WATCH: Pres. Trump praises MLK, Frederick Douglass, and bemoans media coverage while discussing Black History Month. https://t.co/9Cz6jZCyaR
— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) February 1, 2017
During a listening session at the White House to honor Black History Month on Wednesday, President Donald Trump praised Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895, as “somebody who’s done an amazing job” and whose work is “being recognized more and more.”
The remarks immediately called into question whether the president knew who the abolitionist actually was:
I’d bet $40 Trump thinks Frederick Douglass invented peanut butter
— #1 Rachel ? (@rachel) February 1, 2017
dare someone to ask Trump to name one thing Frederick Douglass did https://t.co/epMqfrkku4
— Anne Helen Petersen (@annehelen) February 1, 2017
Trump went on to use the listening session to give shout-outs to his own black surrogates, including Omarosa Manigualt, the former Celebrity Apprentice contestant who is now an adviser to the president. Despite once labeling her an untrustworthy liar, Trump on Wednesday said she was an “actually very nice person.”
The president also took the opportunity to bash CNN as “fake news” and plug Fox News, a network he says has “treated him very nice.”
