After Debate, Trump Refuses To Apologize To 'Exonerated Five' Member, Delusionally Thanks Him For His Support
After Debate, Trump Refuses To Apologize To 'Exonerated Five' Member, Delusionally Thanks Him For His Support
He still does not understand that what he did was wrong.
During last night’s presidential debate, Kamala Harris brought up Donald Trump’s long history of doing and saying incredibly racist shit, from refusing to rent to Black folks (so out loud that he was prosecuted by the Nixon Justice Department) to calling for the execution of the Central Park Five — now the Exonerated Five — who turned out to be innocent. Naturally, Trump got quite huffy about this, accusing her of bringing things up from long ago just to smear him.
“This is the most divisive presidency in the history of our country. There's never been anything like it. They're destroying our country. And they come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five. They admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty — then they pled we're not guilty. But this is a person that has to stretch back years, 40, 50 years ago because there's nothing now.”
Except the thing is, Trump has continued to double down on this for years. Years! He’s never once admitted that they were innocent and that he was wrong.
“The Central Park Five documentary was a one sided piece of garbage that didn't explain the horrific crimes of these young men while in park,” he tweeted in 2013.
In 2014, he actually wrote an op-ed for the New York Daily News about how he was mad that they got a settlement at all, just for having spent years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit.
My opinion on the settlement of the Central Park Jogger case is that it’s a disgrace. A detective close to the case, and who has followed it since 1989, calls it “the heist of the century.”
Settling doesn’t mean innocence, but it indicates incompetence on several levels. This case has not been dormant, and many people have asked why it took so long to settle? It is politics at its lowest and worst form.
What about the other people who were brutalized that night, in addition to the jogger? […]
Forty million dollars is a lot of money for the taxpayers of New York to pay when we are already the highest taxed city and state in the country. The recipients must be laughing out loud at the stupidity of the city.
Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts. These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels.
Again, they were innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. Their DNA was not found at the scene. Someone else confessed. We have video of the police more or less forcing confessions from them. It’s over.
When asked, in 2019, if he felt he owed the Exonerated Five an apology, Trump said, "You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt. If you look at Linda Fairstein, and if you look at some of [the] prosecutors, they think that the city should never have settled that case. So we'll leave it at that.”
Well, Linda Fairstein is a creep who counseled her successor to not prosecute actual rapist Dominique Strauss-Kahn and also talked women out of testifying against Harvey Weinstein, so her opinion does not mean shit in any case.
And the thing is, Trump was once again given an opportunity to apologize last night. Exonerated Five member and New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam was in the spin room with him after the debate. Multiple reporters asked if he’d like to take a moment to apologize to Salaam and the Exonerated Five. When Salaam himself told Trump who he was, Trump flashed his most dazzling smile and said, “That’s good, you’re on my side!”
“No, no, I’m not on your side!” Salaam responded, though Trump did not react.
So yeah, no, this is not just old news. This is ongoing. He’s dragged this out for 40 years all because he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong.
If Trump were a person whose literal brain and figurative heart worked correctly, he might see what happened as a reason to oppose the death penalty in all forms. He might be horrified by the fact that he called for the death of five boys who were later proven to be innocent. He might be horrified by the fact that the police were able to get confessions out of these kids when they were actually innocent.
He’s not.
And the fact that he doesn’t get any of that pretty much encapsulates everything that is wrong with him.
For comparison (and a cleanse … of your tear ducts!), please to enjoy the Exonerated Five’s moment at the Democratic National Convention a few weeks ago.
Trump thinks exactly like my older brother when he was a child and teenager (possibly even now, who knows). I can even hear the argument we would have had:
ME: But they were proven innocent, they were coerced.
HIM: It doesn't matter, they confessed.
ME: They were kids, they were terrified
HIM: then why did they confess if they were innocent? if I were innocent, I wouldn't ever confess.
ME: But they proved it wasn't them, somebody else confessed, too.
HIM: They still confessed, that makes them guilty, they should ALL be executed.
ME: But we KNOW they didn't do it.
HIM: Then they shouldn't have confessed.
He would dig his heels in over the confession. Confession = Guilty, no take backs, ever.
He's also the type who would think it's "unfair" to let cannabis convictions disappear after legalization. "They still committed the crime!" He's very much a stickler for other people obeying rules, especially rules he has no interest in breaking.
Project 2025 (yes, I read it) calls not only for "finalizing" the sentences of federal death row prisoners quickly (by which they mean killing them soon, except they won't say it like that), its authors also think it would be awesome to kill alleged perpetrators of child abuse and drug crimes...
You know, because we as a nation have such a great fucking track record when it comes to handling (defining, especially) what is a drug crime.
Not like *those* laws have remained unchanged since the Founders.