Trump’s surrogates are trying a new spin on an old debunked talking point. This morning on MTP David Brody, Trump “friend” from the “Christian Broadcasting Network”, brought up this picture and just recycled that misinformation and slams the media with charges of being untrustworthy while purposefully misrepresenting the award and uses a tired dog-whistle about the “heartland” to start his comment claiming Trump isn’t racist!
I’m just telling you, in the heartland of this country, they look at these media headlines, and they see all of this, the clip, the montage that you just played, but what was not in the montage is in 1986, Donald Trump won the Ellis Island Medal of Honor Award for diversity and tolerance. And oh, by the way, who was with him on that stage? Rosa Parks. So if we're going to go ahead and have a montage, we probably should include some of that. I'm not saying that defends what he did, but what I'm saying is is that that's why there's a lot of distrust in the media today.
Trump apologist, personal attorney, and possible co-conspirator Michael Cohen posted this photo on Twitter getting both the “award” and the year wrong.
1989 photo @realDonaldTrump, #RosaParks & #MuhammadAli all receiving #NAACP medals for helping America's inner cities. A man for ALL people!
In 2016, during the presidential election, Trump’s surrogates and “media” supporters originally created a “talking point” that Trump was some kind of civil rights champion and was recognized as such by the NAACP. They got caught in that lie so they now are using the “correct” award as proof that Trump isn’t “anti-immigrant”…
They are assuming Trump’s base will repeat the nonsense verbatim and no one will bother spending the two seconds necessary to verify that claim.
The quotes are from the following article:
No, Donald Trump Did Not Win A Medal From The NAACP
The real story is much, much weirder. www.huffingtonpost.com/...
What actually happened was that in 1986, as preparations began for the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, a civic committee selected a group of 12 naturalized citizens to receive “medals of liberty” from President Ronald Reagan. This group offended some because no native born citizens where selected to receive an award that was designed to honor NATURALIZED CITIZENS!
Then in June of that year Bill Fugazy, at the time Trump’s real estate broker, created a new organization, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, or NECO, and a new award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Officially, the medal criteria are broad and inclusive: Winners should “uphold the ideals and spirit of America,” while “maintaining the traditions of their ethnic heritage.”
In practice, the winners are mostly white Americans of European descent. NECO maintains a database of past medal honorees, which in many cases cites their “ethnic heritage.”
It’s not clear precisely why Fugazy selected Trump to receive the medal in its inaugural year, save for their friendship and Trump’s success in business.
But Fugazy was working as a broker for Trump in 1986, helping him to purchase two new properties, a 1987 government ethics report revealed. Trump ultimately paid Fugazy more than $500,000 in fees.
Fugazy later had legal problems regarding some falsified bankruptcy filings and struck a deal to avoid prison by pleading guilty to perjury. Ironically President Bill Clinton pardoned him in 2001, just hours before leaving office.
The timing of this “award” is also interesting and was clearly part of a marketing campaign to “rehabilitate” Trump’s image.
At the time, Trump and his father held the dubious honor of having been the defendants in one of the largest-ever housing discrimination lawsuits, a case sparked by a Justice Department civil rights investigation that found the Trumps discriminated against prospective tenants who were black.
The discrimination case was settled with an extensive consent decree. But by the mid-1980s Trump was back in court, this time trying to force poor and elderly tenants from their rent-controlled apartments in one of his buildings. In addition to the lawsuit, Trump shut off the water in the building and refused to make repairs.
What Trump’s defender’s citing this “award” fail to mention is that one of the other figures in the picture is anti-LGBT activist Anita Bryant!?!
So apparently Trump CAN’T be racist because he is in a picture with two African Americans...The fact that he and his father wouldn’t have accepted them as “prospective tenants” is totally irrelevant!
Just like only a bigot thinks claiming they have “black friends” proves lack of prejudice; only a racist or a defender of a racist would feel the need to claim being in a picture with people of color proves Trump isn’t a racist!
These idiots are too bigoted to see those “defenses” prove the exact opposite…
In the same program Rand Paul embarrasses himself by going overboard defending Trump and giving lame justifications for his comments. Of course he attacked the Democrats for being to stubborn to acknowledge that Trump has “changed the dynamic. Paul went on and on about the most obvious reason to immigrate...and had to use the typical arguments taking things to the absurd that we always hear from Republicans:
What I can say is, is that if you do a poll, and one of the worldwide polling companies did this, and they asked people in 50 countries, "Would you like to come to America," it's about 700 million would come next year. We would double our population. www.nbcnews.com/...
Rand Paul says Trump really likes Haitians because as a private citizen Trump supported Rand Paul’s “medical mission trips” to Haiti and Central America with his TAX DEDUCTIBLE contributions...
You know, I don't think the comments were constructive at all. But I also think that to be fair, we shouldn't draw conclusions that he didn't intend. I know personally about his feelings towards Haiti and towards Central America because when I was not a candidate for president and he wasn't a candidate for president, I went down there on a medical mission trip.
I did about 200 cataract surgeries with a group of surgeons in Haiti and the same in Central America. And when we asked Donald J. Trump as a private citizen to support those trips, he was a large financial backer of both medical mission trips. So I think it's unfair to sort of draw conclusions from a remark that I think wasn’t constructive, is the least we can say.
Paul tried to do what ALL Republicans ultimately do...they have to explain what the guy who says what he means, the “straight-talker” REALLY means!
CHUCK TODD:
I guess, though, are you more disturbed though by the comment? It's less about the vulgarity and more that he seemed to say, "Why can't we have immigrants from Norway as opposed from African countries?" Look, I'll tell you this, many non-white Americans hear, "Oh, so he wants white people, not black people."
SEN. RAND PAUL:
Right. But I think people jumped a little bit to a conclusion. Let's take the whole scenario and put different words in there and let's say, "We'd rather have people from economically-prosperous countries than economically-deprived countries." Or, "We realize that there are more problems in economically-deprived countries, therefore there's a bigger impetus for them to want to come." Then it wouldn't have been so controversial.
There still might have been some controversy, but it wouldn't have been so much. ...
So practically, we're a great place, and practically, we do have to eliminate. And if you look at where they'd rather come from, if you live in a very, very poor, economically-distressed country, you're more likely to want to come than if you live in England or Norway.
CHUCK TODD:
That's the story of the United States.
Not EXACTLY, Mr Todd…
Immigrants’ search for a BETTER life for themselves and their families is a huge part of our history…BUT that kind of immigration has been HISTORICALLY much easier for immigrants from European nations like Germany where Trump’s family originated.
Unfortunately a systemically racist immigration policy that favors “Europeans” over people of color is also “the story of the United States”...