Of Course Trump Won't Participate in Martin Luther King Jr. Day Services

By Sophie Weiner, Splinter News

21 January 19

ccording to Geoff Bennett, a reporter for NBC, President Trump will not be participating in any public events for Martin Luther King Jr. Day tomorrow.

This news comes hours after Vice President Mike Pence went on television and compared Trump to MLK because he, uh, wants to build a wall?

“You think of how [Martin Luther King Jr.] changed America,” Pence said on CBS earlier today. “He inspired us to change through the legislative process to become a more perfect union. That’s exactly what President Trump is calling on Congress to do: Come to the table in the spirit of good faith. We’ll secure our border and we’ll reopen the government. And we’ll move our nation forward as the president said yesterday to even a broader discussion about immigration reform in the months ahead.”

Pence isn’t the only one who has connected the president and King, two people who are about as different as you can possibly get. Last year, former presidential aide Steve Bannon said that MLK would have loved Trump.

Most likely Trump will use the partial government shutdown, which he himself created, as his excuse to not participate in tomorrow’s public services and memorials. Trump hates doing anything that doesn’t directly bring him attention and praise. So of course he’d skip MLK Day less than a week after lashing out at Nancy Pelosi’s decision to postpone the State of the Union.

Whatever his excuse, it’s not surprising that Trump isn’t making any effort to honor a man whose values were so diametrically opposed to his own. But that doesn’t make it any less shameful.