Donald Trump had a "wonderful time" in Detroit over the weekend, the GOP presidential nominee's surrogate Pastor Darrell Scott said Monday, joking that he was "actually on beat when he clapped" in church.
"They saw a side of Donald Trump that I have been seeing for years," Scott, the pastor of the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland, told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program.
"They saw his sincerity," said Scott of those attending a service and his address at the Great Faith International Ministries church in Detroit on Saturday. "They saw his, and this is a term that a lot of people don't expect, but they saw his humility and his graciousness and his down-to-Earth demeanor. He had a wonderful time. In fact, he had a great time."
Scott said he rode with Trump and Dr. Ben Carson in the motorcade after his address at the church, when they went to Carson's childhood house.
"We had a wonderful time," Scott said. "His reflections on the meeting were very pleasant. He remarked at how well the pastor's wife could sing and how much he enjoyed the church service."
Scott said Trump's car almost even stopped to buy barbecue from a street vendor, but "the entire motorcade would have had to stop."
Overall, said Scott, Trump's visit and attitude were "genuine. He didn't feel uncomfortable or uneasy at all. He had a great time at church. I mean, he was actually on beat when he clapped."
Scott also said the people criticizing Trump's visit and claiming he made it to pander to
African-American voters "don't know what they're talking about."
"In December of 2015, I led a group of 108 pastors to New York to meet with Donald Trump at Trump Tower, and Terry Arnold, the president of the Impact Network was in attendance," Scott said. "Right there back in December of 2015, Mr. Trump made a promise to the Impact Network that when I do begin to engage African-Americans on their platform I will engage Impact, because Impact is the largest African-American owned and operated gospel network in America."
Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the pastor at the Detroit church where Trump spoke on Saturday, is also the president and CEO of the Impact Network and interviewed Trump. The New York Times reported last week that Trump was initially to be interviewed by Jackson in a closed-door session, but that the Trump campaign prepared answers for questions that had already been submitted.
When Trump found that Jackson was having church services on Saturday, he decided he wanted to attend that service as well, said Scott.
"He did what is standard in broadcasting," said Scott. "They did a pre-interview, so to speak, by providing him with the type of questions that would be asked. And then, he had been given advice by his handlers and team about what type of answers would be suspicious."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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