Peter Baker and Katie Rogers

Delivering a reliably red-meat, 80-minute speech, Trump revisited his recent lines of attack on American inner cities — including Baltimore, which he has maligned in recent days — and tried to associate inner-city crime with the ineptitude of Democratic lawmakers like Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.

“No one has paid a higher price than Americans living in our inner cities,” Trump told supporters who had gathered in an arena in Cincinnati. Accusing the country’s largest and most diverse cities of being under single-party control, he added: “The conditions of Nancy Pelosi’s once great city of San Francisco are deplorable. Do you remember the word deplorable?”

In the hours after a debate in which a crowd of 2020 candidates tried to attack President Barack Obama’s immigration policies as too stringent, Trump almost seemed to marvel that his name had not come up.

“The Democrats spent more time attacking Barack Obama than they did attacking me, practically,” Trump said.

Using the same arsenal of insults and anecdotes, Trump seemed intent on recapturing the firebrand appeal of his campaign to voters in swing states. Ohio was selected for the event because his reelection effort considers the state, along with other Midwestern battlegrounds like Michigan and Wisconsin, as critical to winning a second term.

A Quinnipiac University poll last month showed former Vice President Joe Biden Biden leading Trump in Ohio, 50% to 42%, although the president has insisted that such surveys are no more trustworthy than the predictions that he would lose in a landslide in 2016.

In recent weeks, the president has been engaged in a racially charged war of words with critics of color like Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Baltimore congressman, and a nearly all-white crowd on Thursday did little to help make the case that African Americans have welcomed his inflammatory language. But a small group of African American supporters drew enthusiastic cheers when they stood and held up signs and T-shirts with messages like “Trump &amp; Republicans Are Not Racist” and “Blacks For Trump.”

Trump was interrupted by protesters twice during the rally, stopping at one juncture to watch as a group holding a sign that read “Immigrants Built America” was ejected from the arena.

“You must have a Democrat mayor?” Trump asked, leaning toward the edge of the stage to survey crowdgoers as he waited for the protesters to clear out. “Do you have a Democrat mayor?”

Still, Trump’s fans expressed unbridled enthusiasm for him despite — or perhaps because of — the various altercations he provokes in Washington. They came wearing the traditional red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps and waved preprinted signs like “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” and “Women for Trump.”

Many were watching to see if his supporters repeated the “Send her back” chant of his last rally, in North Carolina, calling for the expulsion of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who came to the United States as a Somali refugee and was naturalized as a citizen while a teenager. Trump sent mixed signals in the hours before the rally about whether they should do that.

“I can’t tell you whether or not they’re going to do that chant. If they do the chant, we’ll have to see what happens,” he told reporters before leaving the White House. At the rally, Trump stayed away from attacking Omar, instead focusing on the broad threat of Democratic policies, and the chant did not arise.

He did pause to attack Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who was hailed this week for her willingness at the debates to forcefully defend her ideas in a crowded Democratic field, for claiming Native American ancestry.

“I have more Indian blood than she does,” Trump said, “and I have none — I’m sorry.”

Before the rally, Trump appeared preoccupied with the performance of the Democratic candidates in the debates, offering his assessment as he left the White House.

“I think that Kamala did not do well last night,” he told reporters, referring to Sen. Kamala Harris of California. “I think Biden did OK. He came through. He came limping through, as I say about Sleepy Joe. He limped right through it. But he got through it. He really did. I think he was OK.”

Even Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump has praised as one of the “nicest human beings,” tried his hand at ribbing the Democrats before the president took the stage: “Those people were standing so far to the left I thought that stage was going to flip over.”

The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is contemplating a political career of his own, warmed up the crowd by attacking the family’s favorite targets, including former special counsel Robert Mueller, Cummings, Biden, Hillary Clinton, Pelosi and the “fake news” media.

The younger Trump mimicked Mueller’s halting answers before Congress last week and accused Democrats of cynically crying racism as a political cudgel against his father. And he said the party’s presidential candidates had embarrassed themselves during their debates this week, making it easier for his father to secure a second term in next year’s election.

