Trump Just Claimed He Deserves To Receive 'Reparations' From Taxpayers—And Ted Lieu's Reaction Is All Of Us

California Democratic Representative Ted Lieu spoke out after President Donald Trump criticized the Justice Department's rescission of a proposed $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" compensation fund for January 6 defendants, saying he ultimately deserves "reparations" after "what they did to me."

Slavery was in fact a brutal legal institution, comprising the enslavement of Black people who were kidnapped from their homes and families and forced to reside in a foreign land where they served as the economic backbone of the American South. Advocates have long sought reparations for descendants of enslaved Black Americans as a result.

Trump, always on a hunt for an opportunity to attack his critics, said:

"They terminated the settlement and they went after me. And what they did here was very, frankly, if you talk about reparations or if you talk about payment, what they did to me, I had a very good case against them."

You can hear what Trump said in the video below.

Trump's comments followed Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's assurance on Sunday that the proposed compensation fund had been scrapped. Blanche's written commitment came after several Republican senators warned they would oppose his nomination to become attorney general unless he formally confirmed the fund would not move forward.

The controversy stems from a settlement reached after Trump sued the IRS in January over the leak of his tax returns from 2017 through 2020, records that showed he and his family had avoided paying as much as $500 million in federal taxes over several years.

Last month, a federal judge criticized the agreement as "self-dealing," noting that Trump, as head of the executive branch, had effectively negotiated a settlement with his own administration.

Dreisen Health, a longtime reparations researcher and founder of Why We Can't Wait Reparations Coalition, said in a statement to TheGrio that reparations "require a legitimate harm or a gross human rights violation — white mediocrity and white grievance do not meet that bar."

With all this in mind, Lieu addressed Trump's statement very bluntly on X:

"No."

You can see his post below.

Others have also scoffed at Trump's claim about reparations.

Just another day with a perpetual victim in the White House.