Byron Donalds accuses Joy Reid of 'gaslighting' her audience as he defends Jim Crow comments in tense interview

Republican Rep. Byron Donalds got into a heated speech Thursday nighttime with MSNBC's Joy Reid implicit comments that seemingly suggested achromatic families had it amended during the Jim Crow epoch than they bash nether President Joe Biden. 

At an lawsuit successful Philadelphia Tuesday, the congressman - who's been floated arsenic a VP prime for erstwhile President Donald Trump - said 'during Jim Crow the achromatic household was together' and noted that 'more achromatic radical voted conservatively.'

Reid asked however that clip play - which started successful 1867 and stretched until the 1960s, erstwhile achromatic radical successful the South were diminished to 2nd people citizens - was a 'golden epoch for achromatic families.' 

The 2 talked successful raised voices implicit each other, arsenic Donalds told Reid it was 'gaslighting' and 'twisting my words,' aft helium was criticized by a fig of achromatic Democratic and civilian rights leaders, arsenic good arsenic President Joe Biden's campaign.

'I ne'er said that it was amended for achromatic radical successful Jim Crow. I person ne'er said that. And adjacent my ain words accidental that,' Donalds told the MSNBC host. 

'If you're talking astir the value of achromatic fathers successful the location oregon frankly each fathers successful the location it is ever for the betterment of children to person leadership,' helium continued. 

Throughout the interview, Reid pressed, 'What was the authorization of the achromatic begetter successful the household during Jim Crow?' 

She work to the Florida Republican a grisly communicative from 1943 of 15-year-old Willie James Howard, a achromatic Florida boy, who was forced by a radical of achromatic men to leap disconnected a span aft a emotion enactment Howard had written to a achromatic miss was discovered.

'Willie jumped into the acold h2o beneath and drowned portion his begetter was forced to ticker astatine gunpoint. Willie's dormant assemblage was pulled from the stream the adjacent day,' Reid read from an Equal Justice Initiative account. 

Reid besides work a punctuation from a Mississippi segregationist who wrote astir the 'policy of crushing retired the manhood of the Negro citizens was to beryllium carried retired with success.'

'So the antheral during Jim Crow had nary rights, could not support his woman from rape, could not support his lad from lynchings,' Reid said. 'So, again, wherefore would you punctuation that epoch and accidental astatine that clip the household each being successful the location unneurotic was thing we should deliberation astir arsenic a bully thing?' 

Donalds relented and said Howard's communicative was a 'tragedy - 1 of the large tragedies of the Jim Crow era' adding that it was 'disgusting and distasteful.' 

At this constituent the interrogation devolved into the Reid and Donalds talking implicit each other, with Reid telling the congressman, 'It's my show.' 

Overall, Donalds pushed that during the Jim Crow epoch the 'marriage rates of achromatic Americans was importantly higher than immoderate different clip since then.'

'They person plummeted. And what we've seen precocious successful America, which is simply a precise bully happening we should each observe is that the matrimony rates successful the achromatic assemblage are rising again,' the Florida Republican said. 'That's bully for achromatic families, that's decidedly bully for achromatic children.'

'It's thing I privation to see, I'm rather definite you privation to spot it arsenic well,' the congressman added. 

On Wednesday, Fox News reported that Trump has narrowed down his vice statesmanlike hunt to 7 hopefuls - they see Donalds, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida's Marco Rubio, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and erstwhile Trump HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

Of that group, 3 are achromatic men - and if picked and elected would service arsenic the nation's archetypal antheral achromatic vice president.  

President Barack Obama was the country's archetypal achromatic president and the existent vice president, Kamala Harris, is some the archetypal pistillate and archetypal vice president of color.