'Scripted Answers, Editing' Leaked Draft Strategy For Trump's Outreach To African-American Community In Detroit
DETROIT (WWJ) - Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump is making a much-discussed visit to Detroit on Saturday as he talks with Bishop Wayne T. Jackson of Great Faith Ministries International.
This election season -- some politicians are getting questions ahead of time in order to prepare scripted answers, apparently Trump is among those politicians.
"It's a fairly common practice, it's not something that reporters often do, they often don't provide questions," says New York Times reporter Yamiche Alcindor, "but from time to time you'll have candidates, especially Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump asks for questions."
"An eight-page draft script obtained by The New York Times shows 12 questions that Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the church's pastor, intends to ask Mr. Trump during the taped question-and-answer session, as well as the responses Mr. Trump is being advised to give."
Alcindor joined WWJ's Russ McNamara Thursday evening to discuss the leaked draft.
Trump has not focused critical attention on the African American community during his campaign and his pre-recorded discussion with Jackson marks his entry point into the community.
Alcindor says Trump sounds more controlled in the script she obtained. "Sounds in some ways like someone who is more in control -- (like) reading from a teleprompter, someone who is not really going off the cuff ..." she says. "In some ways it sounds like the newer kind of Trump that we've seen ... he's never held an event, at all, throughout the whole time in running, in a black community."
