WASHINGTON - Saying the Black Lives Matter movement “means a lot to me”, President Donald Trump on Monday boasted that he’s done more for African-Americans than anyone in history except for Abraham Lincoln — and that the Black community is “very grateful for it.”
In a one-on-one interview with Spectrum News, Trump rattled off a string of accomplishments that he said has largely been overlooked by the news media.
“Nobody has done more for African-Americans than I have: criminal justice reform, opportunity zones, historically Black — if you look at the size of the university, big or small; the size of the college, big or small. I did things that nobody else has ever done for them,” the president told Spectrum News Washington correspondent Jeevan Vittal outside the White House. “And frankly, they’re very grateful for it.”
“Criminal justice reform, prison reform, what we’ve done, nobody’s done, nobody has done for the African-American community what President Trump has done — other than Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said, addressing himself in third-person and referencing his predecessor who issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the Confederate states.
Trump said of the phrase “Black Lives Matter”: “It means a lot to me and the civil rights means a lot to me.”
The president did not address police violence or the deaths of African-Americans in police custody. Nor did he reference the Black Lives Matters protests that have gripped the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
The president spoke to Vittal on the heels of a campaign rally he held Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a state that is experiencing a spike in coronavirus cases.
Trump touted a strengthening economy under his watch amid the coronavirus pandemic and said it was his actions that prevented millions of deaths.
“We had the best job numbers in our history. We’re coming back very fast,” he said, predicting a “tremendous” third quarter and “phenomenal” 2021.
“We built the greatest economy in history,” the president said, adding that because of the COVID-19 crisis: “We turned it off and now what we’re doing is building it again.”
Trump laid blame for the pandemic squarely at the foot of China.
“It came from China and it was a terrible thing that happened,” he said. “I guess we’re all looking at that, how that happened. Because it was a disgrace. It could have been stopped. It could have been stopped in China.”
Trump was also asked about the six members of his team preparing for the rally who tested positive for COVID-19. He said they were a small number out of a large advance team, they came from all over the country and they’ve been quarantined.
The president vowed that a coronavirus vaccine is forthcoming.
Trump said his administration’s response saved millions of lives but he cautioned that the number of coronavirus deaths in the country could rise to about 150,000.