Clyburn says 'voter suppression' is only way Biden can lose, claims to have had 'complaints all day'

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Rep. Clyburn says he will 'pray' for Black Trump voters

House Majority Whip dismisses polls suggesting growing Trump support among African-American voters

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., told Fox News on Sunday he would "pray" for Black Trump voters and flatly stated that the only way Democrat Joe Biden could lose the election would be "for voter suppression to be successful."

"I have had complaints all day today," Clyburn told Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum on the "Democracy 2020 Election Preview Special". "Professional football players from my home state cannot vote because their ballots have not been delivered to them. They can't come home to vote because they are in lockdown because of COVID-19 ...

"So I already know some Biden voters here in South Carolina are not going to be  allowed to vote simply because the postal service has been undercut by the  Postmaster General," Clyburn added.

MacCallum pushed back by telling Clyburn that "you've had absentee ballots available for months and also voter drop boxes where people can just walk right up and put it  just right in the box."

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"South Carolina has got voter drop boxes?" Clyburn asked. "I wish you would show them to me. I've been in South Carolina for all of my 80 years. We do not have voter drop boxes. That is how lies get out."

"Well, it is my understanding that every state has them," MacCallum responded. "If South Carolina doesn't, that is a big question that South Carolina should address immediately, because it is my understanding that every state has them."

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"We tried very hard to get voter drop boxes and the legislature would not approve them," Clyburn explained. "No, we don't have voter drop boxes.  That's why I am saying when this campaign is over, we need to go to work and say ... for federal elections, Congress and president, there must be drop boxes."

Clyburn was apparently referring to Democrats’ failed attempt to mandate drop boxes statewide earlier this year. Individual counties in South Carolina have set up stations for people to drop off paper ballots.

Later in the interview, Baier asked Clyburn to address the latest Fox News poll that showed Trump receiving 14% of the Black vote nationally. 

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"I don't know where those polls come from ... " Clyburn responded. "I can tell you what, and I feel this sincerely ... I'm the father of three Black women. I am the son of a Black woman. If any Black man can go in a polling place and cast a vote for a man who referred to a Black woman as a dog on national television, I'm going to have to pray for them. I will have to pray for them. I don't know of any man [who] can abide that kind of disrespect and insult."

Clyburn was referring to a 2018 tweet from President Trump where he criticized former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman, calling her a “crazed, crying lowlife" and a "dog" over the release of her White House tell-all. 

Since then, Trump has made a concentrated push to shrink the so-called racial gap among voters after losing Black Americans by 85 points to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

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"What you're saying here is, essentially, what Joe Biden said on that radio show, that if you're Black and you vote for Trump, quote, 'you ain't Black,'" Baier told Clyburn later in the interview. "That's what he said. He later apologized for that, but you're sending the same message to African-Americans who may have a different choice in this election."

"What I said was. any man that calls one of my three daughters a dog, I would never vote for them, and I don't understand any Black man that would vote for anybody that refers to a Black woman [that way]," Clyburn maintained. "All of us that I know are sons of Black women. I don't stand for that kind of insult for my mothers, my sisters or my children."