Biden Senior Adviser Asked At Briefing About Trump Fans Comparing His Mugshot to MLK’s

Senior White House Adviser Stephen Benjamin was asked at a briefing about ex-President Donald Trump’s fans comparing his mugshot to that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — especially given Monday’s anniversary of the March on Washington.

Trump’s mugshot immediately became the featured image on a cornucopia of campaign merchandise — and the subject of some intense reactions on both sides. Many Trump fans — including Will Cain, co-host of Fox News Channel’s The Five — compared the photo to Dr. King’s mugshot from when he was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama.

Benjamin — who was the first Black mayor of South Carolina’s capital city, Columbia, and is currently the director of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement — joined Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at Monday’s White House press briefing, during which he was asked about the comparison — and reacted with astonishment:

Q Mayor Benjamin, I’m hoping I can get your reaction — both as one of the President’s top advisors and also just a Black man living in America — to former President Trump’s supporters comparing his mugshot to that of Dr. King, given the anniversary that we’re celebrating here in D.C. this week.

I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but there have been a lot of posts on social media.

DIRECTOR BENJAMIN: I’ve not seen that, and I feel better that I haven’t seen that.

The reality is that the sacrifices made by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — and not just him — and A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin and Whitney Young and others ought never be minimized. And — because they not only represent the leaders of the past — I sat with Clarence Jones this weekend and Ambassador Andrew Young and heard some of these stories firsthand — but they represent the sacrifices of so many people we don’t know — people who labored in anonymity who gave everything, who marched and cried and died so that this nation might live up to its better angels, might live up to its promise.

And I think it’s so important that as we look backward, that we work to preserve the importance of that legacy because it’s going to quickly determine how we look forward and determine what America is going to be like not 60 years ago, but 60 years from now.

Watch above via The White House.