NAACP: Trump declines offer to address civil rights group
ATLANTA — The NAACP says Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has declined an invitation to address the group’s upcoming convention, flouting established precedent and highlighting anew the GOP standard-bearer’s struggle to attract support from nonwhite voters.
NAACP president Cornell William Brooks told CNN Tuesday that Trump had declined the group’s invitation to speak at the Cincinnati gathering, scheduled from Saturday through Wednesday. Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is slated to speak there next Monday, which is also opening day of the Republican National Convention across the state in Cleveland.
The Trump campaign did not respond immediately Tuesday night to an Associated Press request for comment.
Brooks said the Trump campaign cited scheduling conflicts with the GOP convention, where Trump will formally accept the party’s nomination. Brooks argued Trump should have made the time amid the racially charged fallout of videotaped killings of black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, followed by the killings of five Dallas police officers by a black sniper.