Black Trump supporter: ‘A Black man has nothing to win in this race’

Karl Williams of Brooklyn believes that Black men have “nothing to win” in this year’s presidential race with either President Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden. “There’s no policy platform being presented that’s going to address any needs of Black men,” Williams, an investor who trades options, said in a video interview with Yahoo News. Despite this conviction, Williams, 34, plans to vote for Trump for a second time on Nov. 3. With one week left until the election, some experts say Black men are a key demographic who could shock the country on Election Day and vote for Trump in surprising numbers.

Video transcript

KARL WILLIAMS: A Black man has nothing to win in this race. There's no policy platform being presented that's going to address any needs of Black men. If all Black people just didn't vote in a whole election, you would just see how many races will get flipped just because we didn't even take part in the election. And at that point, maybe politicians will take our vote seriously.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

DONALD TRUMP: I got criminal justice reform done and prison reform and opportunity zones. I took care of Black colleges and universities. I don't know what to say. They can say anything. I mean, they can say anything. It's a very-- it makes me sad because I am-- I am the least racist person. I can't even see the audience because it's so dark, but I don't care who's in the audience. I'm the least racist person in this room.

JOE BIDEN: The fact of the matter is, there is institutional racism in America. And we have always said-- we've never lived up to it-- that we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women are created equal. Well, guess what? We have never, ever lived up to it, but we've all-- we've constantly been moving the needle further and further to inclusion, not exclusion. This is the first president to come along and says, that's the end of that.

KARL WILLIAMS: My name's Karl. I'm from Brooklyn. I support Trump-- I mean, outside of entertainment, it's legitimately for financial reasons. I invest in the market. If you notice, a lot of business leaders just choose not to even really speak this election cycle. Fortune 500 CEOs, if they have to give a public opinion on the election, of course, they're not going to say they're riding with Trump. But none of these businesses are upset that Trump is president, and they're not going to be upset if Trump got another four years.

What I vote for, I purely vote for my actual interests. Neither candidate-- I'm not voting-- are addressing any of my needs as a Black man, but I do have one candidate that will give me a favorable tax situation. But I don't think Black men have to vote for Trump, but I definitely think it's crazy to vote for someone that's been in power for the last four decades, eight of those is being a vice president. Someone that's-- was instrumental in a lot of the policies that were working to repeal and replace now, in regards to criminal justice reform, I think is just kind of crazy to guilt trip a Black man into voting for someone that was involved in that and expecting that, oh, these next four years, he's going to do something different. No one can tell me what there is to gain their vote. For-- as a Black man or a Black woman, you literally have nothing to gain in this election.

JARED KUSHNER: One thing we've seen in a lot of the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump's policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about. But he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful. And what you're seeing throughout the country now is a groundswell of support.

BARACK OBAMA: Not that voting makes everything perfect. It's that it makes things better. You are more likely to have a representative like the Congressman or the Senator who are going to look out for you, who understand who you are. Your voice, through them, will be heard in the corridors of power. And what that means is that when budgets are decided or policies are issued that they are more likely to reflect your views and meet your interests.

KARL WILLIAMS: I predicted Trump was going to win in 2016, and it was the same thing. Like, the older polling numbers were lining up just the same way. Like, Hillary had similar advantages as Biden does, you know, coming into the election. And you know, everyone caught the surprise. I honestly think he's probably going to win, and I'm positive Black men are going to be blamed for it once he does win, so.