“Thank you for your in-kind contribution to reelecting my father in 2020,” he said. He singled out Biden, mocking the former vice president’s performance at Wednesday night’s debate.

During a speech that was meandering at times — “I don’t use the teleprompter very much,” the president said — he made sure to thank his son for his rally performance and revisit that hit list, yet again calling Biden “Sleepy Joe” and sarcastically saying Mueller appeared “sharp as a tack” during his testimony.

As he closed in on the hour mark, the president veered away from his usual campaign messaging and toward more trivial matters, such as his ability to pronounce the city of Lima, Ohio, correctly. It was a trick he learned during his winning campaign bid in 2016, he said, seeming almost wistful for that time.

“I had such a great life,” Trump said. “It was so easy.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/us/politics/trump-rally-cincinnati.html" id="80baa18c-35a0-3402-a2bd-5234b738d8a4">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Treats Rally in Cincinnati as Rebuttal to Democratic Debates

CINCINNATI — After imbibing several days of wall-to-wall news coverage of the 2020 Democratic debates, President Donald Trump seemed eager to wrest back attention to his own reelection effort Thursday, when he took the stage at a campaign rally in Ohio and painted prominent Democrats as “left-wing extremists.”

Four hundred years later to the day, President Donald Trump flew here on Tuesday to celebrate the inauguration of what would become American democracy in lofty terms at a time when the state of American democracy feels to many to be perilous and even poisonous.

From a stage in a cathedral tent next to a replica of the Jamestown Settlement, Trump remained on his best behavior, sticking to the elevated if dutiful words in the script his staff gave him and praising the contributions of African Americans. But both before and after the ceremony, with no text or teleprompter to guide him, he once again opted for fiery denunciations of political opponents of color.

He tore into what he called “Democratic-run corrupt cities” like Baltimore and again targeted its congressman Elijah E. Cummings and another critic, the Rev. Al Sharpton. “Those people are living in hell in Baltimore,” he said, because taxpayer money “has been stolen and wasted by people like Elijah Cummings.”

It was the fourth consecutive day that he assailed Cummings, who has criticized Trump’s handling of detained migrants at the border and whose committee has authorized subpoenas that could be issued to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, who both serve on the White House staff.

But Trump denied that his attacks on Cummings, Sharpton and four Democratic congresswomen of color were racist or part of a considered strategy to mobilize his largely white base in next year’s election. “There’s no strategy,” he said. “I have no strategy. There’s zero strategy.”

Any hope that the anniversary of the Jamestown gathering would reinforce common American ideals over the country’s deep divisions was probably futile to begin with. Because of the president’s attacks, Virginia’s African American state legislators boycotted his appearance, calling him an “emblem of hate.”

One state lawmaker who did attend, Ibraheem Samirah, stood and interrupted the president’s speech: “Mr. President, you cannot send us back. Virginia is our home.” He was led out politely by police officers.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/trump-jamestown-race.html" id="f702b0d8-d2c0-39d5-ab32-f78622b53da4">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Praises American Democracy, Then Plies Its Divisions

JAMESTOWN, Va. — A rather extraordinary experiment began on that searing-hot summer day in 1619 when 22 elected colonists gathered in a wooden church near the James River as the first representative body in the New World.

JAMESTOWN, Va. — A rather extraordinary experiment began on that searing-hot summer day in 1619 when 22 elected colonists gathered in a wooden church near the James River as the first representative body in the New World.

Four hundred years later to the day, President Donald Trump flew here Tuesday to celebrate the inauguration of what would become American democracy in lofty terms at a time when the state of American democracy feels to many to be perilous and even poisonous.

One state lawmaker who did attend, Ibraheem Samirah, stood and interrupted the president’s speech, holding up a sign that said, “Go Back to Your Corrupted Home” and “Deport Hate.” Samirah, a Democratic state delegate and a Palestinian American, shouted: “Mr. President, you cannot send us back. Virginia is our home.” He was led out politely by police officers.

