ArcaMax

Debating Donald Trump is like boxing with smoke. You may have the facts on your side, but for this Republican presidential candidate, facts are mostly beside the point.

Take, for example, his recent slap at President Barack Obama's legacy. Americans won't elect another black president for a long time, Trump said in an interview on ABC News Sunday, because of Obama's "poor standard."

"I think that he has set a very poor standard," Trump said. "I think that he has set a very low bar and I think it's a shame for the African-American people."

On income levels and unemployment, Obama "has done nothing for African-Americans" he continued. "They are worse now than just about ever."

Well, it didn't take PolitiFact.com long to shoot down Trump's assertions as "false." Black unemployment, for example, "improved significantly" from 12.7 percent when Obama entered office to 9.5 percent this June. Just imagine, Obama's supporters would say, what he could have done with a cooperative Congress.

Yet the TV interview question came from a gloomy assertion Trump made on Twitter last November. "Sadly, because President Obama has done such a poor job as president," Trump tweeted, "you won't see another black president for generations!"

Oh? Does Trump really think America's voters -- who, by the way, elected Obama twice with more than 50 percent of the popular vote -- would be that racist? Probably not. But to his support base, there's no need to let a shortage of facts get in the way of a sharp poke at Obama.

Yet Trump expects strong support from voters of color who the Republican establishment fears he will push away. "I think that I will win the African-American vote," he said, "and I think I will win the Hispanic vote."

That makes one of us, Don.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, for example, found 75 percent of Hispanics polled in Nevada viewed Trump negatively -- and 61 percent viewed him "very negatively."

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