Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who is reportedly on former President Donald Trump’s shortlist for a running mate, hit back at Democrats on Wednesday, calling them liars for taking his words out of context regarding comments he made about Black families in the Jim Crow era.

“America, Joe Biden’s campaign is lying to you once again and gaslighting,” Donalds said Wednesday in a video posted on X. “Now they’re trying to say that I said Black people were doing better under Jim Crow. I never said that. They are lying. But why would you be surprised? Because they always lie. This is the same Joe Biden that said if you don’t vote for him, then you ain’t Black. The man is a liar.”

In addition to the Congressional Black Caucus calling on Donalds to apologize, the campaign of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris; House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.; and other Democrats slammed Donalds after claiming his comments insinuated Black families were better off in the Jim Crow era of racial discrimination in the South.

The Biden-Harris HQ account on X posted: “Trump VP contender Byron Donalds claims life was better for Black Americans ‘during Jim Crow,’” with a video of Donalds saying, “You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people always have been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively. Then HEW [the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare], Lyndon Johnson, and you go down that road and now we are where we are.”

Jeffries in a post on X wrote, “Rep. Byron Donalds made the ignorant observation that Black people were better off under Jim Crow. Fact check.” He included a video of him criticizing Donalds on the House floor.

The Hill reported the CBC said in a statement Wednesday that Donalds “knows all too well” that Black people were not better off during the Jim Crow era.

But it was just a portion of what Donalds said overall at a campaign stop in Philadelphia regarding a burgeoning middle class among Black families in the past 10 years. He never said they were better off under Jim Crow — discrimination laws created by Southern Democrats in the late 1800s that relegated Black people to second-class status — but that things got worse under the welfare state created by Democrats and President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s.

“What I said was is that you had more Black families under Jim Crow, and it was the Democrat policies under HEW, under the welfare state that did help to destroy the Black family,” Donalds said in the video. “That’s what I said. And I also said you’ve seen a reinvigoration of Black families today in America. And that is a good thing. So don’t listen to the lies of the Biden administration.”

In a video he posted on X of his comments at the campaign event, Donalds talked about how growing up, he wanted “to be a father to my sons.” He then observed a cultural and political shift regarding the invigoration of Black families.

“That is also helping to breed the revival of a Black middle class in America,” Donalds said, before his comments about Jim Crow.

After the Jim Crow comments, he said, “What’s happened in America the last 10 years is … you’re starting to see more Black people be married, in homes, raising kids.”

Newsmax reached out to the Congressional Black Caucus, the Biden-Harris campaign, and Jeffries for comment.

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