President Donald J. Trump held a rally for hundreds of Black and brown supporters at the White House on Saturday, Oct. 10, in Washington, DC.
But rather than join his loyal supporters inside the White House as he normally would do, Trump spoke to them from the second-floor balcony of the Blue Room.
Trump was given a clean bill of health by his doctor last week, after testing positive for Covid-19 on Oct. 1.
Conservative activist Candace Owens, who is one of Trump’s most vocal supporters, is catching heat for reportedly paying Black people to attend the rally at the White House.
ABC News reported that Owens’s BLEXIT group paid for some Black people to travel by plane to the event. Attendees were asked to bring a mask and to fill out a form acknowledging that BLEXIT would cover the costs, including a Covid-19 test.
Owens slammed ABC News for twisting the facts.
“We are not interested in participating in your obvious media angle here to slander/attack the president regarding COVID-19,” Owens told ABC News, adding that the event was about “supporting law enforcement in minority communities.”
According to EURweb.com, Black Twitter accused Owens of using Black people as paid “props” for “racist” Trump and endangering their lives.
“They’re paying Black people to risk their lives as props for the COVID-infected racist president,” former Clinton foreign policy spokesperson Jesse Lehrich tweeted.
“She should be held accountable if any of them get sick. You’re flying people to be infected. And for what?” tweeted Elon James White, comedian, founder and editor in chief of This Week in Blackness.
Owens later admitted that a few Trump supporters “who asked for financial help” were provided with “travel stipends.”
She then accused her critics of “mocking people who are struggling financially.”
“Um… yes. We had a small group of attendees who asked for financial help to make the event so we secured travel stipends for them. Mocking people who are struggling financially is the weirdest, most elitist, Democrat flex— possibly ever,” she tweeted in response to writer Jonathan Capehart’s retweet of the ABC story.
