. In Nikki Haley's speech while avoiding the exact phrase Black Lives Matter she suggested that theme around everything other than police brutality.

Nikki Haley: The American people know we can do better. Of course, we value and respect every Black life. The Black cops who've been shot in the line of duty, they matter. The Black small business owners who've watched their life's work go up in flames, they matter. The Black kids who've been gunned down on the playground, their lives matter too and their lives are being ruined and stolen by the violence on our streets.

Brian: Nikki Haley last night. In 2016, according to the election analysis by Pew, Trump got close to 0% of the vote coming from Black women, but 14% of the vote among Black men. One key to his reelection strategy political analysts say is to get that number up by just a few points, which could make a difference in battleground states. With me now, are two guests, Vernon Robinson III, a conservative political activist who served as a captain in the US Air Force before he was a city council member from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has been a candidate for US Congress and during the 2016 Republican presidential nomination process was the Campaign Director of the National Draft Ben Carson for President committee, and Bruce Eberle, a lifelong conservative activist. Lives in Vienna, Virginia now. Served as local chapter chairman, state chairman, and national director of Young Americans for Freedom. He is the head of Eberle Associates, which is a direct mail fundraising agency. Together they are authors of the book, Coming Home: How Black Americans Will Reelect Trump. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Eberle, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Bruce Eberle: Thank you, Brian.

Vernon Robinson: Thank you, Brian.

Brian: To start on a little political analysis, your book says Black Americans gave Trump his margin of victory in the key states of Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016. Do you mean more than by voters who voted for Obama, just not showing up for Hillary Clinton in those states? Mr. Eberle, as the professional political marketer, you want to take that?

Bruce: Thank you. In Pennsylvania, it was a surprising case, quite frankly. There was an Axios poll taken four days before the general election in Pennsylvania. That Axios poll showed that 21% of Black voters planned on voting for Trump. We looked at that and people have pointed out, by the way, that poll had a plus or minus 6% margin of error. Which means statistically, he could have gotten 27% or he could have gotten 15%, or someplace in between. Even if he got on the low side, even if he got the 15%, that 15% of the voters, had he not gotten that, he wouldn't have won Pennsylvania. At 21%, that amounts to about 140,000 plus Black voters in Pennsylvania that voted for Trump. That was his margin. We don't have as good a data on Michigan, but we do know that the margin there also made it possible for Trump to carry Michigan because that was so very close. Right now, of course, you probably saw the survey that came out in the USA today, showing that right now, Donald Trump has a favorability rating among Black Americans of 36%, which is pretty shocking. We're not saying that it's going to be a huge number, but as Van Jones on CNN has pointed out, Trump doesn't have to move the needle very far to be able to win the election. This is area where Democrats have counted on getting 90%. In fact, they have to get 90% of the Black vote, and they have to have a 65% turnout of Black voters in order to win the election. There is no possible way for them to do so. Today, Joe Biden's a long ways from that. Right now, the last poll I saw showed that only 77% of Black Americans approve of Joe Biden. Then again, after he picked Kamala Harris, Kamala, I'll get that right, it turned out that one third of Black Americans were less inclined to vote for the Biden-Harris ticket than they were before that pick. I think that, in my view, it's going to be very difficult for Joe Biden to win the White House.

Brian: I would have to double-check those numbers and contextualize, just by say, that's coming from you as a supporter of Donald Trump and a Republican strategist, the numbers that you gave are what they are. Mr. Robinson, were you happy with what you heard last night?

Vernon: I'll not lie to your folks, I'm in California. My mother's turning 98 and had a problem. She fell and broke her hip, so she's recovering from that.

Brian: I’m sorry.

