FACT CHECK--WaPo: Trump Refused to Empathize with Black Americans

CLAIM: an article in the Washington Post uses excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book, which contains extensive interviews with President Trump, to claim that President Trump disagreed with the notion of empasizing with the “anger and pain” of Americans, particularly black Americans.

VERDICT — FALSE. Trump disagreed with the notion that white people have to escape the “cave” of their privilege, a concept advanced by far-left, racist “critical race theorists.”

The Washington Post paraphrases the exchange between Woodward and Trump in a manner that underlines the latter part of Woodward’s question, which highlights the need to empathize with the “anger and pain” of black Americans:

In another conversation, on June 19, Woodward asked the president about White privilege, noting that they were both White men of the same generation who had privileged upbringings. Woodward suggested that they had a responsibility to better “understand the anger and pain” felt by Black Americans.

“No,” Trump replied, his voice described by Woodward as mocking and incredulous. “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”

However, the complete transcript reveals that the Woodward’s question actually addressed the far-left notion of “white privilege,” a concept touted by pseudo-scientific “critical race theorists” – the same idea that the Trump administration has condemned as racist and is eliminating from the federal government.

WOODWARD: But let me ask you this. I mean, we share one thing in common. We’re White, privileged, who- my father was a lawyer and a judge in Illinois, and we know what your dad did.

Do you have any sense that that privilege has isolated and put you in a cave to a certain extent, as it put me, and I think lots of White, privileged people in a cave. And that we have to work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain, particularly Black people feel in this country. Do you feel–

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.

The Washington Post article misleads readers into thinking that Trump disagreed with the view that people should “understand” the “anger and pain” in America. But the full transcript reveals that Woodward suggested to Trump that white people need to “work their way out of” their “cave” of privilege in order to empathize with others. That is the notion that Trump referred to as “Kool-aid.”

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.

His upcoming book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which contains exclusive interviews with sources inside Google, Facebook, and other tech companies, will be released on September 22 and is currently available for preorder.

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