Trump made no response, nor did he refer to the broader controversy during his speech. Kirk Cox, the Republican speaker of the House of Delegates, later condemned the “disrespectful outburst” of Samirah. “It was not only inconsistent with common decency, it was also a violation of the rules of the House,” he wrote on Twitter.

Trump’s address was carefully molded along the lines of those given by other presidents at such occasions. Even as he paid tribute to that original House of Burgesses, he noted that this was also the 400th anniversary of the first African slaves brought to America in chains.

“Today, in honor, we remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage,” Trump said, adding, “In the face of grave oppression and grave injustice, African Americans have built, strengthened, inspired, uplifted, protected, defended and sustained our nation from its very earliest days.”

His critics, however, were not buying it. Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who delivered his own speech as part of Tuesday’s commemoration, said afterward that Trump does not fully understand the history of the country he governs.

“Trump leads by division, not unity,” Meacham said, “and he fails to see that we honor those who expand the American family, not those who constrict it.”

Trump has employed racist tropes repeatedly in recent weeks. He told four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the United States and the fourth was naturalized as a teenager. In the past several days, he assailed Cummings and his “rat and rodent infested” majority-black district and he targeted other rivals like Sharpton, who, he said on Twitter, “Hates Whites &amp; Cops.”

Speaking with reporters Tuesday morning before leaving the White House for Jamestown, Trump focused on what he called Baltimore’s “tremendous corruption,” pinning it, without substantiation, on Cummings.

“I think that Rep. Cummings should take his Oversight Committee and start doing oversight on Baltimore,” Trump said.

Trump offered no evidence, but two of the past four Baltimore mayors have resigned amid scandal. The most recent, Catherine Pugh, quit in May after the FBI raided two of her homes while investigating her for profiting personally from city contracts with a hospital system.

The president denied that he was aggravating racial tensions, insisting that he is the “least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” He argued that he had helped African Americans through an economy that has pushed black unemployment to record lows and through legislation he signed overhauling the criminal justice system.

He asserted that he had been flooded with messages of appreciation from black residents of Baltimore and elsewhere. “The African American people have been calling the White House,” he said. “They have never been so happy about what a president has done.”

Many Americans see it differently. A new national poll released Tuesday showed that 51% think Trump is a racist, compared with 45% who said he is not. The results skew heavily along party lines — 86% of Democrats called him racist, while 91% of Republicans rejected that.

The poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University from July 25-28, was one of several in recent days that offered a window into public views of the president’s approach. National polls conducted this month by USA Today/Ipsos, The Economist/YouGov and Fox News showed that half to two-thirds of Americans believe that telling someone to “go back” is a racist statement and that Trump’s statements “cross the line.”

Among those agreeing was the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which organized the boycott of elected members of the House of Delegates and the state Senate.

“It is impossible to ignore the emblem of hate and disdain that the president represents,” the caucus said in its statement. His “repeated attacks on black legislators and comments about black communities,” it said, made him “ill suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history.”

Gov. Ralph Northam and many other white Democrats stayed away, too. But Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, Virginia’s only African American statewide elected official and a Democrat, attended, saying the twin anniversaries “far supersede the petty and racist actions of the current occupant of the White House.”

In an essay posted on Medium, he wrote: “The bigoted words of the current president will thankfully soon be swept into the dustbin of history. Our democracy, born in Virginia, will live on.”

Virginia has been roiled by its own controversies this year. Northam has rebuffed widespread calls to resign after the discovery of a 1984 medical school yearbook that included on his personal page a picture of a man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes. Northam at first admitted being in the photograph, then denied that he was.

The state’s attorney general, Mark R. Herring, also a Democrat, later admitted that he once wore blackface at a party as a college student. And Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by two women.

As he took questions Tuesday morning, Trump had said he would be “shocked” if opponents of color declined to attend the event. “If that’s the case,” he said, “they’re fighting against their people.”

(White House Memo)

The president’s elevated and scripted words honoring 400 years of representative government in the Western Hemisphere and the role played by African Americans stood in sharp contrast to the acerbic attacks he made beforehand on a black congressman and his Baltimore-based district.

