Block is a Trump supporter who said during a 2013 community forum on racism that people of color needed to pull themselves up "by their bootstraps" like they did in the "old days." Both Block and Burris met with Trump on his private plane at Toledo Express Airport in September 2016 after a campaign rally. Block was also called out by reporters in the newsroom for asking that the term "vulgar language" be removed from the first paragraph of an Associated Press story about Trump's vulgar language.