© 2024 KMUW
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
00000179-cdc6-d978-adfd-cfc6d7d40002Coverage of the issues, races and people shaping Kansas elections in 2016, including statewide coverage in partnership with KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, and High Plains Public Radio.

Brownback Says Trump Not Exploiting Racial Issues

Jim McLean
/
Heartland Health Monitor
Gov. Sam Brownback speaks during a news conference last week.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback says his support for Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump isn’t inconsistent with views on the racial issues that continue to divide America.

Brownback recently attended the opening ceremony for the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He was invited because he co-sponsored the bill that created the museum as a member of the U.S. Senate.

At a Statehouse news conference, Brownback talked about his hope that the museum could help lead to reconciliation of the racial issues that continue to divide America. And he rejected the contention that Trump’s campaign and the rhetoric surrounding it were deepening those divisions.

“Oh, I wouldn’t put him as a catalyst any more than I’d put Hillary Clinton as a catalyst," Brownback said. "You’ve got divisions that continue to exist in the country.”

But Oletha Faust-Goudeau, the only African-American woman in the Kansas Senate, says Trump’s campaign has raised racial tensions, telling the Wichita Eagle that the GOP presidential nominee has pulled the scab off America’s still-festering racial wounds.