Forbes yanks article speculating Trump could gain Black voters by being shot

A controversial opinion article in Forbes has been withdrawn that asked whether former President Donald Trump could gain with Black voters due to the failed attempt to shoot him at his Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.

According to The Washington Post, the article, titled "Will Surviving Gunfire Be Donald Trump's Next Appeal To Black Voters?" has been widely panned as offensive to Black Americans and disavowed by the editorial team, with the Forbes union posting to X, "This post does not represent who we, @ForbesUnion, are as a newsroom, or our ethical and journalistic principles."

For his part, author Shaun Harper, a University of Southern California professor and diversity, equity and inclusion authority, has said that the article meant to state the opposite of what the title implied. Harper, who himself is Black, said the article was trying to say Trump could try to use the shooting in a pitch to Black voters, not that Black voters would actually find it a compelling reason to vote for him.

This is not the first time, however, that a controversy has erupted over how Trump's efforts to appeal to Black voters, who according to polls, remain President Joe Biden's strongest voting bloc, but who also could shift to the right in 2024.

Read also: Donald Trump starts fundraising off his own assassination attempt

In February, after Trump hawked pairs of gold sneakers, Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo caught flack on social media for suggesting: "This is connecting with Black America because they love sneakers."

"This a big deal, certainly in the inner city," Arroyo said. "So when you have Trump roll out his sneaker line, they're like, 'Wait a minute, this is cool.' He's reaching them on a level that defies and is above politics. The culture always trumps politics. And Trump understands culture like no politician I've ever seen."

More recently, Trump suggested that Black voters might like him more now because they can relate to him being criminally indicted. And at the Atlanta debate last month, Trump triggered outrage among some Black commentators by saying Biden allowed in migrants who took "Black jobs" — with some inferring he considered Black people suited to low-paid agricultural labor.