Trump defends one of the most blatantly racist moments of his past

During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, former President Donald Trump reiterated one of his most notorious racist stunts, seemingly defending his decision to run ads calling for the execution of a group of five black and Latino teenagers.

Instead of apologizing to the wrongfully convicted teenagers, who are now grown men, Trump used the spotlight it gave him to reconvict them.

“They admitted it – they said they pleaded guilty,” Trump said in response to a comment by Vice President Kamala Harris about his actions.

“And I said, ‘Well, if you pleaded guilty, you have seriously injured, ultimately killed, a human being, and if you pleaded guilty,'” he concluded.

One of the exonerated men, Yusef Salaam, approached Trump after the debate when the former president unexpectedly appeared in the spin room.

“That’s good, you’re on my side!” Trump exclaimed when he saw Salaam, smiled and pointed at him.

Salaam, now a member of the New York City Council, replied: “No, no, I am not on your side!”

The five teenagers, then known as the “Central Park Five,” were wrongly accused of raping a jogger in New York City in 1989. Trump spent $85,000 on a full-page ad in the New York Times that read, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY, BRING BACK OUR POLICE.”

The boys, all aged between 14 and 16, spent between five and twelve years wrongfully imprisoned until a serial rapist confessed to the crime – and DNA analysis confirmed that he had committed it.

Four of the now-grown men – known as the “Exonerated Five” – ​​appeared onstage at the Democratic National Convention last month and reminded the audience that, in some ways, Trump still stands by the original verdict.

“Today we are exonerated because the real perpetrator confessed and DNA proved it,” Salaam told the crowd.

“He ignores the scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong. He has never changed and he never will. This man believes hate is the driving force in America. That is not the case.”