:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58310081/643429626.jpg.0.jpg)
President Donald Trump reportedly couldn’t avoid stereotyping black people during a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus.
He had asked members of the Congressional Black Caucus in a March meeting, Vivian Salama reported for NBC News on Friday, if they personally knew Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who is black. He was surprised when none of the attendees did, two meeting attendees told Salama.
That wasn’t the end of it. In the same meeting, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus told Trump that welfare cuts would hurt her constituents, “not all of whom are black.” Trump then reportedly responded, “Really? Then what are they?”
Trump has pulled this kind of stunt in public before. Last year, when April Ryan, a black reporter, asked Trump if he planned to meet and work with the Congressional Black Caucus, he repeatedly asked her to set up the meeting — even as she insisted that she’s “just a reporter” and therefore not at all affiliated with the congressional group.
The NBC News report comes a day after reports of Trump’s racist remarks about Haiti and African countries. According to the Washington Post, Trump asked during a bipartisan immigration meeting, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Then he suggested that the US should let in people from countries like Norway instead. The implication: People from predominantly black countries are bad, while people from predominantly white countries are good.
And this is only some of the news from the past few days. From proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the US to defending white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, Trump has a long history of racism. For more on all of that, read Vox’s explainer.
