Then he left without taking questions about the decline and nascent recovery of the country’s automotive capital, a hub of black America.
In attempting to fashion a populist message, Trump has criticized Democrats for doing little to address urban joblessness and despair. But in the more than a year since he began his White House bid, the Republican nominee has not held a single event aimed at black voters in their communities, shunning the traditional stops at African-American churches, historically black colleges and barber shops and salons that have long been staples of the presidential campaign trail.
Trump may not have purposefully snubbed black neighborhoods — he rarely plunges into any community to tour businesses, sample local cuisine or spontaneously engage in the handshake and back-patting rituals of everyday campaigning. His preferred style of politicking consists almost entirely of addressing arena-size rallies, conducting media interviews and receiving visitors in private at events or at his Manhattan skyscraper.
But the 70-year-old white self-described billionaire has not just walled himself off from African-American voters where they live. He has also turned down repeated invitations to address gatherings of black leaders, ignored African-American conservatives in states he needs to win and made numerous inflammatory comments about minorities.
Trump's mix of provocation and neglect has infuriated black Republicans, who fear that the party's already dismal standing with African-Americans may sink so low that it barely registers in swing states.
“He’s alienated a number of minority voters, and that’s reflected in his low numbers,” said Tara Wall, a communications consultant who helped with black outreach on both of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns and Mitt Romney’s 2012 bid. “You have to do the bare minimum, and he’s not even doing that.”
Republican presidential candidates typically perform poorly among black voters, perhaps the most loyal constituency in the Democratic Party. Since President Gerald R. Ford received 16 percent of the African-American vote in 1976, no Republican nominee has attained more than 12 percent.
But as demonstrated in the past two White House races — in which John McCain received 4 percent of black votes in 2008 and Mitt Romney received 6 percent in 2012 — when a Republican collapses into single digits among African-Americans and struggles with other minorities, it reduces the number of white votes a Democrat needs to win the presidency.
That is what worries Republicans this year, particularly in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania with heavily black cities, where an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll last week showed Trump receiving only 1 percent of the black vote. (The poll's 3 percentage-point margin of error among all voters suggests that his support could be slightly higher.)
"As is the case with many other groups, Donald Trump is in a race to the bottom," said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who last year wrote a book warning his party to expand its appeal or face doom. "He will likely have to get more than 65 percent of the white vote to win."
Some of Trump's advisers recognize the severity of the challenge and have called on him to broaden his campaign. Conceding that she is "extremely concerned" about Trump's standing among blacks, Omarosa Manigault, his director of African-American outreach, said she wanted to bring him before black audiences.
"I am now looking at opportunities for Mr. Trump to get in front of key partners in the African-American community, particularly civil rights groups and faith groups, particularly historically black colleges and universities," said Manigault, who achieved fame as a contestant on the first season of Trump's television show "The Apprentice."
“We have to make an effort,” she said. “It’s unacceptable to say, ‘Oh, it’s just too late, we are not going to try to do anything.’”
While Trump once prided himself on how popular "The Apprentice" was among African-Americans and boasted of his friendships with black celebrities, he has squandered whatever good will he once enjoyed among African-Americans. Interviews with black Republicans and Democrats reveal one reason he is so toxic: He is perhaps the most prominent "birther" in the country, contending in 2011 that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and leading a charge calling on Obama to release his birth certificate.
And if that was not troubling enough to blacks, Trump's call to restore the country's greatness can sound to African-American ears as if he is nostalgic for a time before a black family was in the White House. He also initially refused to denounce David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who has expressed support for Trump, and has never expounded on Duke's bigotry beyond dismissively saying that he "disavows" him.
Then there are Trump's heated rallies, in which the candidate has encouraged rough treatment of minority protesters, his attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and his recognition in June of a black supporter, in a sea of white faces, as "my African-American."
"We've never seen numbers this bad for someone at the top of the ticket," said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic strategist. "This is much deeper than simply not agreeing with Donald Trump on the issues. This is a much deeper rejection of him."
Making matters worse, Trump has demonstrated little appetite to go outside his comfort zone. The encounters he has had with blacks have largely been confined to meetings at Trump Tower. And when Manigault and other Trump advisers have tried to have him speak to influential black audiences, their efforts have been rejected.
In recent interactions with predominantly black and Hispanic organizations — some of which typically receive presidential candidates of both parties every four years — the Trump campaign has either not responded to requests for him to appear or has waited until shortly before the events to say he would not be attending.
It took almost seven months for the NAACP to get a "no" from the Trump campaign in response to an invitation to speak at the group's annual convention in July. Five days before its start, a campaign official emailed to say that Trump had a scheduling conflict.
In early May, a representative from the National Association of Black Journalists invited Trump to speak at a convention it was hosting with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. After several phone calls and a round of emails back and forth, the Trump campaign told the groups on the day before the convention began that he could not attend.
Even among economic-oriented black groups that may have members open to the candidacy of a business executive, Trump has shown little interest.
The National Urban League said it had invited Trump to speak three times. The first two times, it received no official answer. Most recently, the group extended an invitation for Trump to speak at its annual conference this month. Manigault said she had stressed to high-ranking Trump advisers that he should accept. He declined.
“We didn’t get any reason. We just got an email declaration,” said Marc H. Morial, the National Urban League president. “My view is that candidates who run for public office should work to appeal to every segment of the electorate.”
Yet Trump is not even reaching out to some well-connected black Republicans. Joe Watkins, a Philadelphia pastor who worked in George Bush's White House, said he saw no sign that the nominee was trying to reach Pennsylvania's black voters.
“Every cycle except for this one, the Republican presidential campaigns have reached out to me to help them,” Watkins said.
He is not the only black conservative confounded by Trump. Gregory Cheadle, the man Trump referred to as "my African-American," said he was inspired by Trump's success and wealth but was frustrated that the candidate has not done more to appeal to black voters.
“He’s a billionaire and so his life doesn’t have to include black people,” Cheadle said. “It would be great if he went to a NAACP meeting or just interacted with blacks more — and not necessarily for political gain — but just to understand our struggle and what we go through.”
Blacks in Detroit, feeling spurned by Trump, felt much the same. Marvin Beatty, who like Trump is a developer and casino executive, said the Republican standard-bearer could have easily found a black entrepreneur in the city willing to host him and highlight the city's burgeoning comeback.
“Would it have necessarily moved the needle? Probably not,” Beatty said. “But would it have indicated that he has an interest across racial lines in a business attempting to serve the community and fulfill his agenda? Without question.”
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