BET Founder Says 2020 Election Is “Trump’s To Lose”

Millions of Americans slept in on Friday morning after spending the early morning hours battling their way to the front of the line to take advantage of those sweet, sweet Black Friday deals.

Meanwhile, CNBC interrupted its coverage of the holiday sales madness to bring Robert Johnson, the founder of BET, on for an interview with Hadley Gamble. Johnson is no stranger to CNBC: He appears every few months, usually to discuss how the mainstream media distorts minorities and their view of President Trump.

Though he didn’t dwell on whether he voted for Trump, Johnson insisted that the media has the narrative wrong, and that plenty of minorities – the target audience for BET (Black Entertainment Television) – actually like Trump (despite the insistence of Wealthy White Liberals that he has no support among communities of color) because of the president’s abrasive style.

“I think the president has always been in a position where it’s his to lose, based on the fact that he’s bringing a disruptive force into what would be considered political norms, whether it’s the way he conducts foreign policy, the way he takes on the government agencies and the way he takes on immigration – he brings his style. And a lot of people who voted for him like this style.”

Looking ahead to the 2020 vote, Johnson warned the Dems who are still jousting for the nomination not to focus so much on Trump’s style (i.e. what he says and what he tweets) but instead to focus on his actual policy decisions (tax cuts for the wealthy, stepped-up deportations), which Johnson believes are far less popular.

“What Democrats need to be careful about is to not focus on stylistic Trump, but to focus on substantive Trump,” Johnson said.

But at the end of the day, Johnson wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump steamroll the Dems once again (though he lost the popular vote in 2016, he won the electoral college by a substantial margin) because Trump has a special ability to dominate a news cycle – something that no other politician can accomplish.

These skills apparently take time to develop, since Trump has been working the media to his advantage since the late 1970s.

Meanwhile, there’s one pitfall that Dems must avoid: Accusing Trump’s supporters of being racists and bigots.

“His ability to dominate the news cycle and get the narrative going about what he said to me has sort of a double effect on the Democrats. First they get all agitated about what he said, then they extend that to the voters.”

“What they’re doing is they simply adding to his support by saying ‘Trump is bad, and if you support Trump, then you’re bad’ – which is a really silly way to talk to the American people.”

It might seem like common sense to the rest of us, but labeling nearly half the country as a bunch of evil nazi bigots is clearly not the best strategy for winning over the hearts and minds. Yet, that’s what many on the far-left flank of the Democratic Party would like to see happen.

Watch a clip from the interview below: