President Trump did his best Mussolini impression Tuesday night as he delivered his first State of the Union address to congress.
In typical fashion, Trump employed all the tricks and theatrics associated with the annual speech to congress. The rookie executive made good use of a series of seemingly endless pauses for standing ovations, and he highlighted guests in the gallery that are nothing more than props for ideological firebombs.
The president also took a series of victory laps over the accomplishments his administration claims, but in typical Trump fashion, he exaggerated, misrepresented, and even lied about many of them.
One group of lawmakers wasn’t going to allow a particular whopper of a lie to go without a response.
About 5 minutes into the speech, Trump decided to roll out the unemployment figures, which are admittedly quite good, coming as they do at the tail end of the Obama recovery.
But when he decided to talk about unemployment in the African American community, the Congressional Black Caucus didn’t play along.
As Trump spouted out the very misleading figure, the Black Caucus sat in silent but powerful protest.
Members of Congressional Black Caucus offer no reaction as Pres. Trump says "African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded" in #SOTU address https://t.co/q18EZzVe9p pic.twitter.com/Xxkqc7hFt9
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 31, 2018
The president looked amused, even surprised at the reaction he received. But African Americans aren’t laughing.
Their silence was deafening.
