By Robert Kraychik | Breitbart News
President Donald Trump’s policies are helping
blacks achieve the American Dream through “ladders of opportunity” for “the
forgotten men and women throughout our country,” said Ja’Ron
Smith, special assistant to the president for domestic policy, in a
Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex
Marlow.
On Tuesday, Trump announced an end to federal
restrictions on religious historically black colleges and universities
(HBCUs) accessing federal funding via loan guarantees for capital
developments.
“This meant that your faith-based institutions, which
have made such extraordinary contributions to America, were unfairly punished
for their religious beliefs,” said Trump at an HBCU conference in Washington,
DC.
“From now on, faith-based HBCUs will enjoy equal access to federal
support.”
Smith said, “If you look back at [Donald Trump’s]
campaign history, he didn’t run on HBCUs. He didn’t run on the imprisoned, but
he did run on helping the forgotten men and women throughout our country, and I
think, historically, the segment of African-American male voters has been
forgotten.”
“There are a lot of African-American males that have
ended up in our criminal justice system, and there are a lot of individuals
that aren’t going to colleges and getting on those ladders of opportunity,”
said Smith.
“The policies and infrastructure that the president has put in
place have created new ladders. So I think there’s a strong possibility that
we’re going to continue to build support you wouldn’t normally think he would
have supported.”
Smith added, “[Blacks] want to be a part of American’s
greatness and be a part of the American Dream, and since we have those ladders
through President Trump’s leadership, I would imagine we’d certainly increase
support in areas we wouldn’t have thought of.”
Smith contrasted the politics of “upper-income” blacks with
those of “lower-income” blacks.
“It’s always really been A Tale of Two Cities in
the African-American community,” analogized Smith.
She added: “I come from the
lower-income part of the track, but then you have another part of the track
that is the upper-income blacks, and those individuals have a lot of
representation in Washington. … The segment from the lower-middle classes [is]
the forgotten community. … If you go talk to them, the people who are in these
neighborhoods, you’re hearing them speak a different tone, especially when they
learn that all these policies have been put in place because of the president’s
leadership.”