Vernon: I've missed all of the Democratic Convention, and I didn't listen in last night. I saw several clips on the internet and it looked like it was a very effective presentation, both aimed at independent voters and also to strengthen the base, giving a stark contrast between law and order and chaos and mayhem. Your listeners may or may not have heard that the governor of Virginia called the legislature back into session, to pass various gun-grabbing legislative initiatives. When the Democrats got there, they realized that all of the restaurants they liked to eat at were boarded up, because they were destroyed by the terrorists breaking windows, burning things, ransacking organizations in downtown Richmond. The American people are taking note that Democrats cannot control the lunatic element, the terrorist element in their own party. As a result, this may be '72 all over again, as the soccer moms are afraid for their children's safety. If that happens the Democrats are going to have a very long year.

Brian: Well, you say soccer moms praying for their children's safety. Let me play a clip from the convention last night that many people are portraying as explicitly racist from Patricia McCloskey from the St. Louis area. She is the woman in that couple who are actually indicted felons currently in the state of Missouri for allegedly brandishing their weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters who were walking by their house not on their property.

Bruce: They were trespassing. They broke through a gated community gate and they were trespassing on their property.

Brian: They broke through a gated community gate to go demonstrate before the Mayor's house. There was no indication that they were a threat to the McCloskeys as I understand it.

Bruce: They're a threat to everybody's house.

Brian: Well, they're only a threat to everybody's house if they're-

Bruce: They're a threat [unintelligible 00:11:15] St. Louis didn't--

Brian: -acting violently. Anyway, here's what Patricia McCloskey said last night.

Patricia McCloskey: They're not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness, and low-quality apartments in the now thriving suburban neighborhoods. President Trump smartly ended this government overreach but Joe Biden wants to bring it back. These are the policies that are coming to a neighborhood near you. Make no mistake. No matter where you live your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats America.

Brian: Mr. Robinson, you know that a lot of people are reacting to that clip, as an example, wait a minute, I'll finish the question first, but then you can give a good answer, trying to scare white people in the suburbs into thinking that Joe Biden is coming to destroy the institution of private, single-family homes, and forcing low-income housing and you know what that is code for into every suburb in America.

Vernon: Well, first of all, that is Joe Biden's agenda. They believe that the reason that the inner cities have failed so badly, is because low-income housing was clustered in one area, so they want to put it everywhere. If you vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, you're voting to spread low-income housing around into suburbs. It's clear as day what the Obama agenda is, and if anything, the Biden agenda, the Harris agenda is more radical. If you take a breath, Democrats will call you racist. They've called Goldwater and every Republican including John McCain and Mitt Romney, a racist. In Missouri, they ran ads that conflated the white Democrat terrorists who blew up the 16th Street Baptist Church, with Republican candidates for federal office, calling them racist. It's hard to take the Democrats seriously, or anybody seriously, who attacks Republicans as racist because the term is almost lost all of its value. Unless you're a radio announcer and you listen to the folks saying Kamala Harris is the first woman of color as vice president. He said, "Kamala Harris, the first colored woman running for us," and you lose your job because of the insanity of this society we now live in.

Brian: SJ in Queens, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in. Hello?

SJ: Hi, I am a Black woman. After listening last night, I had a couple takeaways. There seems to be this strange parallel between if you work hard and you understand the American dream when you're a real American, and I get it, I guess. I was like 15 working 16 hours a week because I was the only person in the house working. I also took AP classes because as a young Black person in Baltimore, I knew I needed to do well in school. It wasn't really an option in my household. I did both and it's funny how doing that and being able to gain a relative amount of success about 10 years later, success meaning I can afford to eat, I am not compelled to, therefore, make my experience exclusive. As a Black person, hearing him talk about things like that made me feel like he was alienating a half of our community that maybe did work that hard. Now my goal is to make sure other people don't have to. 15-year-old kids should not have to work 16 hours a week to earn up money to go to college because they also are doing the amount of work that their white peers who are the only people in the other AP classes are not putting half as much work in. When I heard that it just made me feel like he was insinuating that those of us even though we have a wide variety of experiences that led us to maybe the left point of view that we feel we're not free-thinking. We're on the plantain. I'm sorry. Not the plantain. I'm getting emotional.

Brian: Plantation.

SJ: We are slave-minded if we're not Republican.

