Donald Trump has seized on the passing of a Civil Rights icon to take cheap shots at America’s first Black president.
In a Truth Social post early Tuesday, Trump paid tribute to the late Rev. Jesse Jackson—but then quickly used his death as an opportunity to trash talk former President Barack Obama without Jackson being able to set the record straight.
“Jesse was a force of nature like few others before him. He had much to do with the Election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand,” Trump wrote.
Trump framed his own relationship with Jackson, who died Tuesday at the age of 84, as one of mutual respect and admiration.
“Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way,” he said.
“He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences. Jesse will be missed! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
His largely self-directed tribute to the late reverend, and in particular his comments about being branded a “Racist” by his detractors, follows after he posted an online video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
Critics universally slammed that post—which remained online for more than 12 hours before the White House eventually, quietly took it down.
Jackson historically enjoyed a relationship with Obama that was occasionally marred by frustration but broadly characterized by support and respect—a far cry from Trump’s claims of intense dislike.
In 2008, while Obama was running for president, a hot mic caught the Civil Rights leader saying he wanted to “cut his nuts off” after the then-candidate made comments about absentee fathers in the African-American community.
Jackson later apologized for the remark, expressed pride in the Democratic leader’s campaign, and famously cried with joy at Obama’s 2008 election victory, acknowledging that Obama was running “the last lap” of the struggle for Black political empowerment.
Trump, meanwhile, has long been accused of racism.
In 1973, more than five decades before the MAGA president’s ape post about the Obamas, the Justice Department sued one of Trump’s companies for allegedly refusing to rent to Black tenants and lying about apartment availability.
In 1989, Trump took out newspaper ads urging the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers accused of assaulting a white female jogger in Central Park. He continued to defend his stance even after they were exonerated.
Throughout the 1990s, several former employees alleged discriminatory treatment of Black workers at casinos owned by Trump, including claims of managers being told to remove Black staff from the floor when particular high-profile clients visited.
Trump also spent years pushing baseless conspiracy theories that Obama had not been born in the United States, and was therefore not eligible to be president.
Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961 in Hawaii. His mother was an American citizen.
On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump further described Black neighborhoods as “violent hellholes,” and after assuming office in 2017 suggested there had been “very fine people on both sides” of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on this story.
