Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., fired back at MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Sunday after the far-left host called him a “black man” deployed by Republicans as false evidence of support from African Americans.
Reid, known for her vitriol against black conservativesdidn’t hold back after Donalds spoke following former President Trump’s rally Thursday in the deep blue Bronx, which featured a particularly diverse audience.
“The one black man that Republicans like to present as false proof that black people, black people, are MAGA, they are MAGA,” Reid said Friday. “It’s a joke, and just as believable as when they said they were going to make this guy speaker of the House.”
But Donalds responded to Reid’s criticism during an interview on Fox News Sunday, calling the MSNBC host’s comments an attempt to tear him down for his success.
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Rep. Byron Donalds, Republican of Florida, during a campaign event with former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Crotona Park in the Bronx borough of New York, Thursday, May 23, 2024. (Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I find Joy’s comments to be nothing more than crabs in a barrel,” Donalds told Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream. “Just because I have a different point of view, a different way of looking at the world, a different politics, now all of a sudden I’m being used. You can make the argument that MSNBC is using it.”
Reid has previously referred to black Republicans like Donalds and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., as symbols of the party.
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When Donalds was named Speaker of the House in 2023, Reid said it was a cynical effort to make the party more diverse, joking, “Any black person will do.”
In 2021, she said that Scott’s presence at a press conference about the GOP’s opposition to a minimum wage mandate was simply to provide a “patina of diversity”. The previous year, Reid referred to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as “Uncle Clarence”, a clear reference to “Uncle Tom’s” insults against blacks, considered too deferential to whites.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid called Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds the “black guy” that Republicans are using as false evidence of support from African Americans. But Donalds fired back at Reid on Sunday, calling his comments “crabs in a barrel.” (Getty Images)
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Donalds said the diverse crowd that gathered at Trump’s rally in the Bronx was the result of Democrats creating a “disaster” in New York and across the country.
“There was a very diverse crowd, people from the Bronx, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, black people, white people, all there to support President Trump, because they saw the disaster that is New York City ” Donalds said on Sunday. “They have seen the disaster that has befallen the United States of America because of the master of disaster, Joe Biden himself, and they want Donald Trump back.”
Donalds added that Trump was not trying to divide Americans based on race.
“We’re looking to expand the political map, not narrow it based on race or anything else, because that’s what Joy Reid, Joe Biden and others want to do,” Donalds said . “They want to narrow the political map based on previous dogmas and racial lines.
“That’s not President Trump’s goal,” he said. “It’s focused on all of America.”
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Fox News’ David Rutz contributed to this report.