But the bitter, racial furor of recent days, punctuated by his latest comments assailing Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., followed Trump to Jamestown, where elected representatives first met in 1619. Virginia’s African American state lawmakers boycotted his speech, calling the president an “emblem of hate” who does not represent the best ideals of the nation.

One state lawmaker, Ibraheem Samirah, stood and interrupted the president’s speech, holding up a sign that said, “Go Back to Your Corrupted Home” and “Deport Hate.” Samirah, a Democratic state delegate and a Palestinian American, shouted: “Mr. President, you cannot send us back. Virginia is our home.” He was led out politely by police officers.

Trump made no response nor did he reference the broader controversy during his speech but instead made a point of highlighting that this year is also the 400th anniversary of the first slaves brought to America.

“Today, in honor, we remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage,” he said, adding, “In the face of grave oppression and grave injustice, African Americans have built, strengthened, inspired, uplifted, protected, defended and sustained our nation from its very earliest days.”

Just hours earlier, Trump again disparaged Cummings, whom he has accused in recent days of running a “disgusting” congressional district. “Baltimore is an example of what corrupt government leads to,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House. “I feel so sorry for the people of Baltimore, and if they ask me, we will get involved.”

Trump offered no evidence of corruption nor did he explain on what he based such an accusation. But he made clear he was unwilling to back down in a continuing war of words that has aggravated racial tensions and left many of his own advisers concerned that he was turning off suburban voters who could be a key to his reelection next year.

Facing questions about his apparent willingness in recent days to divide his supporters and opponents along racial lines, Trump insisted that he was the “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” Then he called the Rev. Al Sharpton, another recent adversary, “a racist.”

This line of self-defense came a day after the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which represents elected members of the House of Delegates and the state Senate, said in a statement that its members could not “in good conscience sit silently” as a president who has promoted racial divisions is given such a prominent platform.

“It is impossible to ignore the emblem of hate and disdain that the president represents,” the caucus said in its statement. The statement added that Trump’s “repeated attacks on black legislators and comments about black communities” made him “ill suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history, especially if this nation is to move forward with the ideals of ‘democracy, inclusion and opportunity.’ ”

The lawmakers’ protest came as Trump has employed racist tropes repeatedly in recent weeks. He told four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the United States and the fourth was naturalized as a teenager. In the last several days, he has repeatedly assailed Cummings and his “rat and rodent infested” majority-black district and targeted other foes like Sharpton, who he said “Hates Whites &amp; Cops.”

Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has emerged as a major foil for the president as his panel presses investigations into Trump’s administration. Last week, the committee authorized Cummings to subpoena work-related emails and text messages on personal devices of White House officials, including Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law.

“I think that Rep. Cummings should take his oversight committee and start doing oversight on Baltimore,” Trump said.

Aides said that the subpoena move last week riled Trump and helped fuel the anger that had been on public display since Saturday. The president has also bristled at criticism from Cummings of how detained migrants are being treated at the border, saying that the lawmaker should first worry about what Trump called the dismal conditions in his own district.

As he took questions for over 10 minutes Tuesday morning, Trump appeared not to know that a boycott in Jamestown was being planned, saying he would be “shocked” if opponents of color were declining to attend the event.

“If that’s the case, they’re fighting against their people,” Trump said, as he claimed that his administration had been receiving calls nonstop praising his comments on Baltimore. “The African American people have been calling the White House. They have never been so happy about what a president has done.”

The ceremony Tuesday at the Jamestown Settlement Museum marked the first meeting of elected legislators in the New World. On July 30, 1619, a group of 22 representatives of plantations or settlements gathered in a church in Jamestown for the first time in what would be known as the House of Burgesses, the precursor to state legislatures and Congress in the centuries to come.

The event was already fraught for African American lawmakers because of the anniversary of slavery. The caucus held alternative events in Richmond, including a wreath-laying at the Virginia state Capitol to honor African American lawmakers who served after the Civil War.

The idea was to focus “on those individuals who fought for a more just, equitable and inclusive democracy,” said Sen. Jennifer McClellan, the group’s vice chair.

But Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, Virginia’s only African American statewide elected official and a Democrat, attended Tuesday’s ceremony, saying beforehand that the twin anniversaries “far supersede the petty and racist actions of the current occupant of the White House.”

In an essay posted on Medium, he said: “The bigoted words of the current president will thankfully soon be swept into the dustbin of history. Our democracy, born in Virginia, will live on.”

Virginia has been roiled by its own controversies this year. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has rebuffed widespread calls to resign after the discovery of a 1984 medical school yearbook that included a picture of a man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes on his personal page. Northam at first admitted being in the photograph, then denied that he was either man.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Trump dismissed questions about whether he was hurting himself politically by relentlessly fueling racial tensions in recent days.

“I think I’m helping myself,” Trump said. “These people are living in hell in Baltimore.”

Trump Hails African American Contributions to America Amid Battle With Black Critics

JAMESTOWN, Va. — President Donald Trump hailed the contributions of African Americans to the building of the nation during a ceremony Tuesday paying tribute to democracy in the New World, even as he continued to wage war on some of his most prominent black critics.

The president’s elevated and scripted words honoring 400 years of representative government in the Western Hemisphere and the role played by African Americans stood in contrast to the acerbic attacks he made beforehand on a black congressman and his Baltimore-based district.

But the racial furor of recent days, punctuated by his latest comments assailing Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., followed Trump to Jamestown, where elected representatives first met in 1619. Virginia’s African American state lawmakers boycotted his speech, calling the president an “emblem of hate” who does not represent the best ideals of the nation.

One state lawmaker, Ibraheem Samirah, stood and interrupted the president’s speech, holding up a sign that said, “Go Back to Your Corrupted Home” and “Deport Hate.” Samirah, a Democratic state delegate and a Palestinian American, shouted: “Mr. President, you cannot send us back. Virginia is our home.” He was led out by police officers.

Trump made no response nor did he reference the broader controversy during his speech, but instead made a point of highlighting that this year is also the 400th anniversary of the first slaves brought to America.

Just hours earlier, Trump again disparaged Cummings, whom he has accused in recent days of running a “disgusting” congressional district.

Facing questions about his apparent willingness in recent days to divide his supporters and opponents along racial lines, Trump insisted he was the “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” Then he called the Rev. Al Sharpton, another recent adversary, “a racist.”

Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has emerged as a major foil for the president as his panel presses investigations into Trump’s administration.

Trump again disparaged Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., whom he has accused in recent days of running a “disgusting” congressional district.

“Baltimore is an example of what corrupt government leads to,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for the event in Virginia. “I feel so sorry for the people of Baltimore, and if they ask me, we will get involved.”

Trump offered no evidence of corruption nor did he explain on what he based such an accusation. But he made clear he was unwilling to back down in a continuing war of words that has aggravated racial tensions and left many of his own advisers concerned that he was turning off suburban voters who could be key to his reelection next year.

Facing questions about his apparent willingness to divide his supporters and opponents along racial lines in recent days, Trump insisted that he was the “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” Then he called the Rev. Al Sharpton, another recent adversary, “a racist.”

This line of self-defense came a day after the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which represents elected members of the House of Delegates and state Senate, said in a statement that its members cannot “in good conscience sit silently” as a president who has promoted racial divisions is given such a prominent platform.

“It is impossible to ignore the emblem of hate and disdain that the president represents,” the caucus said in its statement. The statement added that Trump’s “repeated attacks on black legislators and comments about black communities” make him “ill-suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history, especially if this nation is to move forward with the ideals of ‘democracy, inclusion, and opportunity.’”

Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has emerged as a major foil for the president as his panel presses investigations into Trump’s administration. Last week, the committee authorized Cummings to subpoena work-related emails and text messages on personal devices of White House officials, including Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law.

Aides said that the move last week riled Trump and helped fuel the anger on display since Saturday. The president has also bristled at criticism from Cummings of how detained migrants are being treated at the border, saying that the lawmaker should first worry about what Trump called the dismal conditions in his own district.

As he took questions for over 10 minutes Tuesday morning, Trump appeared not to know that a boycott was in place, saying he would be “shocked” if opponents of color were declining to attend the event.

