President Trump spent a characteristic amount of time and energy commemorating the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. today. By characteristic amount of time I mean almost no time whatsoever.
Trump’s planned schedule included no recognition of MLK Jr.’s birthday, a federal holiday, but his official Twitter account did recognize the occasion this morning with a tweet and White House press release. Great job!
Trump definitely did not write that himself but whatever—this seemed like the end of it, until the early afternoon, when Trump and Vice President Pence made an unscheduled stop to the MLK Jr. memorial on the Washington Mall.
That trip... did not last long.
It lasted just long enough, it turns out, to get this 24-second video which Trump tweeted later. Two tweets now!
Granted, it’s about 20 degrees in D.C. today, and Trump does not like bad weather, but the unplanned, abrupt visit to the memorial reads like a simple ploy for a quick photo op with no substance whatsoever, similar to the President’s surprise visit to Iraq in which he eschewed any meetings with actual Iraqi officials in favor of taking pictures with Navy SEALS.
Although by the Trump family’s standards, this basically means that Trump solved racism today. Thank you Mr. President.