Trump says black voters who didn't vote 'almost as good' as those who voted for him

President-elect Donald Trump stopped in Grand Rapids, Michigan as part of his “thank you” tour last night, during which he spent and inordinate amount of time rambling about his win, giving a play-by-play of election night. When he thanked women, Latinx and black voters, he made a particularly chilling statement considering the GOP effort to suppress the votes of minorities and low income people and his own campaign’s effort to discourage black people from voting.

“The African-American community was great to us,” Trump told the crowd last night. “They came through, big league. Big league. And frankly if they had any doubt, they didn’t vote, and that was almost as good because a lot of people didn’t show up, because they felt good about me.”

This comes alongside an effort in Michigan to pass a particularly strict voter ID laws. Under the legislation passed by one chamber in the state house earlier this week, “Michigan voters without photo identification could still cast a provisional ballot under the controversial legislation, but they would have to bring an ID to their local clerk’s office within 10 days of an election in order for their vote to count,” according to the Detriot News.

Democratic State Rep. Jeff Irwin hit the nail on the head when he told the paper, “There’s going to be arguments, voters aren’t going to understand, and long lines are going to get even longer. Maybe that’s the point.”

During the stop in Michigan, Trump also paid what seemed to be brief lip service to the water crisis in Flint between promises of bringing jobs back to the region.

“It used to be the cars were made in Flint and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico,” he said. “Now the cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint. We’re gonna change that.”