Trump Rattles Off List Of His Black ‘friends’ At History Month Event A Week After Racist Post On Obamas

President Donald Trump connected Wednesday utilized a White House Black History Month reception to take sides his grounds connected race, specifically affirm he is not a racist and rattle disconnected a database of Black athletes and different African-American celebrities he claimed arsenic “friends.”

After introducing his only Black furniture personnel — Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner — alongside Turner’s predecessor from his first term, erstwhile neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, Trump brought up White House Pardon Czar Alice Johnson to speak, followed by erstwhile Fox News commentator turned Justice Department lawyer Leo Terrell, who he called a “special guy,” and Alveda King, nan anti-abortion activistic and niece of nan precocious civilian authorities leader nan Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Trump past began to telephone retired much athletes and entertainers whom he counts among his “friends,” including rapper Nikki Minaj and a succession of boxers, including ex-world champion and convicted rapist Mike Tyson.

“Mike Tyson, Boy, I show you, Mike has been loyal to me. Whenever they travel out, they say, ‘Trump's a racist’ ... Mike Tyson goes, ‘He's not a racist, he's my friend,’” Trump said.

“He's been location from nan beginning, bully times and bad. But Mike Tyson's a awesome guy, and he was truthful loyal. Always been loyal.”

Of Minaj, nan president praised nan rapper’s “so beautiful skin” and her signature acrylic fingernails while claiming to beryllium unsure if they are real.

“I said, Nikki, are they real? She said she didn't want to get into that, but she was truthful beautiful,” Trump said.

The president besides listed disconnected respective erstwhile NFL players, including grounded Georgia Senate campaigner turned Ambassador to nan Bahamas Herschel Walker, nan precocious Hall of Fame moving backmost and character Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor, nan erstwhile New York Giants standout whose Hall-of-Fame profession was marred by supplier problems.

Trump called Taylor “a awesome friend” while boasting that his ain play skills are superior to nan erstwhile linebacker’s.

The president’s quality alongside his astir salient Black boosters comes conscionable a week aft he sparked outrage by reposting a video to societal media that showed Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces superimposed onto apes successful a jungle, swaying broadside to broadside and smiling arsenic nan opus “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” played successful nan background.

The clip, which was up for 12 hours earlier being pulled from nan president’s societal media feed, was met pinch disgust by galore politicians, tv hosts and different high-profile figures.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a adjacent state of Trump’s and nan precocious chamber’s only Black Republican member, was 1 of a number of GOP officials to impeach nan president of crossing nan line.

“Praying it was clone because it’s the astir racist thing I’ve seen retired of this White House,” Scott wrote connected X. “The President should region it.”

Trump has a agelong history of attacking nan Obamas, often utilizing incendiary rhetoric, which has drawn accusations of racism.

Prior to his introduction into politics, Trump many times promoted nan unsubstantiated declare that Obama was calved successful Kenya, demanding he show nan nationalist his commencement certificate. In 2011, Obama released his long-form commencement certificate proving he’d been calved successful Hawaii. During a news conference, he decried Trump arsenic a “carnival barker.”

Trump yet acknowledged that nan erstwhile Democratic president was calved successful nan United States soon earlier nan 2016 election.

Since returning to agency aft winning nan 2024 predetermination complete erstwhile vice president Kamala Harris, Trump and his apical aides person embarked connected a crusade to destruct anti-discrimination regulations and gut programs crossed authorities that had been intended to use Black Americans while pushing schools, universities and different acquisition institutions to alteration their history curricula by eliminating criticisms of slavery successful nan United States.

At nan Defense Department, Trump-appointed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has purged immoderate of nan military’s highest-ranking Black officers nether nan guise of eliminating “diversity, equity and inclusion” supporters while instituting grooming standards which critics opportunity unfairly target Black work members and could unit galore to beryllium discharged.

Trump’s anti-diversity crusade drew a rebuke from a national judge successful Pennsylvania connected Monday erstwhile she ordered nan management to reconstruct each mentions of slavery that had been removed from an grounds astatine Philadelphia’s President’s House connected Independence Mall.

Days earlier, nan National Parks Service had removed immoderate mention of slavery and each accusation astir enslaved group who lived astatine nan site, citing nan president’s executive bid connected “restoring truth and sanity to American history” astatine nan nation’s museums, parks and landmarks.

The bid has underpinned nan administration’s sweeping efforts to sanitize aliases region wholly from nationalist position nan nation’s history of enslavement.

It directed his management to reappraisal nan nation’s museums and humanities sites that picture “founding principles and humanities milestones successful a antagonistic light.”

As a result, respective exhibits astir nan brutality of slavery and nan nation’s bequest of injustice and conflict for civilian authorities were removed.

The president has also railed against nan Smithsonian Institution for focusing connected “how bad slavery was” alternatively of nan “brightness” aliases “future” of America and threatened to pull national funding from museums that “portray American and Western values arsenic inherently harmful and oppressive.”