By: Faisal Quyyumi, contributing intern (@_faisalquyyumi) After Donald Trump’s two-and-a-half meeting with a hundred black pastors and religious leaders this past weekend, he was able to have several of them praise him. Not only as a presidential candidate, but also as an open-minded and kind-hearted person…or so the audacious billionaire entrepreneur claims. However, after the meeting was finished a journalist asked Mr. Trump where all his supporters from the conference had gone and his reply was, “There’s a whole group of people behind me. You can’t see them.” As expected, the meeting was just as uncomfortable and awkward for the pastors as it was for Mr. Trump. Trump was confronted by several pastors about topics such as racial slurs, the black lives matter movement, and plenty more. A pamphlet was created that listed everybody who was cordially invited to the meeting, which would then end with an endorsement of Mr. Trump. Several individuals included left senior pastor Corletta J. Vaughn dumbfounded. She recently expressed her feelings, “You’ve got to be kidding me. My constituency would murder me. There is no way in the world I can do that.” Several other religious and spiritual leaders had also denied the invitation and decided to instead continue preaching the word of God while Trump continues to be an inactive member of his local church. Recently, Reverend Al Sharpton said the following about the presidential candidate, “Jesus was a refugee and they are meeting with someone who has taken a mean stance against refugees. I don’t know how you preach Jesus, a refugee, on Sunday and then deal with a refugee-basher on Monday without raising a question.” And Trump seems to stand extremely firm about his views on refugees. Despite controversies about letting refugees migrate to the United States, Trump said that if he becomes President of the United States “they’re going back.” And “back” is yet to be defined by Trump as these refugees currently have no place to call home after being forced to leave by terrorists. Trump stated that he has “many, many endorsements,” but his campaign did not publicly release any documents that listed who were willing to stand by him and support him. So far only one minister by the name of Darrell Scott from Cleveland has addressed the media telling them that he will endorse Trump. He went onto explain that the liberal media has yet to understand Trump’s true beliefs and concluded by telling reporters “it was a great day.” Several other pastors’ left to accomplish one thing and that was to get Donald Trump to apologize and repent for his racist comments not only against blacks, but against several other races. On numerous occasions, Trump has interrupted reporters, politicians, underprivileged individuals, and plenty more just to prove that he can never be wrong. However, several pastors in the meeting positively said that “Trump is a very good listener.” If Trump continues to carry his campaign the same way he has been doing since he announced his bid in June, then he has a very solid chance of winning the primaries and representing the Republican Party.
