Trump Claims Without Evidence That African-Americans Support His Racist Attacks on Elijah Cummings

President Trump kicked off his morning by claiming without evidence that the African-American community is overwhelmingly grateful for all his recent attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore.

Trump made the comments to the assembled press corps on the White House lawn as he departed for Jamestown, Virginia, where he will pay homage to the first African slaves brought to America 400 years ago, in 1619. So that was something.

The president started off by telling the reporters that he thinks his attacks on Cummings, which Democrats have condemned and Republicans have mostly avoided talking about, are helping his popularity. As evidence, he cited phone calls he claims he has been getting:

“The White House and myself…have received more phone calls than I think on any other subject of people from Baltimore and other cities corruptly run by Democrats thanking me for getting involved. Those people are living in hell in Baltimore. They’re largely African-American, you have a large African-American population, and they really appreciate what I’m doing and they’ve let me know it. They really appreciate it.”

A June poll conducted for the Black Economic Alliance, a PAC dedicated to “advancing economic progress in Black communities,” recently put Trump’s approval rating among African-Americans at 13 percent, while his disapproval rating is at 82 percent. There is no reason to think his attacks on Cummings have caused those numbers to flip-flop.

Trump went back to the same well a couple of minutes later, patting himself on the back for the criminal justice reform bill he signed (which he subsequently underfunded by 80 percent) and claiming, once again, to be getting lots of calls thanking him for how great he thinks he has been for the African-American community:

“They are so happy because I get the calls. They are so happy at what I’ve been able to do in Baltimore and other Democratic-run, corrupt cities. The money has been stolen, what they’ve done. It’s been wasted and it’s been stolen. Billions and billions of dollars. And the African-American community is so thankful. They’ve called me and they said, finally, somebody is telling the truth.”

Pity the poor White House staffers now tasked with finding any African-American who is not a regular on Fox News to back up Trump’s assertions.

Watch the videos above, via CNN.