Trump Campaign Top Surrogate Tweets Image Of Hillary Clinton In Blackface

Mark Burns, the fiery, black pastor who has been a regular warmup act at Donald Trump's rallies, tweeted a cartoon of Hillary Clinton in blackface with words that only underscored the blatant racism of the image.

The image of Clinton came with these words: "Black Americans, THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOTES and letting me use you again..See you again in 4 years."

Clinton is pictured holding up a sign that says "#@!** the police"; wearing a shirt that reads "No hot sauce no peace!"; and saying, "I ain't no ways tired of pandering to African Americans."

Following a pattern established by Trump, Burns first defended the tweet, then deleted it, then said he's sorry — sort of.

Patch has chosen not to run the image, but you can view it here.

The tweet has been widely decried as racist:

"The picture is designed to draw attention to the very fact that Hillary Clinton does pander to black people," he told MSNBC. "She does pander and the policies are not good for African-Americans. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do. We're not playing the political PC game to make you feel good."

Hours later, though, Burns apologized in a Periscope broadcast to his nearly 28,000 Twitter followers.

Burns said, “I regret the offensiveness of the black face,” but not the message of the tweet.

“I still stand by what the image represents, but I think that, you know, I should have used better judgment,” he said.

One tweet he didn't delete?

An image from a supporter purporting to show Clinton and her husband, Bill, at a college party with Clinton dressed in blackface. A simple Google search would have told him the image is not Bill or Hillary.

Burns retweeted the image anyway.

Burns is becoming a regular figure on the campaign trail for Trump. His message went national when he delivered an impassioned speech and invocation before the Republican National Convention in July. Last week, he appeared before Trump took the stage at a rally in Jackson, Mississippi.

Trump and his surrogates have been courting black Americans with an aggressiveness that has managed to be overcome by the campaign's clumsiness.

The net result: Blacks still dislike Trump in historic numbers.

His newest pitch line to blacks (delivered at almost entirely white rallies): "What do you have to lose?"

"You're living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed," he told black voters two weeks ago in Michigan. "What the hell do you have to lose?"

Recent national polling has pegged his support among black voters in the low single digits, if it registers at all. A Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday showed Trump with a negligible favorability rating among black voters, while 97 percent had an unfavorable view of him, and 3 percent said they are unsure.

The poll was conducted between Aug. 26 and 28 and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Image via Debrareneelee, used under Creative Commons