The ceremony Tuesday at the Jamestown Settlement Museum is meant to mark the first meeting of elected legislators in the new world. On July 30, 1619, a group of 22 representatives of plantations or settlements gathered in a church in Jamestown for the first time in what would be known as the House of Burgesses, the precursor to state legislatures and Congress in the centuries to come.

The Tuesday event already was fraught for African American lawmakers because in those days only white male property holders were eligible to vote. Moreover, this year also represents the 400th anniversary of the first slaves brought to the colonies that would later become the United States.

The caucus is holding alternative events in Richmond, including a wreath-laying at the Virginia State Capitol to honor African American lawmakers who served after the Civil War. The idea was to focus “on those individuals who fought for a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy,” said Sen. Jennifer McClellan, the group’s vice chair.

But Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, Virginia’s only African American statewide elected official, will attend Tuesday’s ceremony, saying the twin anniversaries “far supersede the petty and racist actions of the current occupant of the White House.”

In an essay posted on Medium, he said, “The bigoted words of the current president will thankfully soon be swept into the dustbin of history. Our democracy, born in Virginia, will live on.”

The state’s attorney general, Mark R. Herring, later admitted that he once wore blackface at a party as a college student. And Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by two women.

On Tuesday, Trump dismissed questions about whether he was hurting himself politically by relentlessly fueling racial tensions in recent days.

Trump Calls Baltimore 'Corrupt' as Black Lawmakers Boycott Jamestown Ceremony

JAMESTOWN, Va. — President Donald Trump resumed his attacks on Baltimore and its congressman Tuesday as African American state lawmakers from Virginia planned to boycott his scheduled speech commemorating the 400th anniversary of representative democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

“Baltimore is an example of what corrupt government leads to,” Trump said to reporters as he left for the event in Virginia. “I feel so sorry for the people of Baltimore, and if they ask me, we will get involved.”

Facing questions about his apparent willingness to divide his supporters and opponents along racial lines in recent days, Trump said that he was “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” Then he called the Rev. Al Sharpton, another recent adversary, “a racist.”

This line of self-defense came hours after the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which represents members of the House of Delegates and state Senate, said in a statement that its members cannot “in good conscience sit silently” as a president who has promoted racial divisions is given such a prominent platform.

The lawmakers’ protest came as Trump has employed racist tropes in a caustic war of words with critics. He told four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the United States and the fourth was naturalized as a teenager. In recent days, he has repeatedly assailed Cummings and his “rat and rodent infested” majority-black district and targeted other foes like Sharpton, who he said “Hates Whites &amp; Cops.”

As he took questions for over 10 minutes, Trump appeared not to know that a boycott was in place, saying he would be “shocked” if opponents of color were declining to attend the event.

“If that’s the case, they’re fighting against their people,” Trump said, repeating an unverified claim that his administration had been receiving calls nonstop praising his comments on Baltimore. “The African American people have been calling the White House. They have never been so happy about what a president has done.”

The caucus is holding alternative events in Richmond and will focus “on those individuals who fought for a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy,” said Sen. Jennifer McClellan, the group’s vice chair.

WASHINGTON — As African American state lawmakers from Virginia planned to boycott President Donald Trump’s scheduled speech in Jamestown on Tuesday at a ceremony to commemorate the 400th anniversary of representative democracy in the Western Hemisphere, citing the president’s inflammatory comments about critics of color, Trump revisited his attacks on several of them.

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Peter Baker and Katie Rogers

Articles written by the author

Trump Treats Rally in Cincinnati as Rebuttal to Democratic Debates

Trump Praises American Democracy, Then Plies Its Divisions

Trump Praises American Democracy, Then Plies Its Divisions

Trump Hails African American Contributions to America Amid Battle With Black Critics

Trump Hails African American Contributions to America Amid Battle With Black Critics

Trump Calls Baltimore 'Corrupt' as Black Lawmakers Boycott Jamestown Ceremony

Trump Calls Baltimore 'Corrupt' as Black Lawmakers Boycott Jamestown Ceremony