Donald Trump on Monday afternoon said that his private meeting with black religious leaders went well, despite public statements from numerous pastors who attended the event condemning the Republican presidential candidate’s treatment of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I saw love in that room. I see love everywhere I go,” Trump told reporters after the event, according to CNN.
“This meeting was amazing. Amazing people,” he continued. “The meeting went so much longer, and it went longer only because of the love. It didn’t go longer for other reasons.”
Some of the pastors who attended the meeting do support Trump, including former “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault, who is now an ordained minister.
But many of the religious leaders who met with Trump on Monday criticized his rhetoric.
“It’s very unfortunate the way he has talked to not just the African-American community but the things he has said about women, Mexicans and Muslims,” Ohio Pastor Victor Couzens told reporters, according to CNN. “What’s more discouraging than the things that he has said is the fact that in the face of him saying all these things, he continues to surge in the polls. That really concerns me.”
Bishop Orrin Pullings, a pastor based in Richmond, Virginia, told Politico that many at the meeting asked Trump to apologize.
“Our community really wants him to be sensitive with the way he handles people and they feel he’s insensitive,” he said. “We told him that you are insensitive in appearance to our community and that’s not a good position. He listened to us and you know, I think Donald Trump is a very good listener.”
Pullings added that a few pastors at the event told Trump never to apologize, according to Politico.
Trump’s campaign had originally planned for a press conference following the private meeting, touting 100 endorsements from black religious leaders. But after numerous pastors set to attend made it clear that they would not endorse the real estate mogul, the campaign cancelled the press conference.
