Too often we take things out of context. So while traveling I decided to listen to the entire 45-minute Trump even at the Detroit church. The news didn't indicate he mentioned HBCUs. But let me go through his remarks- a 🧵 1/
He said "We have record funding to historically Black colleges and universities. You all know that." But what he never says is that for his 4 budgets, he requested $107M in cuts for the 3 largest Title III programs!
Here are the DOE budget tables, FY18- FY21. Compare his request, what the House and Senate proposed, and the final appropriation. In spite of him trying to cut every year, CONGRESS increased HBCU funding by $118M during his term. Taking credit without doing the work! 3/
Biden's 4 budgets requested an increase of $351M for those 3 programs, and so far there has been a $77M increase (FY25 not done). His is more impressive because HBCU funding grew at 2X the rate of the federal budget; for Trump it grew less than half. 4/
uncf.org/news/biden-adm…
Back in Detroit, Trump said "The heads would come to Washington every year. And I said, "Why do you keep coming?" "Because they won't give us long term financing. 5/
He has said in the past it was like 40 presidents that came every year. I've never heard anyone talk about that beyond the infamous 2017 photo opp. Being generous maybe he meant the presidents of UNCF, TMCF, & NAFEO. But if they came I'm sure he would have taken pictures... 6/
The long-term funding is a lie. 7/
"We also want to keep strengthening HBCUs, which is why we’re investing $850 million in these institutions over the next 10 years." President Obama, 9/13/2010.
obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2010/09/1…
Then he says, "And I got them actually more money than they asked for by far!" 8/
Having chaired the UNCF governmental affairs committee I personally know this is a lie. Let's look at his first budget, FY2018. The UNCF said his budget "misses the mark." The president’s budget proposed $245M "while UNCF requested $375 million in full funding for the grants." 9/
UNCF followed up with a letter to OMB expressing concerns, noting "flat funding for the core Title III (HBCUs) program and deep cuts to federal student aid programs." 10/
Here is the table. Does this look like giving more than we asked for? Compare the UNCF table with the DOE table showing his FY18 request. Does this look like more than we requested? 11/
Let's try again. Maybe because he was new to the job he wanted to see. Here is the HBCU coalition's requests for all the major federal HBCU programs. The last 2 columns are Trump's FY20 budget, and our FY20 request. Again, is this more than we asked for? 12/
Finally, he pats himself on the back for giving long term funding (which Obama did first, he zeroed out, and Alma Adams brought back), and then says of the HBCU presidents "And I think all of them are voting for Trump... I'd say 99% of them."
Such a funny guy! 13/13
@JoeUnauthorized Let me give you a simple thread of the damage he tried to inflict:
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.