Donald Trump says black America is in its "worst shape ... ever, ever, ever"

Impact

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump intensified his rhetoric on black communities, telling the crowd in North Carolina on Tuesday evening that communities "are absolutely in the worst shape that they've ever been in before, ever, ever, ever" and unfavorably comparing them to war-torn Afghanistan.

"We're going to make our country wealthy again," Trump said, according to Politico. "We're going to make our country safe again. We're going to rebuild our inner cities because our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they've ever been in before, ever, ever, ever.

"You take a look at the inner cities, you get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street. They're worse, I mean honestly, places like Afghanistan are safer than some of our inner cities."

As Mic's Celeste Katz noted in August, much of Trump's recent black outreach seems to be a ploy to appeal to moderate and conservative white voters' stereotypes about black communities with racial double-talk rather than a genuine appeal to black voters. Amid moves such as Trump calling his Democratic competitor Hillary Clinton a "bigot," the Washington Post recently reported Clinton holds an 80-point lead among black voters in combined August-September polls.

Trump is also incorrect black communities are in their "worst shape" "ever, ever, ever." In early August, PolitiFact ruled Trump's claims on the matter false, noting "key statistics for African-Americans, such as unemployment, improved significantly during Obama's tenure. The ones that stagnated or worsened under Obama are still relatively positive compared to recent history."