Trump Celebrates Robert E. Lee While Calling For African-Americans To “Honor Us”

During an Ohio rally on Friday, President Donald Trump at the same time praised Confederate general Robert E. Lee and called for African-American voters to support him and the GOP.

Speaking for an hour before a crowd of 4,000, Trump praised the Confederate general’s leadership and fighting skill, calling him a “great general” and a “true, great fighter.”

Shortly after, Trump spoke about African-American unemployment statistics, and told minority voters to “honor us,” and to “get away from the Democrats.”

“Think of it: we have the best numbers in history… I think we’re going to get the African-American vote. And it’s true,” he told his gathered supporters.

After singing Lee’s praises, Trump began speaking about Lee’s main adversaries, Abraham Lincoln and Union general Ulysses S. Grant, bring up the latter’s supposed drinking problem.

Trump claimed Lincoln feared Lee, saying that after an unnamed battle, “Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, ‘I can’t beat Robert E. Lee.’”

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“They said to Lincoln, ‘You can’t use him anymore, he’s an alcoholic.’ And Lincoln said, ‘I don’t care if he’s an alcoholic, frankly, give me six or seven more just like him.’”

Grant was born in Ohio, and went on to become the country’s 19th president after the Civil War.

Later on during the rally, Trump made reference to Neil Armstrong, referencing the astronaut’s 1969 planting of the American flag on the moon and saying, “there was no kneeling, there was no nothing, there was no games, boom.”

Trump hosted the Lebanon, Ohio, rally to support Rep. Steve Chabot (R), the incumbent in district’s Congressional race, a fact that Chabot seemed perturbed by.

“We didn’t ask him to come,” Chabot told a local news paper. “He wasn’t my first choice or my second or my third.”

But as the rally progressed, Chabot seemed to change his tune, and appeared gracious for the support the president was throwing behind his campaign.