Rep. Cedric Richmond Denies Ice Cube’s Claim He Was Told To Hold Off Demands Until After Election

Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond is denying a claim by the rapper Ice Cube that he was told by Joe Biden’s campaign to wait until after the election to make his demands for the Black community.

The rapper, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, tried to get a meeting with both presidential campaigns to discuss his Contract With Black America, a set of laws and actions to ensure the future success of Black Americans that Jackson wants political campaigns to agree to before receiving Black support.

Trump adviser, Jared Kushner, met with Jackson to discuss his plan and added some of Jackson’s demands to President Trump’s Platinum Plan. However, Jackson received significant backlash for meeting with a Trump campaign member, but Jackson defended his action on Twitter.

Facts: I put out the CWBA. Both parties contacted me. Dems said we’ll address the CWBA after the election. Trump campaign made some adjustments to their plan after talking to us about the CWBA.

— Ice Cube (@icecube) October 14, 2020

Now, Richmond is calling Jackson a liar. According to Yahoo Finance, Richmond, who also serves as Biden’s campaign co-chair, appeared on SiriusXM’s The Joe Madison Show and flat out denied that the campaign told Jackson it would get back to him after the election.

“I like the fact that Ice Cube is getting engaged in policy,” Richmond told Madison. “I think that is a good thing, however, once you embark on getting into it, one, you have to be truthful, but two, you have an obligation, I think, to see it through and to be thorough with it. Our plan is very thorough. I won’t say he has a skeleton plan, but he has an outline of things, he has an outline of things that should be done.

“It’s not as comprehensive as our plan. And so that’s what we told him, and the offer to stay engaged was not, ‘we’ll talk to you after the election.’ It went like this: ‘Here’s my cell number, anything else you want to talk about on this plan or anything you think, you know, we need to talk about further, just pick up the phone and call.”

Richmond did praise Jackson for getting involved and being willing to talk, but added that Jackson talking to the Trump campaign is not an endorsement of Trump.

Since Biden won the Democratic primary, he has made promises to Black Americans and followed through, including choosing Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate and vowing to put a Black woman on the Supreme Court. Biden’s Black American support today is larger than it was for Hillary Clinton at this time in 2016, however, FiveThirtyEight reported Trump’s support among Black and Hispanic Americans has also increased.

According to NPR, more than 66 million Americans have already voted, smashing previous records in what is expected to be a close election.