White House backs rally on Juneteenth
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany pushed back Thursday against mounting outrage over President Trump’s decision to hold a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Juneteenth, saying black Americans are “very near and dear to his heart.”
The rally announcement has drawn backlash on Capitol Hill and social media since Tulsa was the site of the deadliest race riot in American history in 1921 and Juneteenth is the holiday celebrating the end of slavery — but McEnany insisted Trump’s throwing the political bash with good intentions.
“Look, President Trump is ... The African American community is very near and dear to his heart,” she said after a reporter asked if it was appropriate to hold the Tulsa rally on June 19 amid national unrest over the police killing of George Floyd.
McEnany claimed Trump uses his rallies to showcase “the great work he’s done for minority communities.”
“So it’s a meaningful day to him and it’s a day where he wants to share some of the progress that has been made as we look forward at more that needs to be done, especially as we’re looking at this police reform,” McEnany said.
Mobs of white residents killed hundreds of black people in the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa on May 31, 1921, the single deadliest event of racist violence in U.S. history.
Juneteenth is celebrated every year in commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation being read to the last slaves in the country on June 19, 1865.