2016 Not in my house, pastor tells Trump The GOP nominee was rebuked for attacking Clinton in a black church.

FLINT, Mich. — Donald Trump's last minute attempt to win over African-American voters veered off course Wednesday afternoon when the pastor of a historically black church cut him off mid-stump speech, reminding him that he had not been invited there to deliver a political speech.

“Hillary Clinton failed on the economy, just like she has failed on foreign policy. Everything she touched didn’t work out, nothing,” Trump told 50 or so people inside Bethel United Methodist Church.


The Rev. Faith Green-Timmons, an African-American pastor in this predominantly Democratic city, didn't want to hear it and stepped in to stop him.

“Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done in Flint,” Green-Timmons said as she approached Trump. “Not to give a political speech.”

A chastened Trump quickly looked to smooth things over.

“OK, that’s good. I’m going to go back onto Flint,” he said, pivoting back to a discussion of the city’s troubles with a lead-contaminated infrastructure that has left its water supply undrinkable. “Flint's pain is a result of so many different failures.”

Trump is attempting to fit Flint's water problem into his broader argument that government incompetency is to blame for most problems and that he will be able to fix things. But as he was wrapping up, a few people seated in the pews had questions.

“You’ve discriminated against black tenants,” one said, seeming to reference a New York Times report detailing how Trump and his father frequently denied African-Americans applying to buy or rent in their buildings.

“No, I never,” Trump said, as he was leaving.

Flint’s water crisis drew attention and visits from Clinton and Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary but not from Republicans until Wednesday. But Trump’s short-but-messy visit is the latest evidence of the difficulties he faces in making headway with African-American voters, a bloc that has almost completely written him off according to polls showing him winning under 5 percent of the black vote.

Less than two weeks after his visit to a black church in Detroit, Trump alighted here in hardscrabble Flint for under two hours Wednesday afternoon, squeezing in two quick stops between his morning Dr. Oz taping in Manhattan and an evening rally in Canton, Ohio.

Before heading to the church, Trump took a 15-minute tour of the now-shuttered water treatment center that was responsible for lead contamination. With a few television cameras and reporters in tow, he offered brief remarks from a page of notes and thanked the "very, very good executives."

Trump’s ad hoc Flint trip was put together by Armstrong Williams, a former aide to Ben Carson, both of whom have been enlisted to assist Trump with his last-ditch outreach efforts. But the city’s mayor, a Democrat, dismissed the visit to the water plant as a “photo op” earlier this week.

A few dozen supporters lined the street adjacent to the airport as Trump’s SUV whisked him away, but as he traveled through Flint, African-American residents stood in front of their homes watching Trump's motorcade go by. One pointed to the windshield of his car and the Obama-Biden sign he’d placed there as Trump pulled into the church.

Across the street, 100 more people lined the sidewalk and held Clinton and Obama signs.

In a statement, Green-Timmons made it clear to the media that she welcomed Trump because her church welcomes all people and cherished the opportunity to remind the nation about the crisis her city is coping with.

“Trump’s presence at Bethel Methodist in no way represents an endorsement of his candidacy,” she said.

Hours later during a raucous rally before a mostly white crowd Wednesday evening in Canton, Ohio, Trump spoke from a teleprompter about his afternoon in Flint, presenting himself as a concerned and concerned candidate willing to campaign in Democratic areas and offering a plan for the inner cities.

“Today, I went to Flint to address the water crisis,” Trump said, mixing in a reference to Ford’s announcement earlier Wednesday that it is moving all of its small vehicle production to factories in Mexico.

“It used to be cars were made in Flint and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico,” Trump said. “Now cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint.”

Trump had debuted the line earlier inside the church, but drew little reaction. Inside the old arena in Canton where supporters stood for 20 minutes of Trump’s speech before sitting down, the crowd roared its approval — as it did when he vowed to build a border wall and stop the inflow of immigrants and refugees.

“We don’t know where these people come from, we don’t know if they have love or hate in their heart and there’s no way to tell,” Trump said.

“Get ‘em out,” one man screamed out.

The enthusiasm stemmed in part from new polls released earlier in the day that showed Trump opening up a lead over Clinton in Ohio, one of four swing states he has to win in order to defeat Clinton on Nov. 8.

Trump did seem to reference the lukewarm response he received in Flint, albeit obliquely.

"Now I understand there are going to be some people in these communities who aren't planning on voting for me, and that's ok," he said. "I will campaign hard for their votes anyway."

