Trump pledges 'new deal for black America'

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Donald Trump on Wednesday pledged what he called a "new deal for black America" as he attempted to make late inroads with a voting bloc that polling shows favors Democrat Hillary Clinton by a vast margin.

"I will be your greatest champion," Trump said during an campaign rally here. "I will never ever take the African American community for granted. Never, ever."

In a scripted speech heavy on policy specifics, the Republican presidential nominee laid out a plan that he said is built on setting up better schools, lowering crime in inner cities and creating more high-paying jobs.

He told the largely white audience that "massive numbers" of black Americans have been ignored and left behind, and he blamed Democrats and Clinton for the "crippling crime and total violence" in the nation's inner cities.

Trump was speaking in a city that was rocked by protests last month after police killed an unarmed black man. In his speech, he accused Clinton of waging a "war on police" that he said puts black lives at risk, and he called for police and residents to work together.

The GOP nominee pledged to remove gang members from inner cities and continued to falsely assert that the national murder rate is the highest it has been in 45 years.

"Some of our inner cities are more dangerous than the war zones we're reading about and seeing about every night," Trump said.

The real estate mogul said he wants to allow cities and states to declare disaster areas in blighted communities and give microloans to black entrepreneurs to help spur jobs. He championed school choice, which he called the "great civil rights issue of our time," and increased funding for historically black colleges and universities.

He proposed tax holidays for inner-city investment and incentives for foreign companies to invest in "blighted American neighborhoods," though Trump did not say what they were.

He also said that black communities have had their civil rights violated by illegal immigration.

"No group has been more hurt by decades of illegal immigration than African Americans," he said.

Trump's candidacy is barely registering with African American voters. Trump had 3 percent support among African American voters in an ABC News tracking poll released Sunday, compared with Clinton's 82 percent. Clinton has not matched President Obama's levels of support, but Trump still runs behind Romney's 6 percent support among African Americans in 2012.

Earlier in the day, Trump made a detour to Washington to christen a downtown hotel bearing his name, even as his campaign sets its sights on Florida as its make-or-break battleground state less than two weeks before Election Day.

Aides insisted it was a non-campaign event, but when Trump took the stage, he railed against bloated military hospital construction projects, blasted Obamacare price spikes and congratulated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for sparring Tuesday night with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in a contentious prime-time interview.

"That was an amazing interview," Trump said as he pointed at Gingrich. "We don't play games, Newt, right? We don't play games."

Gingrich and Kelly had tussled over whether news coverage of sexual assault allegations against Trump compares fairly with stories about the release of hacked emails from top aides to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Clinton marked her 69th birthday by making campaign stops in Florida. Her campaign also released two new television commercials it described as "closing arguments" to viewers in several battleground states. One of the messages is voiced by actor Morgan Freeman.

Trump stood on a ballroom stage alongside three of his children who oversee his hotel projects at what was billed as the official grand opening of Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, just blocks from the White House. Trump's co-mingling of his business interests and presidential aspirations were on clear display in and around the glitzy ballroom where he spoke.

Speaking after daughter Ivanka, who has overseen the redevelopment of the Old Post Office building, Trump said the project "shows how to work with our government and to get things done. My theme today is five words: under budget and ahead of schedule. So important. We don't hear those words too often in government - but you will."

It was one of many instances in which he has simultaneously promoted his business and political interests. The last time Trump held a major public event at his hotel in the District was last month, when he acknowledged for the first time that President Obama was born in the United States.

On Tuesday, Trump staged a photo-op with employees of his Trump National Doral golf resort near Miami and sought to speak about both campaign themes and his company. He raised money at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach on Monday.

Trump's reference to Gingrich's Fox interview came after one of his top campaign aides made an apparent threat against Kelly via Twitter on Tuesday night.

Dan Scavino tweeted that Kelly "made a total fool out of herself tonight - attacking @realDonaldTrump. Watch what happens to her after this election is over."

When Gingrich raised objections in the interview to the level of coverage of the hacking of Clinton's emails, Kelly shot back: "That is worth covering. And we did."

Gingrich persisted: "I mean, you want to go back through the tapes of your show recently. You are fascinated with sex, and you don't care about public policy."

Trump said again on Wednesday that he will put $100 million of his own money into the campaign, adding that he is willing "to spend much more than that."

"I'll have over $100 million in the campaign," he told CNN. "Hillary Clinton has nothing in the campaign. She's all special interests and donors, and they give her the money and then she will do whatever they tell her to do. But I will have over $100 million in the campaign, and I am prepared to go much more than that."

On The Breakfast Club radio show on Wednesday, Clinton was asked why she thinks the historic nature of her candidacy isn't resonating more.

"I have tried to emphasize to people that, hey, just like President Obama was a really good president - and the fact that he was black, I think, was historic and unprecedented - but he also claimed and owned his excellence, and that's why I'm saying, 'OK - I think it's really exciting and historic that I would be the first woman president, but I have a lot of work I want to do.' And I hope that people will say, 'Hey, she's getting it done.' That's how I think about it."