President Donald Trump on Wednesday used a White House Black History Month reception to defend his record on race, specifically affirm he is not a racist and rattle off a list of Black athletes and other African-American celebrities he claimed as “friends.”
After introducing his only Black cabinet member — Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner — alongside Turner’s predecessor from his first term, former neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, Trump brought up White House Pardon Czar Alice Johnson to speak, followed by former Fox News commentator turned Justice Department lawyer Leo Terrell, who he called a “special guy,” and Alveda King, the anti-abortion activist and niece of the late civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
