He blew up only when Ms. Tlaib said his use of Ms. Patton was a racist act: “Just because a person has a person of color, a black person, working for them does not mean they aren’t racist,” she said, referring to Mr. Trump. “And it is insensitive, and some would even say the fact that someone would actually use a prop, a black woman, in this chamber, in this committee, is alone racist in itself, ” Ms. Tlaib concluded, meaning Mr. Meadows.

That’s when Mr. Meadows lost it, insisting that Ms. Tlaib’s comments about him be stricken from the record and whipping out the “some of my best friends are black” defense.

“You and I,” he said to Representative Elijah Cummings, the Oversight Committee chairman, who is black, “have a personal relationship that isn’t based on color.” He insisted that he couldn’t be racist because he had nieces and nephews of color.

It was a performance that he’s clearly hoping will win him one of next year’s Oscars. He defended his record on race, so we should cast aside that time in 2012 when he embraced the racist birtherism theory to his supporters by saying that “2012 is the time we’re going to send Mr. Obama back home to Kenya or wherever it is.”

Mr. Meadows threw a fit during a hearing where Mr. Cohen claimed the president had said black people were too stupid to vote for him and had called African nations “shithole” countries. There was actual proof of Mr. Trump’s racism on offer, and Mr. Meadows chose to flip out about an accusation instead. It appears that to him, accusations of racism are more dangerous than racist acts themselves.