New York
By Maggie Haberman
April 3, 2016
Donald
J. Trump, criticized for months for his comments on race, is about to
be bolstered by a multi-cultural network of supporters hoping to tell a
different side of his story.
The
“National Diversity Coalition for Trump” was the brainchild of Michael
Cohen, a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump at his company, who worked with
Pastor Darrell Scott, a Trump supporter based
in Cleveland, and a friend of Mr. Cohen. The group is planning to
create a website that will showcase other supporters of Mr. Trump, who
is a native of a diverse city but who is running in a party primary
dominated by older, whiter voters.
“I
know Mr. Trump and I know that there is not an ounce of truth to any of
the allegations lodged against him by the liberal media. He’s not
racist, misogynist, sexist or Islamophobic,” Mr.
Scott said in an interview on Sunday.
“We need to let the world see that this depiction of Mr. Trump is not the reality that” he and Mr. Cohen know, he said.
“It
began as a minority coalition for Trump, but we changed it to
‘Diversity Coalition for Trump.’ We changed it because we didn’t want to
discriminate against white people,” Mr. Scott said,
with a laugh. The website is still in formation, but other supporters,
such as the former “Apprentice” star Omarosa Manigault, who has been a
frequent surrogate for Mr. Trump, will appear.
Mr.
Cohen, who stressed that he is not working for the campaign, said he
presented his boss with a request to appear at a mosque recently.
“Mr.
Trump is purely a performance-based critic,” said Mr. Cohen, adding,
“The media and the establishment of both political parties are trying to
convince the American people that Mr. Trump
can only appeal to white, blue-collar men. That’s patently false. Mr.
Trump appeals to all Americans and will be a great unifier when elected
president.”
Mr.
Trump has tried before to pivot toward a greater show of diversity,
with difficulty. A planned meeting with prominent pastors at Trump Tower
in November, after a Black Lives Matter protester
was kicked and punched at a Trump rally, became a media circus. Mr.
Trump described the meeting as “amazing,” but some of the pastors were
demure about whether they planned to make an endorsement. And Republican
leaders are openly concerned that Mr. Trump’s
unfettered comments about immigration and other topics have badly
damaged him with general election voters.
But
Mr. Scott said that his group had become an umbrella for other
coalitions of supporters for Mr. Trump. The group will include Muslim,
Asian and Hispanic supporters of Mr. Trump.
Ahead
of Tuesday’s primary in Wisconsin, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is
targeting John Kasich with a TV attack ad for the first time, suggesting
that Mr. Kasich engaged in cronyism as Ohio’s
governor.
The
commercial brings up Mr. Kasich’s lucrative earnings as a board member
of Worthington Industries, an Ohio-based steel processor, before saying
that the company received hundred of thousands
of dollars in tax breaks after Mr. Kasich became governor. The ad also
says that the company laid off workers last year, while its chief
executive donated $500,000 to an outside group supporting Mr. Kasich.
The
Cruz campaign has sent mailers attacking Mr. Kasich over Ohio’s
spending during his time as governor, as well as his record on guns and
the military when he served in Congress.
“Despite
having no pathway to the nomination, Kasich insists on continuing his
quixotic auditioning tour to become Donald Trump’s vice president,”
Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Mr.
Cruz, said on Sunday. “So far his greatest strength has been anonymity —
we’re simply shining some light on his record.”
Mr.
Kasich has repeatedly insisted he will not be anyone’s running mate.
His ties to Worthington Industries have previously received scrutiny in
Ohio, including from the Democratic challenger
whom Mr. Kasich went on to defeat to win a second term in 2014.
“Ted
Cruz is recycling failed Democrat attacks in a desperate effort to
smear Governor Kasich,” John Weaver, Mr. Kasich’s chief strategist, said
in response to the TV ad. “It didn’t work
for dishonest Ohio Democrats in 2014 and won’t work for deceptive Ted
Cruz now.”
Mr.
Weaver offered his own attack on Mr. Cruz, bringing up the loan from
Goldman Sachs that Mr. Cruz failed to report during his 2012 Senate
campaign. “Cruz’s attack and own hypocrisy are
further proof that the voters can’t trust him and he will do anything
to win,” Mr. Weaver said.
Mr.
Cruz and Mr. Kasich have scarcely tangled with each other during the
Republican primary, in large measure because they tend to appeal to
different swaths of the Republican electorate.
And given his lower profile throughout the race, Mr. Kasich has tended
not to be a magnet for his rivals’ attacks.
But
with the Republican field down to three candidates, the two men and
their allies have been increasingly at odds, with Mr. Cruz calling Mr.
Kasich a spoiler and Mr. Kasich insisting Mr.
Cruz cannot win in November.
Mr.
Cruz appears to have an edge over Donald J. Trump heading into
Tuesday’s primary in Wisconsin, in which delegates are awarded to the
statewide winner and to the winners of its eight congressional
districts.
Mr.
Kasich is expected to finish third in the state, but a poll released
last week by Marquette University Law School showed Mr. Kasich with
strength in the Madison media market, and he told
reporters in Wisconsin on Saturday that he hoped to win a few delegates
in the state. The decision by Mr. Cruz’s team to go after Mr. Kasich
suggests the Cruz campaign views itself as in competition with Mr.
Kasich for at least some voters.
Last
week, an outside group supporting Mr. Cruz released a commercial that
criticized Mr. Kasich’s “liberal record” and tied him, inaccurately, to
the liberal billionaire George Soros. Another
ad released by the group went after Mr. Kasich for expanding Medicaid
under the Affordable Care Act, showing President Obama giving Mr. Kasich
credit for taking such action.
A group backing Mr. Kasich — the same one supported by the chief executive of Worthington Industries — released its own ad describing Mr. Cruz as “Lyin’ Ted,” adopting a nickname favored by Mr. Trump. Mr. Kasich objected to that characterization and urged that the ad be taken down.
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