Rep. Emanuel Cleaver: Trump Insults Intelligence Of African-Americans, Will Never Talk To Mueller

A Missouri congressman in the United States House of Representatives, Emanuel Cleaver, recently appeared on the MSNBC show Weekends With Alex Witt recently and had some notably direct words regarding the Trump administration.

During the interview, Cleaver spoke of the current situation involving Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign for Russian collusion, as well as potential obstruction of justice. As of late, Trump attorneys have been seemingly debating on whether or not Trump should speak to Mueller or allow himself to be interviewed. As of yet, no such interview has happened, nor has it been scheduled.

Cleaver seems to think it’s never going to happen, as he told Alex Witt on her show.

“The president is not going to submit to an interview with Mueller and his team. That—that is just not going to happen. And I think Mayor Giuliani is doing a good job of trying to lay out for the public the fact that that may happen, and then he’ll eventually say that, ‘well the president knew that it was rigged, and he didn’t want to go in th— and they are setting a perjury trap.’ And… and that [rhetoric from Giuliani] will [be believed] by about 33 or 35 percent of the population. But, look, the president is not going to do that and I don’t know who came up with the strategy, and I think that’s its rather transparent. That’s just not going to happen. They can have every weekend between now and the 12th of never, to work on this strategy and the president will never sit down with Mueller.”

When asked about impeaching Donald Trump, Cleaver wasn’t eager to jump at the idea. Rather, he seemed cautious of such a move, saying that people like Steve Bannon are using the word “impeachment” to rile up Donald Trump’s most dedicated base.

Instead, Cleaver thinks Democrats need to focus on rallying their own base for support but also mentioned trying to capture the hearts and minds of Independent voters who believe Trump “continues to embarrass the country,” as Cleaver referred to Trump’s summit in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin.

Cleaver went on to state that trying to win over the most dedicated of Trump’s base was essentially a lost cause, asserting that the opinions of Trump supporters are not based on facts, and thus, cannot be changed by facts.

These comments were likely a reference to the fact that Donald Trump, who often calls news outlets “fake news” and regularly accuses journalists of lying, may have been elected, in part, due to mass misinformation. Numerous intelligence agencies have declared that during the 2016 election, Russian hackers used literal fake news sources to convince voters to elect Donald Trump.

Cleaver held steady on his lambasting of the Trump administration as he discussed recent remarks by Ivanka Trump which were critical of the Trump administrations zero-tolerance immigration policy, which separated immigrant children from their parents. Rep. Cleaver likened the separations to the internment of Japanese Americans by the United States government during World War II.

One topic Cleaver was notably bothered by was what he perceived was bigotry demonstrated by the president. He claimed Donald Trump regularly insults African Americans, particularly in regard to their intelligence. Cleaver cited insults against the intelligence of Maxine Waters, Frederick Wilson, LeBron James, and Don Lemon, as recent examples of Trump’s pattern of criticizing the intellect of African Americans.