The Congressional Black Caucus is declining an invitation from the White House to meet with President Trump.
“Given the lack of response to any of the many concerns we have raised with you and your administration, we decline your invitation for all 49 members of the Congressional Black Caucus to meet with you,” Louisiana Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond, the chairman of the caucus, wrote in a letter to the White House on Wednesday.
The caucus also released a June 9 invitation from Omarosa Manigault, the former contestant from NBC’s Apprentice who now works in the White House Office of Public Liaison. In the letter, Manigault invited all of the caucus members to a follow-up meeting after the group’s leaders came to the White House on March 22.
“As requested by the president, we would like to schedule a follow-up meeting with you and the entire CBC membership to continue the discussion of issues presented in our previous meeting,” Manigault wrote.
Richmond said the CBC gave Trump a 130-page document “because we recognized the opportunity to educate both you and your administration on the difficult history of black people in this country, the history of the CBC and solutions to advance black families in the 21st century.”
Richmond cited frustrations with Trump’s budget, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and efforts to repeal Obamacare. “We have voiced all of these concerns in various forms, most of them in writing, but have heard nothing from you or your Cabinet officials,” he said.
In a phone interview with the Washington Examiner, Manigault said the White House will still work to set up meetings with individual lawmakers. “We’re going to move forward and meet individually with members of the Congressional Black Caucus,” she said.
“We are disappointed that Cedric Richmond has declined on behalf of the CBC to have the meeting that he committed to, but we will not be deterred from our commitment to working to build the inner cities and work with the various members of the Congressional Black Caucus individually,” Manigault said.
She encouraged members of the caucus who are interested in meeting with Trump “to just reach out directly.”
“We wanted to work with them together as a caucus, but if that’s not possible, the needs of their constituents still have to take precedent over this partisan back and forth,” Manigault said.
