“Prove It, Bitch”: Trump Spokesman Loses It Over Rumored N-Word Tape
The Trump campaign is predictably resorting to the boss’s tactics amid new allegations that he used a racial slur to refer to a Black contestant on The Apprentice—and that it was caught on tape.Responding to the bombshell claims by former Apprentice producer Bill Pruitt, originally published in Slate, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung launched into a tirade on Twitter on Thursday.“Prove it, bitch,” Cheung wrote.“You can’t, because it’s a fake and bullshit story your dumb ass is peddling because Biden is hemorrhaging support from Black Americans.”There’s no evidence to suggest that Pruitt, who was until this year bound by a nondisclosure agreement, is lying about Trump’s use of the n-word, or about his rigging the show so that Kwame Jackson lost in the finale of the series’s first season. But it is very much on brand for the Trump campaign, and for Cheung, an apparent “virtuoso at mimicking his boss,” in particular, to reflexively dismiss the story as “fake and bullshit.” The Biden campaign, while not exactly “hemorrhaging support,” is struggling to retain the Black support on which Biden rode to the Democratic nomination, and eventually the White House, in 2020. According to a New York Times poll, Biden is winning only 63 percent of support from Black registered voters in a one-on-one race with Trump, down from the 92 percent of Black voters who supported him in 2020. Meanwhile, Trump, who recently spoke at a rally in the South Bronx, is making a play to appeal to Black voters. It is unlikely that dismissing credible allegations of racism online is part of that plan. But when the only tool the campaign has is a hammer, everything, even the candidate’s reported use of racial slurs, looks like a nail.
The Trump campaign is predictably resorting to the boss’s tactics amid new allegations that he used a racial slur to refer to a Black contestant on The Apprentice—and that it was caught on tape.
Responding to the bombshell claims by former Apprentice producer Bill Pruitt, originally published in Slate, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung launched into a tirade on Twitter on Thursday.
“Prove it, bitch,” Cheung wrote.
“You can’t, because it’s a fake and bullshit story your dumb ass is peddling because Biden is hemorrhaging support from Black Americans.”
There’s no evidence to suggest that Pruitt, who was until this year bound by a nondisclosure agreement, is lying about Trump’s use of the n-word, or about his rigging the show so that Kwame Jackson lost in the finale of the series’s first season. But it is very much on brand for the Trump campaign, and for Cheung, an apparent “virtuoso at mimicking his boss,” in particular, to reflexively dismiss the story as “fake and bullshit.”
The Biden campaign, while not exactly “hemorrhaging support,” is struggling to retain the Black support on which Biden rode to the Democratic nomination, and eventually the White House, in 2020. According to a New York Times poll, Biden is winning only 63 percent of support from Black registered voters in a one-on-one race with Trump, down from the 92 percent of Black voters who supported him in 2020.
Meanwhile, Trump, who recently spoke at a rally in the South Bronx, is making a play to appeal to Black voters. It is unlikely that dismissing credible allegations of racism online is part of that plan. But when the only tool the campaign has is a hammer, everything, even the candidate’s reported use of racial slurs, looks like a nail.
