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Trump Hails African-American Contributions to America Amid Battle With Black Critics Trump Praises American Democracy, Then Plies Its Divisions
(about 7 hours later)
JAMESTOWN, Va. — President Trump hailed the contributions of African-Americans to the building of the nation during a ceremony on Tuesday paying tribute to democracy in the New World, even as he continued to wage war on some of his most prominent black critics. JAMESTOWN, Va. — A rather extraordinary experiment began on that searing-hot summer day in 1619 when 22 elected colonists gathered in a wooden church near the James River as the first representative body in the New World.
The president’s elevated and scripted words honoring 400 years of representative government in the Western Hemisphere and the role played by African-Americans stood in sharp contrast to the acerbic attacks he made beforehand on a black congressman and his Baltimore-based district. Four hundred years later to the day, President Trump flew here on Tuesday to celebrate the inauguration of what would become American democracy in lofty terms at a time when the state of American democracy feels to many to be perilous and even poisonous.
But the bitter, racial furor of recent days, punctuated by his latest comments assailing Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, followed Mr. Trump to Jamestown, where elected representatives first met in 1619. Virginia’s African-American state lawmakers boycotted his speech, calling the president an “emblem of hate” who does not represent the best ideals of the nation. From a stage in a cathedral tent next to a replica of the Jamestown Settlement, Mr. Trump remained on his best behavior, sticking to the elevated if dutiful words in the script his staff gave him and praising the contributions of African-Americans. But both before and after the ceremony, with no text or teleprompter to guide him, he once again opted for fiery denunciations of political opponents of color.
One state lawmaker, Ibraheem Samirah, stood and interrupted the president’s speech, holding up a sign that said, “Go Back to Your Corrupted Home” and “Deport Hate.” Mr. Samirah, a Democratic state delegate and a Palestinian-American, shouted: “Mr. President, you cannot send us back. Virginia is our home.” He was led out politely by police officers. He tore into what he called “Democratic-run corrupt cities” like Baltimore and again targeted its congressman Elijah E. Cummings and another critic, the Rev. Al Sharpton. “Those people are living in hell in Baltimore,” he said, because taxpayer money “has been stolen and wasted by people like Elijah Cummings.”
Mr. Trump made no response nor did he reference the broader controversy during his speech, but instead made a point of highlighting that this year is also the 400th anniversary of the first slaves brought to America. It was the fourth consecutive day that he assailed Mr. Cummings, who has criticized Mr. Trump’s handling of detained migrants at the border and whose committee has authorized subpoenas that could be issued to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, who both serve on the White House staff.
“Today, in honor, we remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage,” he said, adding, “In the face of grave oppression and grave injustice, African-Americans have built, strengthened, inspired, uplifted, protected, defended and sustained our nation from its very earliest days.” But Mr. Trump denied that his attacks on Mr. Cummings, Mr. Sharpton and four Democratic congresswomen of color were racist or part of a considered strategy to mobilize his largely white base in next year’s election. “There’s no strategy,” he said. “I have no strategy. There’s zero strategy.”
Just hours earlier, Mr. Trump again disparaged Mr. Cummings, whom he has accused in recent days of running a “disgusting” congressional district. “Baltimore is an example of what corrupt government leads to,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he left the White House. “I feel so sorry for the people of Baltimore, and if they ask me, we will get involved.” Any hope that the anniversary of the Jamestown gathering would reinforce common American ideals over the country’s deep divisions was probably futile to begin with. Because of the president’s attacks, Virginia’s African-American state legislators boycotted his appearance, calling him an “emblem of hate.”
Mr. Trump offered no evidence of corruption nor did he explain on what he based such an accusation. But he made clear he was unwilling to back down in a continuing war of words that has aggravated racial tensions and left many of his own advisers concerned that he was turning off suburban voters who could be a key to his re-election next year. One state lawmaker who did attend, Ibraheem Samirah, stood and interrupted the president’s speech, holding up a sign that said, “Go Back to Your Corrupted Home” and “Deport Hate.” Mr. Samirah, a Democratic state delegate and a Palestinian-American, shouted: “Mr. President, you cannot send us back. Virginia is our home.” He was led out politely by police officers.
