GOP congressman uses black woman as a prop to claim Trump isn't racist

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) used a black woman as a human prop to deny Trump’s racism during the Michael Cohen hearing on Wednesday.

Meadows took exception to Cohen’s accurate description of Trump as a racist and had Lynne Patton, a black woman who is an official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), stand next to him.

“She says that as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist,” Meadows said, using the woman like one would a placard placed on an easel during a traditional Congressional hearing.

“Neither should I, as the son of a Holocaust survivor,” Cohen replied, pointing out that her employment by Trump at his company or in his administration does nothing to defuse his racism.

Cohen later pointed out that there are “zero” black executives at the Trump Organization as evidence that Trump is bigoted towards black people.

As part of his defense, Meadows said he’s talked to Trump “over 300 times” and “I’ve not heard one time a racist comment out of his mouth in private.”

But Trump has repeatedly made racist public statements in full view of members of Congress like Meadows and the entire world.

He called Nazis “very fine people.” He praised memorials to pro-slavery Confederates as “beautiful.” He said Mexicans were rapists. He called for a Muslim ban on travel to the United States. He was the leading proponent of the racist birther conspiracy theory against President Barack Obama. He called for the execution of the Central Park Five after they were exonerated. He attacked black NFL players for opposing police brutality.

In the presidency, Trump referred to countries with nonwhite leaders as “shithole” countries.

Trump even recognized the widespread black distrust of him because of his racism and reportedly offered to bribe rapper 50 Cent to be his friend.

Trump is a racist, the public record shows it and Cohen’s testimony is validated by the public record. If Meadows doesn’t want to see it, that’s because he is refusing to face reality.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.