Former President Donald Trump said he is “very honored” after he purportedly received an early 2024 endorsement from a Black man claiming to be a top activist in Black Lives Matter — the social justice movement that Trump continually blasted during his term as protests gripped the country in 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd.
Naturally, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who is debating California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday evening, didn’t miss the chance to call out Trump’s flip flopping.
Word of the surprise endorsement emerged Nov. 28 after self-proclaimed political activist Mark Fisher, who says he co-founded a BLM organization in Rhode Island, expressed his support for Trump during an interview with “Fox & Friends” while complaining about Biden-era policies.
“Personally, I love the man,” Fisher said of Trump during his brief segment on the air. “I mean, how could you not like a real man? How could you not relate to someone like that?”
During the impromptu chat, Fisher said “everybody else sucks” in the race compared to Trump, who wasted no time embracing the shaky endorsement in a message to his platform, Truth Social, saying he spoke with Fisher and came away from the conversation feeling that he was a “great guy.”
“Very honored to have his and BLM’s support,” Trump wrote, before claiming to have “done more for Black people than any other president” since Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in the United States, a claim that also stirred controversy and rumblings in the Black community during his presidency.
Later, Gary Dantzler — the leader of Black Lives Matter Rhode Island — disputed Fisher’s claim that he co-founded the social justice group, however, he did acknowledge that Fisher once worked for the organization for a short time before he was ultimately let go.
“Mark Fisher stated he was one of the co-founders of BLM,” Dantzler told the Providence Journal, without going into much detail. “Absolutely not. He was a respected advocate for BLM. That’s it. And he was paid and somewhere he got fired and demoted.”
In another interview on the “Kim Iversen Show,” Fisher said that Black voters have been “used and abused” by Democrats for too long, accusing Democrats of failing to “value” the Black vote — a sentiment that many voices in the Black community are beginning to express more in the buildup to 2024.
“I feel like the tide is starting to turn,” Fisher said Tuesday. “I feel like a lot of Black people are starting to pivot off of that Democratic plantation. For so long, we’ve been slaves to that party. Actually, we’ve been mental slaves afraid to get off of that plantation.”
Fisher finds himself embroiled in controvery, with many in the official Black Lives Matter movement painting him as an impostor.
He is listed as the founder of BLM Inc., a separate independent entity that purported to represent the broader Black Lives Matter Movement, led by Fisher — a relatively unknown former staffer with a few loose-knit connections on the national stage.
The website for BLM Inc. states the group is “not affiliated with any other Black Lives Matter Movement.”
The Black Lives Matter Foundation also sought to discredit Fisher, calling him a political operative who was trying to pull an obvious “publicity stunt.”
“The right-wing continues to use and amplify fringe Black voices to create an idea of broad support for their corrupt candidates,” the foundation fumed in a statement to Business Insider, adding that Fisher’s operation is “illegitimate.”
“Anyone can start an organization and add the words Black Lives Matter to it in an attempt to muddy the waters of our movement, as Mark Fisher did,” the foundation emphasized in the scathing rebuke that also labeled Trump a “terrorist who committed treason and tried to subvert American democracy.”
“He is no friend to Black people seeking to live in a just society,” the group said.
Trump’s sudden embrace was an astonishing reversal from his position in 2020 when he blasted New York City’s decision to paint ‘Black Lives Matter” in front of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, calling the popular rallying cry a “symbol of hate.”
DeSantis, who is challenging Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination for president, used the moment to underscore the former president’s hypocrisy for accepting an endorsement from the very organization he assailed throughout his political career.
“BLM praising Donald Trump — and Trump celebrating it — makes perfect sense,” DeSantis posted on the platform X, while pointing out that he called the National Guard during BLM-led protests throughout 2020, when several high-profile police killings ignited the movement and led to violent protests in every corner of the country.
BLM praising Donald Trump — and Trump celebrating it — makes perfect sense.
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) November 29, 2023
When BLM was burning down cities and assaulting police officers in cities across this country, Trump did nothing but sit in the White House tweeting “LAW & ORDER!”
We did it differently in Florida. I… pic.twitter.com/bh83GxxNZH
“When BLM was burning down cities and assaulting police officers in cities across this country, Trump did nothing but sit in the White House tweeting ‘LAW & ORDER!’” DeSantis exclaimed. “We did it differently in Florida. I didn’t just tweet.”
