Trump on Black People: Wants to make a deal but Congressional Black Caucus acting scared.
QUESTION: Well, thank you so much. Mr. President, I need to find out from you, you said something as it relates to inner cities. That was one of your platforms during your campaign. Now you're --
TRUMP: Fix the inner cities.
QUESTION: -- president. Fixing the inner cities.
TRUMP: Yep.
QUESTION: What will be that fix and your urban agenda as well as your HBCU Executive Order that's coming out this afternoon? See, it wasn't bad, was it?
TRUMP: That was very professional and very good.
QUESTION: I'm very professional.
TRUMP: We'll be announcing the order in a little while and I'd rather let the order speak for itself. But it could be something that I think that will be very good for everybody concerned. But we'll talk to you about that after we do the announcement. As far as the inner cities, as you know, I was very strong on the inner cities during the campaign.
I think it's probably what got me a much higher percentage of the African American vote than a lot of people thought I was going to get. We did, you know, much higher than people thought I was going to get. And I was honored by that, including the Hispanic vote, which was also much higher.
And by the way, if I might add, including the women's vote, which was much higher than people thought I was going to get. So, we are going to be working very hard on the inner cities, having to do with education, having to do with crime. We're going to try and fix as quickly as possible -- you know, it takes a long time.
It's taken more a hundred years and more for some of these places to evolve and they evolved, many of them, very badly. But we're going to be working very hard on health and healthcare, very, very hard on education, and also we're going to be working in a stringent way, in a very good way, on crime.
You go to some of these inner city places and it's so sad when you look at the crime. You have people -- and I've seen this, and I've sort of witnessed it -- in fact, in two cases I have actually witnessed it. They lock themselves into apartments, petrified to even leave, in the middle of the day.
They're living in hell. We can't let that happen. So, we're going to be very, very strong. That's a great question and -- and it's a -- it's a very difficult situation because it's been many, many years. It's been festering for many, many years. But we have places in this country that we have to fix.
We have to help African American people that, for the most part, are stuck there. Hispanic American people. We have Hispanic American people that are in the inner cities and their living in hell. I mean, you look at the numbers in Chicago. There are two Chicagos, as you know.
There's one Chicago that's incredible, luxurious and all -- and safe. There's another Chicago that's worse than almost any of the places in the Middle East that we talk, and that you talk about, every night on the newscasts. So, we're going to do a lot of work on the inner cities.
I have great people lined up to help with the inner cities. OK?
QUESTION: Well, when you say the inner cities, are you going -- are you going to include the CBC, Mr. President, in your conversations with your -- your urban agenda, your inner city agenda, as well as --
TRUMP: Am I going to include who?
QUESTION: Are you going to include the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional --
TRUMP: Well, I would. I tell you what, do you want to set up the meeting?
QUESTION: -- Hispanic Caucus --
TRUMP: Do you want to set up the meeting?
QUESTION: No -- no -- no. I'm not --
TRUMP: Are they friends of yours?
QUESTION: I'm just a reporter.
TRUMP: Well, then(ph) set up the meeting.
QUESTION: I know some of them, but I'm sure they're watching right now.
TRUMP: Let's go set up a meeting. I would love to meet with the Black Caucus. I think it's great, the Congressional Black Caucus. I think it's great. I actually thought I had a meeting with Congressman Cummings and he was all excited. And then he said, well, I can't move, it might be bad for me politically. I can't have that meeting.
I was all set to have the meeting. You know, we called him and called him. And he was all set. I spoke to him on the phone, very nice guy.
QUESTION: I hear he wanted that meeting with you as well.
TRUMP: He wanted it, but we called, called, called and can't make a meeting with him. Every day I walk and say I would like to meet with him because I do want to solve the problem. But he probably was told by Schumer or somebody like that, some other lightweight. He was probably told - he was probably told "don't meet with Trump. It's bad politics."
