Trump accuses reporter of asking ‘racist question’

President Trump during a press conference on Wednesday accused an African-American reporter of asking “a racist question” about his support of nationalism.

“On the campaign trail you called yourself a nationalist, some people saw that as emboldening white nationalists…” Yamiche Alcindor of “PBS NewsHour” began before Trump abruptly interrupted her.

{mosads}”I don’t know why you’d say that, that’s such a racist question,” he interjected.

“There are some people who say that now the Republican Party is seen as supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric, what do you make of that?” Alcindor asked.

“Why do I have my highest poll numbers ever with African-Americans? Why do I have among the highest poll numbers with African-Americans? That’s such a racist question,” Trump responded.

He was likely referring to a poll from the right-leaning firm Rasmussen from earlier this week indicating he has 36 percent support among African-Americans.

A survey from Quinnipiac University Poll from October gave him only an 8 percent approval rate among the same group.

“I love our country. You have nationalists, you have globalists. I also love the world … but we have to straighten out our country first,” Trump said Wednesday.

Before Alcindor could respond, Trump cut her off and said “that’s a very terrible thing that you said.” 

Wow — A tone-deaf Trump accuses a black reporter, @Yamiche, of asking him “a racist question” by pressing him on his self-professed nationalism pic.twitter.com/xz25wHSeG6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 7, 2018 

Alcindor defended her line of questioning on Twitter shortly after the press conference:

I’m simply asking the questions the public wants to know. https://t.co/bZ1cZVBKhd

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) November 7, 2018

A note: I followed up the president calling my question “racist” with a policy question about his proposed middle class tax cut because that’s what journalists do. We press on. We focus on the privilege of asking questions for a living. We do the work.

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) November 7, 2018