Facing questions about his apparent willingness in recent days to divide his supporters and opponents along racial lines, Mr. Trump insisted that he was the “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” Then he called the Rev. Al Sharpton, another recent adversary, “a racist.” Mr. Trump made no response, nor did he refer to the broader controversy during his speech. Kirk Cox, the Republican speaker of the House of Delegates, later condemned the “disrespectful outburst” of Mr. Samirah. “It was not only inconsistent with common decency, it was also a violation of the rules of the House,” he wrote on Twitter.
This line of self-defense came a day after the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which represents elected members of the House of Delegates and the State Senate, said in a statement that its members could not “in good conscience sit silently” as a president who has promoted racial divisions is given such a prominent platform. Mr. Trump’s address was carefully molded along the lines of those given by other presidents at such occasions. Even as he paid tribute to that original House of Burgesses, he noted that this was also the 400th anniversary of the first African slaves brought to America in chains.
“It is impossible to ignore the emblem of hate and disdain that the president represents,” the caucus said in its statement. The statement added that Mr. Trump’s “repeated attacks on black legislators and comments about black communities” made him “ill suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history, especially if this nation is to move forward with the ideals of ‘democracy, inclusion and opportunity.’” “Today, in honor, we remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “In the face of grave oppression and grave injustice, African-Americans have built, strengthened, inspired, uplifted, protected, defended and sustained our nation from its very earliest days.”
The lawmakers’ protest came as Mr. Trump has employed racist tropes repeatedly in recent weeks. He told four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the United States and the fourth was naturalized as a teenager. In the last several days, he has repeatedly assailed Mr. Cummings and his “rat and rodent infested” majority-black district and targeted other foes like Mr. Sharpton, who he said “Hates Whites & Cops.” His critics, however, were not buying it. Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who delivered his own speech as part of Tuesday’s commemoration, said afterward that Mr. Trump does not fully understand the history of the country he governs.
Mr. Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has emerged as a major foil for the president as his panel presses investigations into Mr. Trump’s administration. Last week, the committee authorized Mr. Cummings to subpoena work-related emails and text messages on personal devices of White House officials, including Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law. “Trump leads by division, not unity,” Mr. Meacham said, “and he fails to see that we honor those who expand the American family, not those who constrict it.”
“I think that Representative Cummings should take his oversight committee and start doing oversight on Baltimore,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Trump has employed racist tropes repeatedly in recent weeks. He told four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the United States and the fourth was naturalized as a teenager. In the last several days, he assailed Mr. Cummings and his “rat and rodent infested” majority-black district and he targeted other rivals like Mr. Sharpton, who, he said on Twitter, “Hates Whites & Cops.”
Aides said that the subpoena move last week riled Mr. Trump and helped fuel the anger that had been on public display since Saturday. The president has also bristled at Mr. Cummings’s criticism of how detained migrants are being treated at the border, saying that the lawmaker should first worry about what Mr. Trump called the dismal conditions in his own district. Speaking with reporters on Tuesday morning before leaving the White House for Jamestown, Mr. Trump focused on what he called Baltimore’s “tremendous corruption,” pinning it, without substantiation, on Mr. Cummings.
As he took questions for over 10 minutes on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump appeared not to know that a boycott in Jamestown was being planned, saying he would be “shocked” if opponents of color were declining to attend the event. “I think that Representative Cummings should take his Oversight Committee and start doing oversight on Baltimore,” Mr. Trump said.
“If that’s the case, they’re fighting against their people,” Mr. Trump said, as he claimed that his administration had been receiving calls nonstop praising his comments on Baltimore. “The African-American people have been calling the White House. They have never been so happy about what a president has done.” Mr. Trump offered no evidence, but two of the last four Baltimore mayors have resigned amid scandal. The most recent, Catherine Pugh, quit in May after the F.B.I. raided two of her homes while investigating her for profiting personally from city contracts with a hospital system.
