Joy Reid shuts down election propaganda with Black former Trump staffer

Ja'Ron Smith, who recently served as the highest-ranking Black staffer in the Trump admin, refused to acknowledge Biden as president-elect on Joy Reid's show

Stephanie Guerilus

Nov 19, 2020

Former Trump White House aide Ja’Ron Smith is mirroring the behavior of the president as he refused to acknowledge Joe Biden as the next commander in chief during an appearance on Joy Reid’s show.

theGrio reported that Smith left the Trump administration earlier this month where he was the highest-ranking Black staffer, serving as the deputy assistant for domestic policy in outreach to the Black and Hispanic community. Despite leaving his post, Smith is still firmly loyal to his former boss.

Smith was a guest on MSNBC’s The ReidOut Wednesday and deflected when Reid asked him if he believed that Biden was the next duly elected president.

“I want to start by asking you a pretty basic sort of bottom-line question. Do you accept and believe that Joe Biden is the President-Elect of the United States?” Reid said.

“I think we should just let the nation kind of run its course on the investigations and lawsuits on dealing with the vote, and once that’s decided, we can confirm it,” Smith replied. “You know, I think if the election was leaning in Trump’s direction, we would want to run the course and make sure that every vote that was cast was appropriate.”

Reid asked him to specify what investigations he was referring to. She pressed him to cite one example.

“I’m not going to get specific, I’m just saying very generally,” he responded.

“But you’re the one who said it,” Reid interjected. “But hold on, you said that you think it should run its course on all the investigations, so you ought to know what investigations you mean and what you are alleging happened.”

Smith then added that he was not paying rapt attention to the various lawsuits that Trump has filed to disrupt Biden being certified as the winner of the election.

“Honestly, I haven’t been following it,” he claimed.

“Wait, wait, wait, you haven’t been following it?” Reid incredulously said. “But you’re saying — but hold on, you’re saying you can’t accept that Joe Biden is the President-Elect? You can’t name me an investigation you’re talking about specifically?”

Reid then shifted her questioning to Black voters seemingly being targeted to have their votes invalidated. Two GOP lawmakers initially refused to certify votes in Detroit, Michigan which is predominately Black.

“How do you reconcile as a Black man in this country and a voter,” Reid said, “the fact that your party, the Republican Party, continually is focusing on and going after and trying to invalidate the votes of Black people in Detroit, in Atlanta, in Milwaukee, and only doing that in places where Black people vote?”

Ja'Ron Smith, Trump, Jared Kushner thegrio.com — Ja’Ron Smith (Public Domain)

“Well, I would validate that Trump got the biggest vote tally of African-American voters in 60 years,” Smith said. “We’ve had the best number of non-white voters since Nixon. And so I think…”

Reid interrupted Smith and once again asked him to directly answer her question about Black voters being disenfranchised. However, Smith insisted “race” was not a factor in the decision making by the Trump campaign in regard to their lawsuits about flagging votes.

“What I would say is that in all of these cities, you know, they’re not all-Black cities. They have white voters there, too, so we’re looking at everyone’s vote and making sure everyone votes. I think that’s what the Trump administration’s looking at. It’s not a race thing,” he said.

“It is!” Reid replied. “Because these cities are where black people live, but it doesn’t bother you. I think you’ve made that very clear.”

Watch the full exchange below.