CNN political commentator Van Jones said Monday that the one “breakthrough message” that’s working with young, Black men in crucial battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan is: "Kamala Harris wants to lift you up, Donald Trump wants to lock you up.”
Jones, a former Obama White House official, made the comment during an appearance on CNN’s “The Source,” where he told host Kaitlan Collins that the campaign discovered only in the last 72 hours that the message seems to be sticking with the young, critical voting block.
“On the doors in Philadelphia, on the doors in Detroit, people are still in the fight to persuade young Black men to come out, and the actual message that's working on the doors is ‘Kamala Harris wants to lift you up, Donald Trump wants to lock you up,’” Jones said. “Kamala Harris has plans to get you a job, to get you help with housing, get you help with your next kid. Donald Trump wants to get stop and frisk back in place to put you in jail, he wants blanket immunity for cops to make sure that you get beat up and nothing to be done about.”
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He continued: “Don’t forget, we had 100 days here to put together a whole campaign so, persuasion is happening right now,” Jones said before looking directly at the camera and making an appeal directly to Black men. “If you know some young African Americans that don't know if they're going to vote, Kamala Harris wants to lift them up, Donald Trump wants to lock them up.”
“I love a direct-to-cam…always on election eve,” Collins said in a lighthearted moment that prompted laughter from other panelists on the CNN set.
Moments before Jones delivered what he called “a breakthrough message,” he said that Trump was “petty, petty, petty” for not campaigning with former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
“He’d rather win on vengeance and macho and all this sort of stuff so when he gets in office, if he does get there, he's got a mandate to completely stay nasty,” he said.
Watch the clip below or at this link.