Brian: Mr. Robinson, Mr. Eberle, want to respond?

Vernon: I congratulate the caller for taking AP classes. Those classes aren't available in Baltimore anymore. In fact, in Baltimore city schools, the city is so badly run that they can't afford to have heating or cooling in the schools if they were open, which they are not. As a result of closing the schools across this country, children in lower-income families are going to be crushed, even more so than they are now so that the policies of the shutdown have been horrendous for the Black community. In states where Democrats are governor, twice as many people have died.

SJ: Wait, what?

Vernon: Twice as many people have died from COVID as in the states run by Republican governors. With regard to Black businesses, who had a 400% increase in the first year--

SJ: This doesn't really have anything to do with what I was saying.

Bruce: In the first year of Trump's administration 400% increase in Black business startups-

Brian: Mr. Eberle--

Vernon: -and those businesses have been declared non-essential by Democratic governors twice as often as white businesses, because they want to capitalize, most of those Black businesses are not going to be with us very longer.

Brian: Let me get back to our caller for a second because she wanted to follow up. SJ, go ahead.

SJ: This is very clear. Nothing that you're saying actually pertains to the feeling of alienation and the lack of acknowledgement of a diverse point of view within our community and how the same experiences can mean that you're not slave-minded. I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I understand your point. You're not responding to anything we're saying, which shows us how disconnected from actual experiences that I'm talking about. You're doing this to me, I'm going to generalize that much of the talking heads of your party are because you're not responding to anything I'm saying. You're literally telling me about my hometown. I said, Baltimore. I live in Baltimore County, at a Blue Ribbon School that also tried to exclude kids from Baltimore City whose parents really want them to just have access to my AP classes. You're just randomly telling...

Vernon: Whose policies were those? Those were the Democrats policies that oppose school choice.

SJ: What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm talking about my experiences and you still turned it into a way to not address my personal concerns as a human being as a citizen. You're still trying to essentially say, if you have these issues that they're Democrat, "Oh, well." If that's not what you're trying to say, you need to communicate that better because you didn't actually address anything that I just said. You heard what I said, you heard the city and then you decided that you were going to talk about Black businesses and how Democrats have hurt them. What am I suppose take away from that? How disconnected are you?

Vernon: You're supposed to take away that the policies that the Democrats have put in place have destroyed the Black community, and there's a reason why nobody was working in a number of households. I would never use the term 'plantation' to describe the situation. Basically, the GOP hasn't communicated with Black voters, hasn't asked them for the business, haven't contrasted the horrendous policies. In New York 60% of Black babies they're killed by abortion and some people think that's the right to choose. I think it's America's hidden Holocaust. 21 million Black babies is greater than the entire population of Black folks. The first thing that happens in order to have an experience is you have to stay alive. Planned Parenthood is so bad. They had to take Margaret Sanger's off the name of the building in New York, because they finally acknowledged her racist past and the fact that her policies were adopted by the Nazis and they murdered millions of people to kill off the undesirables that Planned Parenthood was set-up here to do the same thing.

Brian: Oh, wait, are you really making a case that Planned Parenthood today is, or even that Margaret Sanger had in mind despite her racist past to exterminate Black people like the Nazis in the Holocaust, are you really saying that? And are you equating current abortion rights policy with a Nazi Holocaust regime? Is that your attempt to appeal to Black voters?

Vernon: No. My attempt to appeal Black voters is Democrats support Planned Parenthood, which has killed 21 million Black babies and now sell their body parts. The Republicans want to save Black lives by not killing them in their parents' wombs. Republicans want school choice options for folks so they can get in better schools. The Democrat nominee for President white Andrew Gillum said that he wants to eliminate school choice options, including charter schools. The Democrats do not know how to create a private sector job to save their lives. The only private sector job that Joe Biden is graded is one in the Ukraine for his son. The president and the Republican policies, cutting taxes and cutting regulation have created more jobs than there were people to fill them prior to mostly Democrat governors shutting the country down, because of the COVID virus, a shut down that negatively affected Black folks to a greater degree than anybody else. The Democrats support open borders and Republicans want to secure the border. Open borders and unlimited immigration is a dagger at the Black middle class's throat. Where did all the Black tellers go? Did they all become Black vice presidents? No, they didn't.

