Joe Biden, losing Black support, hammers Trump over “Black jobs”

President Joe Biden criticized former President Donald Trump over a “Black jobs” comment as he sought to hold onto voters who have shifted away from the incumbent since helping him win the White House four years ago.

Biden addressed the NAACP convention in Las Vegas on Tuesday, making his return to the campaign trail for the first time since Saturday’s attempted assassination of Trump. During his speech, Biden wished his Republican rival well, saying he was “grateful” that he wasn’t seriously injured in the shooting but also used the opportunity to go after Trump’s remarks about Black Americans.

While Biden’s performance emerged as the focal point of the June 27 presidential debate, Trump drew some flack for saying that migrants were taking “Black jobs.”

“I love his phrase ‘Black jobs.’ Tells a lot about the man and about his character,” Biden told the crowd Tuesday. “Folks, I know what a Black job is, it’s a vice president of the United States!”

Biden’s appeal to Black voters, who are a tentpole for the Democratic Party, comes as early data suggests that they’re shifting away from the president.

A Pew Research study found that while Black voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic and continue to support Biden over Trump by a wide margin, the president’s advantage has shrunk 16 percentage points since the 2020 election.

As of April, 77 percent of Black voters say they would vote for or lean toward Biden. In 2020, 92 percent of Black voters said the same. Black support for Biden in the upcoming election is also lower than support for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

A Washington Post/Ipsos survey from last month found that support for Biden among Black voters had fallen 7 percentage points since 2022. It also offered some good news for Trump, with 77 percent of Black Americans agreeing that Trump is biased against Black people—a 10-point drop from 2020.

Additionally, Biden’s approval rating among Black adults has dropped from 94 percent when he started his term to 55 percent in March, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

The NAACP conference is the latest event that Biden has appeared at as part of a summer-long outreach initiative to Black voters across the nation. Earlier this year, he delivered a commencement address at Morehouse College and courted Black voters in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan. He was also expected to participate in an interview with BET on Tuesday.

During his speech, Biden touted his appointments, noting that he picked the first Black vice president to serve alongside him and that he appointed the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also reminded voters that he served as the vice president to the first Black president in U.S. history.

“I promised myself and I promised America that my administration would look like America,” Biden told the crowd at the NAACP conference. “I’m proud that we have the most diverse administration in all history that taps into the full talents of the nation.”

He also contrasted himself to Trump, whom he said made the country “hell” for Black Americans. Biden argued that Trump’s efforts to repeal Obamacare, his “mismanagement” of the COVID-19 pandemic and his response to the Black Lives Matter movement were “devastating to Black communities,” and recalled how Trump promoted the birtherism conspiracy theory about Obama’s birthplace.

“What the hell is the matter with this man?” Biden asked. “I’m serious. Go figure, from a guy who spread the birtherism lie against Barack Obama saying he wasn’t born in America and he wasn’t a U.S. citizen.”

During last month’s debate, Trump said that Biden’s “big kill” against Black Americans was the influx of migrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since Biden took office.

“They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs. And you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history,” Trump said.

The remark was widely criticized by prominent Black leaders, including Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, who called it a “misinformed characterization” that denied “the ubiquity of Black talent.”

“There is no such thing as a Black job,” Johnson said, adding that “A ‘Black job’ is an American job. It’s concerning that a presidential candidate would seek to make a nonexistent distinction. But the divisive nature of this comment is not surprising for Donald Trump.”

Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign by email for comment.