Trump caught on tape bragging about low Black turnout helping the GOP: ‘It was great’

Politico has obtained new audio of the leader of the free world offering his views on how low Black turnout helped him win the 2016 election.

"In a private meeting inside Trump Tower days before his inauguration, Donald Trump told a group of civil rights leaders something most Republicans wouldn’t dare publicly acknowledge: lower turnout among Black voters did, in fact, benefit him in the 2016 presidential election," Politico reported. "Three-and-a-half years later, those comments take on new weight, as Democrats and Republicans battle over restrictions on voting amid an historic pandemic. Trump has repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that expanding mail-in voting will lead to massive fraud, and Republicans have filed lawsuits against a number of states attempting to do so. Higher voter turnout tends to benefit Democrats — low turnout among Black voters in key states is one of the reasons Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016. And voting rights activists have warned that GOP efforts to limit access to absentee ballots could keep many from voting this fall, particularly Black people, seniors and others at high risk from Covid-19."

Martin Luther King III, William Wachtel, James Forbes, Johnny Mack and Scott Rechler were among those in attendance.

"Many Blacks didn’t go out to vote for Hillary ‘cause they liked me. That was almost as good as getting the vote, you know, and it was great,” Trump said.

The audio was "surreptitiously recorded" by Wachtel’s then-chief of staff Tootsie Warhol.

Warhol, born Teddy Mukamal, is running an independent campaign for president in 2020, but said he hopes former Vice President Joe Biden wins.

Read the full report.