My next guest is someone who knows exactly what it's like to be targeted by Donald Trump. He was one of the five teenagers wrongly accused of raping a jogger in New York Central Park in 1989. After that attack, then-businessman Donald Trump took out this full-page ad in several of the city's papers that read, quote, Bring back the death penalty. Bring back our police. Except, as we now know, the Central Park Five didn't do it. They were exonerated in 2002. Yusuf Salam, one of the exonerated five, and now a New York City Council member is here with me tonight. I'm so glad you're here because as someone who knows what it's like for Donald Trump to attack you, you were 16 years old at the time, I should remind everyone. What's it like to see him doing what he's doing now, 35 years later?

When I think about a person like Donald Trump who is using his power to influence judgment, I follow a faith as a Muslim that tells us that we shouldn't use our power to influence judgment. Here it is, 35 years ago for me, 1989, what he did by placing an ad in New York City's newspapers had a domino effect where people The way I describe it, really, is that it was a whisper into the darkest enclaves of society for them to do to us what they had done to Emmett Till. We have a long history of oppression in this country when it comes to Black people in general. When I think about a person like Donald Trump who's in power, who's trying to use his influence to affect the outcome of elections, to be a person who says, Look at this shiny apple and that be a sneaker, or any of the other things. That whisper, that influence that causes people to say, well, I'll take care of it and hope, and I'm saying the people that do this, hope that they will garner the favor of a president that is moving tyrannical like that.

You You talked about in that moment how it felt like he was directing people toward you, and you were scared. You were at home. You're with your family. You're 16 years old. You brought this letter tonight that you got from an anonymous person. Could you just read it for me to share what someone said to me?

I carry this with me as a reminder that I can't live in fear. I have to live full so that I can die empty. But this letter right here says, The Lord will punish Youssef for what he did to that poor defenseless girl. And then directing their attention to my mother, You will also be punished for raising such an animal. He does not deserve to live, and neither do you. Folks sent this to us. They sent us letters like this. I have a whole billfold full of them. And it was all on the heels of that ad that Donald Trump placed in New York City's newspapers. Even folks like Pat Buchanon and said, Well, let's just take Cory Wise and hang him from a tree in Central Park. And he was urging us to do this by June first.

And they sent that to your house?

Yes.

I mean, it makes your stomach turn to think of you as a 16-year-old knowing you didn't do this, reading that, and for your mom to have to read that.

The worst part is that my mother did read this, and she kept this away from me. I didn't even know this was in my apartment. For the whole time that I was in prison, I came home to a box of letters that I had sent my mother, and attached to them was a little stack of mail that contained all of these letters. And as I read them, the first thing I thought was how strong my mother could have been to still continue forward, unafraid, unapologetic, standing up for herself, standing up for me, standing up for my brother and my sister. And she's always been like that. I think that that's the real strength of what these types of things potentially can do. But when you push back, that fear that they're trying to posit inside of you is false evidence appearing real.

And it must make you, I mean, to think of the judge's daughter here. She worked for Democratic campaigns, but she's being targeted by name, by Donald Trump, as you all were as well. I mean, there was this moment from Trump back then as a businessman, and I just want to remind people the things that he was saying about you all.

Do I have hatred for them? And I said, Look, this woman was raped, mugged, and thrown off a building. Thrown off a building on top of everything else. She's virtually got some major problems, to put it mildly. I said, Of course, I hate these people. And let's all hate these people because maybe hate is what we need if we're going to get something done.

I think just listening to I think of the power he had then now, the influence as this big-shot business guy in New York. But to now, he's a former president who may be President again.

Wow. I'm lost for words, but unfortunately, and I hate to say this, this is as American as apple pie. This is America. When we look at the history of America, when we look at the fact that good people who have tried to advance us into becoming a United States of America, and there are people that continue to divide us, that continue to make sure that even though we're in the melting pot of the kaleidoscope of the human family, that there's great opportunity here for us to be able to thrive. But yet oppression keeps the foot or the knee or the hand around our necks, disallowing us to really reach the full potential. When people use their influence and power to to keep people afraid to even stand up or say anything and even directing that vitriol at their family members who have nothing to do with anything associated with the judgment, this is where the real problem lies. And I think we need more good people to do the right thing to ensure, in fact, and really to know that you will be protected by the hedge of God, that you are here to do a very specific That was a specific thing.

Even in a country that says you're innocent until proven guilty, I didn't get that opportunity. When I talked about Donald Trump hoping that he received all of the legal remedies associated with law, I talked about what I didn't receive, hoping that he would go through the process and get all that he has justly done.

You talk about people speaking out. Do you think Judge Reggie Walton, coming out and doing something that no federal judge really ever does. And just talking about the threats and that they're real and that his fear was... He said any reasonable thinking person would appreciate the impact that rhetoric like what Trump is using has on people.

This is not a game. At the end of the day, for a person to be as courageous as he to stand up and talk about what's at stake. We need to understand We're lay people watching this. This is almost like a TV show, a program. But the truth of the matter is that we are watching this, and at the same time, we are seeing someone courageous say, This is what we're facing every day when we try to uphold the law. There are so many people who are trying to keep us in the dark. But that true fight that we're fighting is against spiritual wickedness in high and low places. And so we have to continue to just try to add more light so that that darkness dissipates. That's what this is all about.

Youssef Salaam, I always appreciate hearing from you.Thank you.My pleasure. For coming on to put that in perspective for us.Thank.

You as.