On Friday, President Barack Obama gave a moving and inspiring eulogy to the late Rep. John Lewis, a Civil Rights hero who described Obama’s inauguration as the first black president “an out of body experience” after dedicating his life to ensure black Americans have the right to vote.
President Trump reaction to President Obama: "He did a bad job for minorities. I did much more for minorities than he did." pic.twitter.com/nNv6PnPf4O
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 31, 2020
Asked about whether he had seen the eulogy, Trump bristled, saying that he had done “much more for minorities than he did,” because everything is a contest to Trump and he’ll never, ever be as respected as Obama is, no matter how much he wants to be. Trump has repeated this claim since the first year of his presidency, when his policies hadn’t even been implemented yet, and was fact-checked by the Associated Press in 2018. A recent study by the BBC showed similar numbers until the economy crashed due to COVID-19, which has hit the black communities in America the hardest.
‘Prior to the coronavirus crisis, there had been a consistent downward trend in African-American unemployment under President Trump.
‘But it’s a trend which began under President Barack Obama, who saw the rate decline from 12.6% to 7.5% during his two terms in office from 2009 until 2017.’
Jobs create opportunities and are important, but how those jobs improve lives and communities is even more so. When President Obama came into office, the poverty rate in black communities was 27.6 percent, and when he left it was 21.8 percent, a nearly six point drop. Under Donald Trump, that poverty rate has continued to fall…a whole one additional point.
‘In 2018, the latest data available, the African-American poverty rate was 20.8% – which is the lowest on record, beating the previous year, since the official count began in the 1960s…Black poverty also came down under President Obama, and was 21.8% in 2016 – his last full year in office.’
Since Obama’s eulogy was a beautiful moment in history, and it clearly rankles Donald Trump, please enjoy the full video of one of Obama’s greatest speeches below:
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
