Trump held a long press conference today that was notably surreal. I’m not point to a highlight (lowlight?), but it’s telling.
This was right after being asked about whether he’d meet with the Congressional Black Caucus (he didn’t recognize the name and appeared uncertain about who they were). He asked the (black) reporter if she knew them, and if she’d set something up.
[The Congressional Black Caucus tweeted that it sent Trump a letter on Jan. 19 about meeting with the president, “but you never wrote us back. Sad!”]
The reporter demurred, but he persisted.
DONALD TRUMP
Let’s go set up a meeting. I would love to meet with the Black Caucus. I think it’s great, the Congressional Black Caucus. I think it’s great. I actually thought I had a meeting with Congressman Cummings and he was all excited. And then he said, well, I can’t move, it might be bad for me politically. I can’t have that meeting.
I was all set to have the meeting. You know, we called him and called him. And he was all set. I spoke to him on the phone, very nice guy.
QUESTION
I hear he wanted that meeting with you as well.
DONALD TRUMP
He wanted it, but we called, called, called and can’t make a meeting with him. Every day I walk and say I would like to meet with him because I do want to solve the problem. But he probably was told by Schumer or somebody like that, some other lightweight. He was probably told – he was probably told, “don’t meet with Trump. It’s bad politics.”
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, issued a statement. “I have no idea why President Trump would make up a story about me like he did today. Of course, Senator Schumer never told me to skip a meeting with the President.” Cummings described what he was hoping for.
It looked like Trump was feeling good, and just started making things up. Once he was on a roll, he filled in more details as they came to him.
