Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:39 pm
Trump made the best of a bad situation in true Trump fashion: he tried to lie his way out of it.
Claiming to have the endorsement of 100 black religious leaders waiting for him on Monday afternoon, he was quickly revealed to have invented the whole thing as black religious leaders allegedly among the list of endorsers disavowed any intent to back the racially divisive candidate. The big to-do quickly turned into a private, no-press meeting.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
All Trump had to do then was tell lies about how well it went and about how much he loved them and they loved him. According to Trump, some of the ministers told him how much they admired him. Never mind that photographs show that perhaps half of the advertised 100 leaders even showed up, according to The New York Times (and that included Trump staff members).
Trump nevertheless claimed there were more than 100 people present and that, “The meeting went so much longer, and it went longer only because of the love. It didn’t go longer for other reasons.”
Trump still tried to turn the non-event into an endorsement, of course, handing out pledge cards for the ministers to sign while Trump hovered about like a vampire. And Trump claims to have received “many, many endorsements” even though he hasn’t provided a list as evidence and nobody has seen any sign of 100 ministers coming forth to own it. Time will tell how many endorsements he actually got.
Darrell Scott, organizer of the original event, ended with an endorsement of Trump, but we knew he was endorsing Trump all along, and one is hardly one hundred. Yet at an impromptu press conference afterward, Trump proclaimed, “I saw love in that room. I see love everywhere I go.”
Watch courtesy of CNN:
Scott said of the meeting,
“We made history today. We had meaningful dialogue with Mr. Donald Trump. We voiced concerns that are sensitive to the African-American community and we asked questions and the questions were answered where we were all satisfied with the answers.”
And Trump? Classic bombast:
Meeting with African American Pastors at Trump Tower was amazing. Wonderful news conference followed. Now off to Georgia for big speech!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2015
Endorsements. Where are the endorsements?
Where Trump is concerned, we must all be citizens of the “Show me” state. Everything Trump has said of the meeting is more of the same: the language that has made anything and everything Trump says effectively meaningless.
In fact, as CNN reports,
Pastor Victor Couzens of Cincinnati, Ohio, who attended Monday’s meeting and is not endorsing Trump, said the candidate owed the Black Lives Matter protester an apology. He also expressed reservations about what he considers Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric.
No doubt aware of the need to prove how well the event went, the Trump people put an attendee on the phone with a reporter, says the Times, but it turned out not to be a minister but Bruce LaVell of Atlanta – a Georgia Republican politician. Trump’s campaign later apologized for the confusion – our bad – but did not provide an actual minister in his place. So the world will have to make do with a Republican politician who “is a prominent member” of his church.
It is not exactly the stuff that fills you with confidence about either Trump or the veracity of anything or anyone related to Trump. It is all bluster and subterfuge, lies and sleight of hand and outrage at every question asked.
We’re left with a two-hour meeting at which no media were allowed and Trump’s empty claim that there was “great love in the room” and “they liked me, and I liked them.”
Just like he loves those Mexicans. And women. And Muslims.
Oh, and as a reward, Georgia politician LaVell got a free ride home on Trump’s plane.
Truth, on the other hand, got flushed down the toilet. But then, that seems to be from whence Trump’s campaign originates, so perhaps that was inevitable.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
