By Cameron Joseph and Adam Edelman, New York Daily News
The Congressional Black Caucus invited President Trump to meet in January, but the President never responded to their invitation — a lapse the commander-in-chief appeared to completely forget during his rambling press conference Thursday.
At one point during his 80-minute missive, Trump was asked whether he intended to include the members of the CBC in conversations about enacting his agenda to help inner cities.
At first he awkwardly asked the reporter, who is African-American, to set up the meeting, before falsely accusing one of the caucus’ most prominent members of ditching a planned get-together because of political pressure.
Reporter: Will you meet with the Congressional Black Caucus?
Trump: “I would. You want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours?” pic.twitter.com/8Pp18KBUJd— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 16, 2017
“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,” Trump said.
“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,” Trump said.
“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 (Senate Minority Leader Chuck) Schumer or somebody like that, some other lightweight,” Trump added. “He was probably told, ‘don’t meet with Trump. It’s bad politics.”
Moments after Trump’s press conference ended, the CBC main Twitter account tweeted out a letter dated Jan. 19, in which the group’s chairman, Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), clearly invited Trump to meet.
Read more at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-forget-congressional-black-caucus-invite-meet-article-1.2974910