Trump’s Silly Response to Campaign Urging Stars to Dump the Donald

He says he can't be racist, since a black person won his game show once.

By Channing Kennedy May 10, 2011

Professional inheritor and "Apprentice" host Donald Trump was last seen telling the world how proud he is for getting our first black president to produce a birth certificate. This, of course, was right before Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been caught and killed, burying both Trump and his crypto-racist storyline.

Yesterday, he made an attempt to get back into the spotlight, going on conservative chat show "Fox & Friends" to discuss Color of Change’s campaign against NBC’s "Celebrity Apprentice". Color of Change is urging celebrity Apprentice contestants Lil Jon and Star Jones to walk from the show, and to send a message to the network that Trump’s racist-opportunist grandstanding is unacceptable; Trump used his time on Fox to clear the air. Sort of.

Talking Points Memo’s Jillian Rayfield writes:

"When it comes to racism and racists," Trump said, "I am the least racist person there is. And I think most people that know me would tell you that. I am the least racist. I’ve had great relationships."

"In fact," Trump added, "Randal Pinkett won on The Apprentice a little while ago, a couple years ago, and Randal’s been outstanding in every way. So I am the least racist person. But [Van Jones] is a guy trying to get some publicity for himself by attacking Donald Trump."

So many things to say about this. And then let’s never talk about Donald Trump again. First, Van Jones, favorite bogeyman of Glenn Beck, hasn’t worked with Color of Change for four years. And as a commenter on the TPM piece points out, "When Randall Pinkett won, Trump asked Randall if he wanted to share his win with the runner up… since the runner up was so good. It was the most awkward moment of live TV. Randall declined the offer." No word on whether Trump asked Pinkett for his papers, just to end the questions (though he did dismiss another black contestant for his "unbelievable resume.")

And in his pre-punchline period, Donald Trump was sued by the feds for discriminating against black tenants in the 1970s–and that in 1989, he spent $85,000 on full-page ads in four newspapers, demanding an unprecedented use of the death penalty against five very young teenagers of color. All five teenagers were later proved to had had their confessions forced by the police, and were declared innocent. Trump never apologized.

One more thing: public opinion of Trump has collapsed in the last week. We love an underdog, so we’ll do him the favor of talking about him as little as possible from here on out.