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Apparently, Trump saw the interview Van Jones had on his new show last night with Jay-Z in which the rapper was critical of Trump and some of his remarks and achievements. We can say this with certainty because he just tweeted a response.
On Twitter, the President’s favorite way of reaching the masses, he posted, “Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!”
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The thing about this tweet that has already raised the hackles of those who understand what is going on with this country is that the current president seems to be, once again, taking credit for the hard work former president Barack Obama put in during his eight years in office.
On The Van Jones show, Jay-Z said he wasn’t pleased with the comments Trump made about “sh**hole countries.” He said that he found those comments “hurtful” and that they show a person who is “looking down on a whole population.”
Jay went on to say that instead of the country addressing the problem head-on and in an honest way, the response has been to “spray perfume on a trash can.”
According to him, by not dealing with the problem, it has been growing and getting worse and now we have the equivalent of a “superbug” to handle.
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Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2018
This is far from the first time Trump has taken issue with Black America while giving himself a pat on the back for supposedly saving it from what he considers ruin.
In the past Trump took LaVar Ball to task for diminishing the role Trump played in securing the release of his son and two other UCLA basketball players from jail in China for shoplifting (literally tweeting that he should have “left them in jail”).
He even went after Marshawn Lynch for standing for the Mexican national anthem but not the American one. And in what has now become a familiar bullying tactic from Trump, he tried to intimidate the NFL by suggesting Lynch should be suspended.
He attacked those two black men at the same time he was supporting a suspected white pedophile for a Senate seat in Alabama.
Tony Schwartz, co-author of Donald Trump‘s “The Art of the Deal,” thinks his ongoing feud with Ball suggests something deeper about the president’s feelings about Black people.
Anchor John Berman brought up Trump’s tweet storm in which he attacked Ball.
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Berman asked Schwartz if “it’s what LaVar Ball said or, as some are alleging, how he looks,” that upsets the president so much.
“Both,” Schwartz answered. “First of all, his father is a tall Black man and I think Trump is half awed and half frightened by black people. And his only way of dealing with them is to attack them. And on the other hand, I think he has a zero tolerance for any criticism of any kind. That’s why he goes after anybody who says virtually anything about him that’s negative.”
Berman said the comments about Trump being “awed and afraid” of Black people is a “big statement.” The anchor then pressed the author to justify the comment.
“Well, I mean, I watched him. I mean he was awed, unequivocally awed, during the many times I saw him with members of the team he owned in the USFL, and when he sponsored fights — prize fights,” he stated.
“I think he had this kind of ambivalent relationship, where he wished he could have been an athlete like they were. And on the other hand, if he felt fear, he always felt aggression…and a need to put them down.”
BET’s Robin Thede once shared on her show a number of times Trump disrespected Black America and asked black Trump supporters why they were so steadfastly behind the man.
During a segment of her late-night show “The Rundown,” the comedienne-host noted that while it was impossible to get through every single instance in detail–because “the show’s only a half-hour”–she made quite a concerted effort; starting from the time Trump and his father were accused in 1973 of violating the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against minority renters.
“The truth is Trump doesn’t care about anybody — especially Black people — and he never has. But don’t believe me, believe history,” Thede said.
She then went through the countless moments like Trump calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, the time Trump blamed “Blacks and Hispanics” for “the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our cities” during the George Zimmerman trial, and obviously, the time Trump started the birther movement and called for President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate.
That list doesn’t even include all the jaw-dropping things Trump has done during his presidency.
“That is only a fraction of the things he’s said and done,” Thede concluded. “So I suggest the remaining 10 Black Trump supporters heed the words of Maya Angelou: ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’”