title:  Congressional Black Caucus Condemns Trump: He’s A Racist Who Cozies Up To White Supremacists
text: Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) condemned Donald Trump and his unbelievably tone-deaf attempt at African-American  outreach,  slamming him as a racist who has spent his entire campaign cozying up to white supremacists.The CBC convened a conference call on Tuesday to denounce Trump, and accused his campaign of not only perpetuating stereotypes but also deliberately dog whistling to white supremacists in an effort to turn their bigotry into votes.Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said that the Republican nominee is  one of the most racist, sexist and bigoted candidates  to launch a bid for the White House in modern history, and accused Trump of having a  kinship with white supremacists. He knows the audience he s trying to reach out to and it s not African-Americans,  Meeks said.  He s trying to appeal to David Duke and the racists of the world with what they think are stereotypes.   He s trying to appeal to the worst of the white supremacists and others he s been catering to in the campaign to try and help them with turnout. In the past few days, Trump has attempted to pander to minority voters but has done an exceedingly poor job of it. In an effort to garner votes from African-Americans he claimed that their communities are  war zones  and that they live in fear of being shot at any moment. Trump s big selling point was that since black Americans live in poverty, have poor education, and a lack of job opportunities they might as well vote for him. After all, it isn t like they have anything to lose, right?Trump s blatant racism and p*ss poor excuse for minority outreach aren t going over well with African-American voters or lawmakers.CBC Chairman G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) blasted Trump for giving speeches supposedly meant to draw black voters to crowds that are overwhelmingly white and said that the GOP nominee s so-called outreach is  a slap in the face  to the African-American community. If Donald Trump truly cared about African-Americans, he d disavow his long history of hateful and racist attacks against our community, he d apologize for having discriminated against black families   he d disavow his support for white supremacists and white supremacy,  Butterfield said.The Democrats taking part in Tuesday s call ripped Trump s past history of discriminatory housing practices during his years as a real estate investor and his habit of exploiting minority workers as a builder.They noted that his campaign has been littered with bigotry from the very beginning when he announced his candidacy by calling all Mexicans  rapists.  Since then, he has been reluctant to disavow the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke, called for all Muslims to be banned from entering the United States, accused a judge of being incapable of impartiality because of his Mexican heritage, and has refused to believe that President Obama was born in America.In response to Trump and his racist rhetoric, Democrats say they are pushing their minority voter registration efforts into overdrive and plan to set records with black and Hispanic turnout at the polls in November. To say that minority voters are eager to cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton to make sure that Trump never gets anywhere near the White House would be an understatement. Donald Trump is a voter registration machine and a citizenship-advocating engine,  said Rep. Luis Guti rrez (D-Ill.).  This is a little bit of thank you, because our community has never been so united or energized since that moment you set foot in national arena. Trump has said repeatedly that he will do great with African-Americans and Hispanics. It is hard to know what in the world ever gave him that idea, but his  outreach  isn t helping his cause and surely won t convince minority voters to turn a blind eye to the fact that he has built his entire campaign on bigotry.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images