After kicking off Black History Month with a racist post about former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama, and disinviting America’s only Black governor, Wes Moore, from an upcoming dinner, President Donald Trump was met with an alternative embrace from Black conservative supporters during a Black History Month reception hosted at the White House.
Hundreds of mostly Black MAGA-friendly guests cheered on Trump and chanted “four more years!” as he delivered remarks on Wednesday in the East Room, where Black members of his administration touted his perceived accomplishments for the more than 48 million Americans living in the United States.
“We thank God for the strength and courage and regret and devotion and Black Americans who have helped make America the most powerful country in the history of the world,” said Trump.
The president was joined by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner; Dr. Ben Carson, who also served as HUD secretary and now advises in the Department of Health and Human Services; White House Pardon Czar Alice Johnson, among others, who delivered remarks of praise for Trump on issues like criminal justice reform, HBCU funding and the president’s signature Opportunity Zones program to incentize private investment in underdeveloped communities.
Johnson, who was pardoned by Trump in 2020 before being hired to lead the White House’s pardon program, told the crowd how much she “loved” the president.
“This president, President Donald Trump, brought me from the prison pit to the White House!” exclaimed Johnson, who added, “Don’t let anyone tell you that this president right here, Donald Trump…is not for Black America because he cares.”
Forlesia Cook, a grandmother who lost her grandson to gun violence in Washington, D.C., probably drew the loudest applause as she delivered fiery praise of Trump, whom she defended against claims that he is racist.
“I don’t wanna hear nothin’ you got to say about that racist stuff!” said Cook. “And don’t be looking at me on the news hating on me because I’m standing up for somebody that deserves to be standing up for. Get off the man’s back! Let him do his job!”
The deliberate efforts by Black MAGA to defend Trump come after heightened coverage of the racist post of the Obamas, and subsequent efforts by Trump to push back by posting pictures of himself with Black celebrities before he was president, and claiming in a tribute post to civil rights icon, Rev. Jesse Jackson, that he was “falsely and consistently called a racist” by Democrats.
“Donald Trump thinks about the world purely through the lens of transaction, but you cannot transact respect, dignity, empowerment, and opportunity. Black folks have watched this president and his Administration insult Black and brown people,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne told theGrio. “They have seen him use power to strip rights and recognition from our community. They have seen him use the bully pit to belittle our experience. Donald Trump has failed Black America in his second term the same way he failed Black America in his first term.”
A White House fact sheet on Trump’s perceived successes for Black Americans noted actions such as the launch of Trump Accounts for U.S. children born between 2025 and 2028, and the president’s signature tax cuts. However, economists note that the Trump tax cuts will mostly benefit the rich and corporations.
Meanwhile, Black Americans, who, along with Native Americans, have the highest poverty rates in the country, are staring down unemployment levels as high as they were during the Covid-19 pandemic. What’s more, Trump’s executive orders prohibiting DEI have restricted how Black history is taught in schools and displayed on federal sites, and resulted in cuts to racial equity investments to close gaps in health care, housing, educational access, and environmental harm.
“The things that we see Trump attacking are the things that he’s been able to make vulnerable through propaganda and disinformation,” U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., told theGrio. “They’ve been able to kind of cause fissures in what we think about the institutions that we have in our community and the programs that we have in our communities that work.”
The congresswoman continued, “The first stage before cutting diversity, equity, inclusion programs across the country, before cutting federal jobs, they had to convince us that it wasn’t working as intended, or that it wasn’t working at all, or they had to convince us we didn’t deserve to have it.”
While the Trump administration has faced setbacks in federal court over things like banning DEI in colleges and universities, or recently removing a slavery exhibit from a national site in Philadelphia, Lee urged, “Don’t be fooled. They always have a next thing that they’re looking at.”
The Pennsylvania lawmaker said Trump’s crusade against racial justice is why Democrats must win back power in Congress in November’s midterm elections.
“They have nothing but heinous plans. Every machination that they have is prepared to do maximum harm, especially to the most marginalized and vulnerable people,” she said.
However, she noted, “I don’t believe that this is just a political problem,” adding, “This is a cultural issue that we’re dealing with in the United States. A political issue, you can vote out. You can’t vote on a cultural issue.”
