Washington – Members of the Congressional Black Caucus expressed bafflement and dismay Thursday after President Donald Trump asked a black reporter to set up a meeting with them.
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Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina said there is “an element of disrespect” in Trump’s comment to journalist April Ryan, asking her whether she was friends with CBC members and could convene a get-together.
“He’s not going to ask any other reporter to do that for any other group, so why did he do that to her? I think that was pretty instructive to me,” said Clyburn, a veteran lawmaker and member of the House Democratic leadership.
When asked whether Trump was implying that all black people know each other, Clyburn said, “I don’t know what his implications were but that’s my interpretation.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio said: “We have a rich history, we have some almost 50 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. We’re not new. What a president should say is, yes, it’s already on my agenda to talk to them.”
Ryan is a longtime White House reporter and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks. She asked Trump at his East Room press conference on Thursday whether he planned to include the CBC “in your conversations with your urban agenda, your inner-city agenda.”
The president responded by asking Ryan whether the CBC are “friends of yours” and remarking, “I tell you what, do you want to set up the meeting?”
Ryan herself responded over Twitter: “I am a journalist not a convener! But thank you for answering my questions.”
And the CBC noted over Twitter that the group sent Trump a letter in January outlining areas where they could work together, “but you never wrote us back. Sad!”
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., called Trump’s remarks another “abuse of protocol.”
“Donald Trump knows how to call Cedric Richmond, our chair, and that is what he should do. And then we’ll (the CBC) sit together and see if it’s in our interest” to meet with Trump, Ellison said.
Typical AP fake spin. Or actually fake news.
Because –
Trump ALSO said that a senator/congressman (whom the reporter knew well) had arranged a meeting but ‘changed his mind’ due to pressure. And she said she was aware of that.
Trump tried to make the point that from his end, he is ready. If anyone can arrange it….
I agree with #1 ; if the Congressional Black Caucus really wanted to meet with President Trump, they know the protocols for doing so. The reporter from the American Urban Radio Network tried to embarrass Trump, but failed. He turned the tables on her; yet, in doing so, the dishonest press implies that he is a “racist”. Trump did the right thing in not bowing down to the CBC. I remember in 2004, when the so-called “Reverend” Al Sharpton (the instigator of the Crown Heights Pogrom), was running for the Democratic nomination. All of the networks and other news media outlets kissed his feet; not one of them would reveal his sordid past. Yet, in this case, the press acts in a biased manner. Whether you like Trump or hate him, he does not bow to any group, and tells it like it is. The CBC have their own political ax to grind. Their modus operandi is to play the “victim”, and that is exactly how the esteemed representative from South Carolina was acting yesterday, when he told a White female reporter, that she would have been treated differently. What garbage!!
Nobody’s more of a thinned skinned cry baby than Trumpie. Kvetching about the media every day, Hillary, Obama. Maybe you’d be OK with the orange carrot asking a random Yid on the street to arrange a meeting w Einstein, because after all, all of us Yids know each other personally…
To #3- You are the one who is a whiner, bigtime! To your dying day, you will never accept that fact that Trump beat Hillary!
They are a bunch of cry babies. They could meet with him tomorrow if they wanted to. They will not bc it goes against their narrative of being victimized by his presidency.