The ceremony on Tuesday at the Jamestown Settlement Museum marked the first meeting of elected legislators in the New World. On July 30, 1619, a group of 22 representatives of plantations or settlements gathered in a church in Jamestown for the first time in what would be known as the House of Burgesses, the precursor to state legislatures and Congress in the centuries to come. The president denied that he was aggravating racial tensions, insisting that he is the “least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” He argued that he had helped African-Americans through an economy that has pushed black unemployment to record lows and through legislation he signed overhauling the criminal justice system.
The event was already fraught for African-American lawmakers because of the anniversary of slavery. The caucus held alternative events in Richmond, including a wreath-laying at the Virginia State Capitol to honor African-American lawmakers who served after the Civil War. He asserted that he had been flooded with messages of appreciation from black residents of Baltimore and elsewhere. “The African-American people have been calling the White House,” he said. “They have never been so happy about what a president has done.”
The idea was to focus “on those individuals who fought for a more just, equitable and inclusive democracy,” said Senator Jennifer McClellan, the group’s vice chair. Many Americans see it differently. A new national poll released Tuesday showed that 51 percent think Mr. Trump is a racist, compared with 45 percent who said he is not. The results skew heavily along party lines — 86 percent of Democrats called him racist, while 91 percent of Republicans rejected that.
But Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, Virginia’s only African-American statewide elected official and a Democrat, attended Tuesday’s ceremony, saying beforehand that the twin anniversaries “far supersede the petty and racist actions of the current occupant of the White House.” The poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University from July 25 to 28, was one of several in recent days that offered a window into public views of the president’s approach. National polls conducted this month by USA Today/Ipsos, The Economist/YouGov and Fox News showed that half to two-thirds of Americans believe that telling someone to “go back” is a racist statement and that Mr. Trump’s statements “cross the line.”
In an essay posted on Medium, he said: “The bigoted words of the current president will thankfully soon be swept into the dustbin of history. Our democracy, born in Virginia, will live on.” Among those agreeing was the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which organized the boycott of elected members of the House of Delegates and the State Senate.
Virginia has been roiled by its own controversies this year. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has rebuffed widespread calls to resign after the discovery of a 1984 medical school yearbook that included a picture of a man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes on his personal page. Mr. Northam at first admitted being in the photograph, then denied that he was either man. “It is impossible to ignore the emblem of hate and disdain that the president represents,” the caucus said in its statement. His “repeated attacks on black legislators and comments about black communities,” it said, made him “ill suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history.”
Gov. Ralph Northam and many other white Democrats stayed away, too. But Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, Virginia’s only African-American statewide elected official and a Democrat, attended, saying the twin anniversaries “far supersede the petty and racist actions of the current occupant of the White House.”
In an essay posted on Medium, he wrote: “The bigoted words of the current president will thankfully soon be swept into the dustbin of history. Our democracy, born in Virginia, will live on.”
Virginia has been roiled by its own controversies this year. Mr. Northam has rebuffed widespread calls to resign after the discovery of a 1984 medical school yearbook that included on his personal page a picture of a man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes. Mr. Northam at first admitted being in the photograph, then denied that he was.
The state’s attorney general, Mark R. Herring, also a Democrat, later admitted that he once wore blackface at a party as a college student. And Mr. Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by two women.The state’s attorney general, Mark R. Herring, also a Democrat, later admitted that he once wore blackface at a party as a college student. And Mr. Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by two women.
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Trump dismissed questions about whether he was hurting himself politically by relentlessly fueling racial tensions in recent days. As he took questions on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump had said he would be “shocked” if opponents of color declined to attend the event. “If that’s the case,” he said, “they’re fighting against their people.”
“I think I’m helping myself,” Mr. Trump said. “These people are living in hell in Baltimore.”