Donald Trump kicked off his presidential campaign by torpedoing his relationship with the Hispanic community, calling people from Mexico “criminals” and “rapists” and vowing to build The Wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Later incidents did little to mend those ties; there was the matter of Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born federal judge who Trump said shouldn‘t be allowed to oversee a lawsuit against Trump University because he was “Mexican,” and Trump’s Cinco de Mayo Instagram post, which was truly an insult to taco bowls everywhere.

On Friday, the awkwardness continued at the White House, which hosted an event for Hispanic Heritage Month. Having obviously been told to stop by in the name of good optics, the president honored the Hispanic community by telling the group assembled before him, “among you are leaders in government, faith, and business. Fantastic people in this audience. I know some of them, and believe me, they’re very tough and they’re very smart. Sometimes they’re too tough. But that’s O.K. I have to deal with it. I have to deal with it. Fantastic people.” He then adopted an exaggerated accent to discuss the plight of Puerto Rico, where he recently said Hurricane Maria wasn’t “a real catastrophe like Katrina,” and threw a couple rolls of paper towels into the crowd like he was manning a T-shirt cannon.

(Trump’s orange ham-fisted attempts to ingratiate himself with the Hispanic community follow his luncheon last month with a group of African leaders, whom he told, “I have so many friends going to your countries to get rich.”)

Keeping his eyes on the prize, Trump made sure to pitch his tax plan to the group, which he said will include “the largest tax cuts in the history of our country.”

“Does anybody in this room mind getting a massive tax cut? Does anybody object to paying less taxes? I don’t see any hands,” Trump said. “Hispanic-American businesses and families will prosper like never before.”

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Speaking of tax cuts . . .

On Friday, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn continued to hype a tax-reform plan that experts say will disproportionately help rich people as being great for average Americans. Cohn repeated the old yarn that slashing taxes on the super-rich will lead to higher growth, which will ultimately benefit the middle class. “We’ve had a couple good quarters of G.D.P., but we’re still not on a sustainable level of growth that we should be and want to be,” he said on Bloomberg TV. “We believe we can have 3-plus percent growth with taxes and the regulation reform that we’re after now.”