Brian: Let me ask you, Mr. Robinson, your turn about--

Vernon: These lunatics want to defund the police and want to take our guns away at the same time. Yes, I'm saying that on all of those issues, Black voters should vote for Republicans because it's a lot safer.

Brian: On who gets hurt by the pandemic? We know it is disproportionately Black and Latino people who are getting sick and dying from the pandemic. Mr. Robinson, we had a guest the other week Isabelle Wilkerson who wrote a new book called Caste, which lays this out in a cast context that it should at least be a wake-up call for Americans to see that when it's the working class service workers in the country who have to keep going when everybody else has the privilege of working from home or many other people do look who it turns out to be. Even this many years after the civil rights acts were passed in the 1960s, it turns out to be Black and people disproportionately and who's poor and living in cramped quarters and more susceptible to the spread of the virus. For those reasons, we have systemic racism in this country even now, but nobody said systemic racism last night. Do you acknowledge systemic racism in this country or do you think it doesn't exist?

Bruce: Are you talking to me, Bruce Eberle? Or are you talking to Vernon?

Brian: I was asking Vernon Robinson, [crosstalk] but either of you can answer it.

Vernon: They're [inaudible 00:24:15] that were rude because of certain policies that were adopted. It is entirely possible that the disastrous policies that Democrats have been forced on Black Americans, like running Black males out of the household be 3% of Black children are no longer living in a two-parent households were done so with the best of intentions and there was no racist intent. The reality of the policy--

Brian: The way you say Democrats ran-- I just can't let it stand like that. When you say Democrats ran Black males out of the household I think history and economics shows-- Wait, wait, wait, let me just follow up. Wait, wait, wait, doesn't history and economics show that males generally flee the household and don't live in the household to raise their child in the context of economic lack of opportunity?

Vernon: In order to hold that ludicrous position, you have to believe that there was less economic opportunity in 2020 than there was in 1970 and 1960, Black households largely you had a man in the house. When welfare policy changed in the '60s, that is when the steep decline in Blacks in the house was going. In fact, you could make the case then in slavery, Black families were more unit even though you could sell people off than in 2020 because, in 2020, only 27% of Black kids are in two-person households. That was not the case in 1960. It probably wasn't even the case in 1860. You can't make the case that somehow this is a more oppressive environment with less opportunity in 2020 than there was in 1960 or 1950 or 1940.

Brian: Let's take another call. Regina, on the Lower East Side, you're on WNYC with Bruce Eberle and Vernon Robinson, authors of Coming Home: How Black Americans Will Re-Elect Trump. Hello, Regina.

Regina: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. Just a little bit backstory about me. I turned 18 in 2016, and I was an enthused Bernie supporter. I wish the people who are coming of age now can feel that same enthusiasm about their Democratic candidates this time, but it seems like no one does. When I was watching the Republican convention last night, it seems like that was a big talking point about how the Democrats just get the Black vote without actually having to earn it. I absolutely agree. I don't think that should be the case. However, with Trump as president, and as the nominee for the Republicans, it seems like we really don't have a choice. All of that is null and void that they were talking about last night. [crosstalk]

Brian: Go ahead. You can.

Vernon: Can you ask the caller what policies? We talk about the policies that have been very beneficial to Black Americans and all Americans. What policies do you believe that the Trump administration have successfully pursued that would suggest that Black voters have no choice in this election?

Regina: Well, I think it's the way that Trump has handled himself in the office. He hasn't pursued any legislation that would help the Black community. Not saying that Biden is the best candidate for Black people, I think we can all just based on what he said thus far during his campaign as a nominee, we know that he just isn't there for Black people. But Trump has time and time again proven that he does not care about Black people, that he thinks lesser of us. It's just disappointing that we just don't have an option. When you know that someone feels a certain way about you and doesn't have your back, how could you just give them your vote? It's more than just Trump. It's his administration.

