HOLIDAY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump appears poised to ignore his own calls for Americans to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day with ‘acts of civic work and community service.’
Trump is not scheduled to partake in any service projects on the federal holiday he and every other US president have designated as a ‘day of service’ since 1994. Instead, he arrived Monday [1-15-18] morning at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The only event on the public schedule released daily by the White House is the flight that will take him back to Washington in the afternoon.
Trump’s noticeably blank public schedule Monday comes as he continued to beat back accusations of racism for referring to countries in Africa as ‘shithole countries’ and rejecting immigration from the African continent and Haiti in favor of immigrants from Norway during a meeting with lawmakers. His reported comments were confirmed by both a Republican senator and Democratic senator present, but Trump has denied making the disparaging remarks…
Trump marked the holiday celebrating the civil rights icon at the White House Friday where he signed the federal holiday proclamation in a ceremony alongside King’s nephew, a dozen of his black political supporters and staffers, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, the most-senior black member of his Cabinet… A White House spokeswoman did not return a request for comment on whether Trump had any impromptu plans to take part in a community service project. The first lady’s office also did not return a request for comment asking whether Melania Trump had any such plans.
The White House on Monday did release a video message in which Trump marked the federal holiday and extolled King’s legacy and Trump retweeted the video.”
-Jeremy Diamond, “Trump spends MLK Jr. Day golfing,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Jan. 15, 2018 01:30pm