Right now President Donald Trump is on his way to Texas, where he will hold a roundtable discussion on policing and race at a Dallas megachurch, nearly three weeks after the police killing of an un armed Black man, George Floyd. Not invited: Dallas’ top three law enforcement officials – a police chief, sheriff and district attorney – all of whom are Black. The White House also refused to invite three U.S. Congressmen who represent the area, all of whom are Democrats and Black.

“The White House defended the snub, insisting the president will still hear a diversity of views before heading to a $10 million campaign dinner with two dozen donors who pony up at least $580,600 each for a meal and souvenir photo,” The Dallas Morning News reports.

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot told the Dallas Morning News, “of course [Trump] would not be getting the full picture of advice from law enforcement. I don’t know who he’s going to get it from. I mean, we are the people on the ground.”

The city of Dallas is the nation’s ninth largest, with over 1.3 million people. It is also more diverse than the national average. About 62 percent are white, and 24 percent are Black.

Despite Dallas’s demographics, Trump has chosen a predominantly white church for his discussion, which will be “hosted at Gateway Church’s campus in North Dallas on Hillcrest Road near Forest Lane, one of the city’s more affluent areas.”

Dallas’s mayor Eric Johnson, who is Black, was invited but cited a scheduling conflict and will not attend.

U.S. Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Colin Allred of Dallas, and Marc Veasey of Fort Worth were not invited. All are Democrats, and all are Black.

While this is technically an official White House visit paid for by the taxpayers, the Trump administration is using the Trump campaign’s slogan and language, calling it a “Roundtable on Transition to Greatness: Restoring, Rebuilding, and Renewing.”

Trump more than any president in modern history has blurred the lines between official White House business and his campaign’s business, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Last year President Donald Trump ordered his U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, to develop a plan that would “fast track” immigration by wealthy Europeans into the United States. It does not appear he ordered similar plans from any other ambassadors.

Sondland (photo, fourth from left) is now an embattled entity, having delivered damaging testimony confirming President Trump extorted a bribe from the President of Ukraine.

But when he first took over as Ambassador to the E.U., Sondland “started talking to subordinates about a need for more skilled and wealthy European immigrants in the United States,” The Washington Post reports.

Believing Sondland’s orders were “racially motivated,” U.S. diplomats that the E.U. mission “were unsettled by the idea.”

One said, “the way this was going to come off was that the United States is fishing for white people, while reducing opportunities for needier people to immigrate.”

That diplomat was correct – not only in how the efforts would be perceived, but in their motivation.

That’s because President Trump, immediately upon Sondland being confirmed and taking over in Europe, tasked him with “developing a proposal to ‘fast track’ immigration from the E.U.,” and ordered Ambassador Sondland to consult with Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Miller, a known white nationalist, has been at the center of Trump’s successful efforts to block all refugees from entering the U.S. He was also behind Trump’s Muslim ban, and Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents. He called the latter a “simple decision.”

Image by U.S. Department of State via Flickr

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday that he understand why some people would view President Donald Trump’s tweets attacking a majority African-American district as racist.

In an interview that aired on CBS, host Margaret Brennan pressed Mulvaney about Trump’s recent attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who is black.

According to Mulvaney, Trump made the racist remark because Cummings spoke badly of the conditions at migrant detention facilities.

“Does the president speak hyperbolically? Absolutely,” Mulvaney said. “Have we seen this type of reaction from him before? Yes. And you will again because he pushes back, he fights back when he feels like he’s attacked. And what Mr. Cummings said this week was wrong.”

“You know, though, that this is a majority-black district,” Brennan pointed out. “The president calls it rat infested. He says no human being would live there. Do you understand that that is offensive to the Americans who do live there?”

“I understand that everything that Donald Trump says is offensive to some people,” Mulvaney snapped.

“This is being preceived as racist,” Brennan interrupted. “Do you understand why?”

“I understand why but that doesn’t mean that it’s racist,” Mulvaney insisted. “The president is pushing back against what he sees is wrong. It’s what he’s done in the past and he’ll continue to do it in the future.”

Watch the video below from CBS.