Brian: Regina, thank you very much. We're going to run out of time soon. I want to give you one more example of what Trump said recently and let you respond to it. Why people like Regina feel like Donald Trump would not have their backs. Nikki Haley last night talked about taking down the Confederate flag when she was governor of South Carolina. Trump is the biggest defender of Confederate flags and monuments, and military bases still named after Confederate generals right now. Here's Trump on Fox News Sunday this summer on the military's interest in renaming Fort Bragg, which is named after a Confederate General and owner of enslaved people, Braxton Bragg.

President Trump: Go to the community, say, how do you like the idea of renaming Fort Bragg? Then what are we going to name it? You're going to name it after the Reverend Al Sharpton?

Brian: He defends the Confederate flag, he defends the maintaining of the name of Fort Bragg and other places for Confederates who fought against the United States, obviously, in the Civil War. He sarcastically says the alternative is naming it after Al Sharpton. Whichever of you wants to take this isn't that just to make racist white people go, "Aha," will glorify someone who they consider a racial provocateur?

Bruce: Brian, this is Bruce, and I always laugh at this because with Democrats, it's always symbolism. Let's change the mascot. Let's change the name of the street. Let's take down a statue. Tell me how that possibly helps Black people. The reality is that with Democrats, there's no substance. For eight years, Barack Obama and Joe Biden could have passed prison reform. Did they? No, they didn't do it. Then what do they do as far as education. Ben Carson says it takes two things to succeed in life; character and a good education. Where are the Democrats on education? The Black schools in America are horrible in most cases, the ones that are predominantly Black. The choice schools like St. Marcus in Milwaukee, for instance, has provided a complete transformation of those students and their families and the community. Thousands of students have gone through St. Marcus and today they're successful in life. They wouldn't have had that chance. This is where the riots took place in 1968.

Brian: People definitely can have a policy debate over school choice. That's for sure. But on the question of the naming, if they had- and then we're going to be out of time. If they had--

Vernon: Even in symbolism in-- Yesterday or during the weekend no Black people were killed by Confederates. No Black people were killed by statues, no Black people were killed by American flags. One Black person was killed by a police officer. Today about 600 Black babies were killed by Planned Parenthood. I wanted to, since we're about to run out of time ask Regina to check out a couple of things. First of all, by changing the policies to defund Planned Parenthood, which 70% of their facilities are located in minority uniforms. Donald Trump has saved Black babies. Secondly, by promoting school choice at the federal level, which creates great opportunity across this country to get out of the union run disaster schools that the Democrats want to keep Black children in. He also passed times two what anybody's ever done for historical Black colleges. The largest amount of money that's been appropriate for historically Black colleges in history by cutting taxes and by reducing regulations, more Black people enter the workforce, Black wages went up for the first time in 30 years, 400% increase in Black businesses. A huge economic boom to all Americans, but particularly Black Americans by securing the border and moving to stop the illegal immigration invasion. He has tangibly helped out the Black middle class and defended it from having its wages cut and in some cases, jobs replaced like the Black Tellers and the Dallas Unified School District requiring 50-year-old teachers to learn Spanish in order to keep their jobs. The lunatic fringe, which is now the Democratic Party wants to defund the police, which in every case has resulted in more Black people being killed, more Black people being robbed and more Black people being raped and that's not my opinion. That's the opinion of a liberal researcher who did the research. The president wants to keep that from happening and he wants to keep and bear arms. The Democrats want to both take away your arms and take away your police presence. That is a disaster.

Brian: Some of the case for Donald Trump's reelection, from Bruce Eberly and Vernon Robinson III, coauthors of Coming Home: How Black Americans Will Reelect Trump. Thank you both very much for coming on.

Vernon: Thank you.

Bruce: Thank you, Brian.

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