The first week of May was a rough one for “The Donald.”
Faced with plummeting poll numbers, an advocacy group’s campaign to persuade the Black cast of his reality show to censure him and CNN commentator Roland Martin’s assertions that he is a liar that “loves the sound of his own voice,” real estate tycoon Donald Trump, who once boasted of a great relationship with “the Blacks,” has seen his presidential ambitions bruised.
His journey on a bumpy public road started May 1, when the final moments of the last episode of his “Celebrity Apprentice” reality show were abruptly clipped, as President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Many East Coast viewers didn’t learn who had been eliminated from the show until the following morning.
Then, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced that Trump would no longer drive the pace car in the Indy 500, presumably thanks to pressure from the businessman’s critics including the more than 18,000 Facebook users who joined the group “We Don’t Want Donald Trump to Drive the Indy 500 Pace Car.” He has been replaced by four-time Indy winner A.J. Foyt, several news outlets have reported.
On May 5, Black political advocacy group ColorOfChange launched a Twitter-based movement to convince lawyer and television personality Star Jones and rapper Lil Jon, two Black cast members on “Celebrity Apprentice,” to denounce Trump for his “race-baiting” attacks against Obama.
Trump generated widespread media attention recently for aligning with the “birther movement,” questioning if Obama was born in the U.S. He has raised question about the president’s qualifications to attend Harvard University.
ColorOfChange Executive Director Rashad Robinson told Reuters that Trump’s co-stars “can’t have a relationship with the Black community and have a relationship with Trump and not call him out for his actions.”
In a lengthy opinion article for CNN’s Web site, news correspondent Roland Martin apologized to viewers for the media’s “pathetic and morbidly obese” coverage of Trump.
“We have afforded him the kind of respect normally reserved for people who have truly made a major difference in this world,” Martin wrote. “Instead, the builder of gaudy buildings replete with the kind of extravagance that would make a Saudi oil titan blush, has demanded he be referred to as Mr. Trump.”
“What has been revealed is a man so obsessed with the sound of his own voice that even when he is caught in a lie, he pretends it is absolute truth,” Martin said.
A national Quinnipiac University poll released May 4 found that 58 percent of those surveyed “would never vote” for Trump, while a Marist College survey reported that 75 percent of New Yorkers polled don’t want him to run for president. Those results crossed party lines, with 82 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans hoping that Mr. Trump won’t pursue the nation’s top office.
That came a day after the May 3 premier of a documentary film titled, “You’ve Been Trumped” at Toronto’s Hot Docs filmfest. The movie details the impact of Trump’s $2 billion golf course development in Scotland which environmentalists claim has adversely affected the area’s ecosystem, Politico reported. One resident claims in the film “I haven’t had water for a week,”