Trump’s Black History Month speech was not about history and barely about black people

By Jack Mirkinson  |  February 1, 2017 | 4:42pm
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Today is the first day of Black History Month. It’s also the first time we get to see how President Donald Trump handles Black History Month.

From the looks of it, everything’s going great! Trump met with a roundtable of black people—including his good friends Ben Carson and Omarosa—and said a bunch of knowledgeable, inspiring things about black history.

Wait, did I say “inspiring”? I meant that it took roughly 14 seconds for Trump to pivot from honoring black history to discussing black history’s greatest figure, Donald Trump, by complaining about how mean it was that people thought he took a bust of Martin Luther King out of the Oval Office. King would surely be very proud.

Trump also referred to Frederick Douglass—the iconic writer and abolitionist who died in 1895—as “somebody who’s done an amazing job who’s being recognized more and more.” Does Donald Trump think Frederick Douglass is still alive? Could Donald Trump recognize a picture of Frederick Douglass? Could Donald Trump tell you anything about Frederick Douglass besides “his name is Frederick Douglass”? Who knows!

Here are some other very meaningful things that Donald Trump said about Black History Month:

“Paris has done an amazing job in a very hostile CNN community.”

“Omarosa’s actually a very nice person. Nobody knows that.”

“But Fox has treated me nice. Wherever Fox is, thank you.”

Wow. Deeply moving stuff. Here’s a full transcript of President Trump’s scholarly, resonant address.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:

Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the president’s…unique take on the life of Frederick Douglass and his answer was INCREDIBLE.

Here is what he said:

“I think there’s contribution—I think he wants to highlight the contributions that he has made, and I think through a lot of the actions and statements that he’s going to make, I think the contributions of Frederick Douglass will become more and more.”

Nailed it!

 
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