On Saturday morning, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attended a worship service at Great Faith Ministries, a black church located in Detroit, Michigan.
Safe to say, not everyone was happy to see him.
Protesters, including pastors from the community, greeted Trump as he arrived at the church.
“What do you have to lose?” the crowd asked.
“Everything,” they answered.
The chant was a direct mockery of Trump’s repeated pitch to black voters.
“You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?” Trump asked African Americans a few weeks ago while talking to an overwhelmingly white audience in Dimondale, Michigan.
That message is apparently not resonating as well as Trump may have hoped.
“He’s a racist, he’s a bigot, he’s a misogynist, and he’s a hater of men,” one man yelled through a megaphone on Saturday. “He shouldn’t be over here trying to get the black people’s vote. We are against him.
“Dump the Trump! Dump the Trump!”
Protests erupt outside a Detroit church ahead of Donald Trump's visit https://t.co/3BkfxHOju5 https://t.co/mnELfZ7O1C
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 3, 2016
Omarosa Manigualt, the former Apprentice contestant and current director of African American outreach for the Trump campaign, and Dr. Ben Carson, the former Republican presidential candidate and Detroit native, appeared with Trump at the service.
Trump gave an exclusive interview with Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, which will air on Jackson’s Impact Network in the coming week.
Donald Trump is in the front row and swaying back and forth to the worship music.
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) September 3, 2016
After enjoying the service with the partially-filled congregation, Trump gave a short, controlled speech about the importance of the black church and the need for the country to unite.
“I will always support your church, always, and defend your right to worship,” he said. “Christian faith is not the past, it is the present and future.”
He also acknowledged the discrimination that African Americans have faced, and stated that he would bring jobs back to the Detroit community.
But while the atmosphere inside the church was jovial, not everyone was buying it.
“He’s run a campaign basically saying Latinos are not welcome in this country, he’s tried to pit Latinos against black people, gays against Muslims,” Detroit pastor Mark Thompson told CNN after the service ended. “This is not acceptable under any circumstances.”
Thompson then rolled off a list of all the things that African Americans stand to lose if Trump is elected, most notably health insurance (if Obamacare is repealed) and voting rights.
Trump has only gotten more unpopular among African Americans the closer to Election Day. An NBC and Wall Street Journal poll last month reported that Trump had one percent favorability among black voters. Last week, another poll from Public Policy Polling put that support at zero.