I wasn’t the only one who found it laughable that any of them thought they had seen a completely different Trump than the one more than 9 out of 10 black voters had watched and listened to on the campaign trail for a year and rejected at the polls.

West, in particular, was singled out as crazy, but he’s the only one who had enough candor to emerge from Trump Tower’s elevator and tell the truth straight, no chaser: He “just wanted to take a picture.”

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It was laughable, too, that Trump seemed to think he was reaching out in any meaningful way by talking to a few notable-quotable African Americans; making Omarosa Manigault, of “The Apprentice” fame, his highest-ranking black White House staff member; or eventually stumbling, last month, into making a highly condescending overture to the Congressional Black Caucus. Trump asked American Urban Radio Networks correspondent April Ryan, at an East Room news briefing, if she could help set up a meeting between him and the CBC — never mind that reporters don’t broker these meetings, that all black people don’t know each other and that Ryan isn’t in his admin.

Nevertheless, and sans Ryan, a Trump/CBC sit-down was eventually arranged, and a six-member delegation is scheduled to meet with the president Wednesday afternoon at the White House.

But what should they talk about?

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After performing outreach theater for months, Trump is finally meeting with black leaders, not just leading blacks. If he wants to show he’s sincere about delivering “a new deal for black America” — his pledge at a speech in Charlotte a few days before Election Day — then a first step is giving serious consideration to what members of the CBC have to say, even if their legislative priorities don’t match his.

In truth, the CBC didn’t get the hearing it deserved from President Barack Obama’s White House either, but at least Obama wasn’t actively promoting an agenda black voters saw as antithetical to its interests.

Odds are the CBC won’t get traction on most of their wish-list items. Nor is it likely to get a concession that Trump’s “what the hell do you have to lose?” characterization of a dystopian black America was both bankrupt and disgraceful. In a sense, for Trump and the CBC, this is another photo op.

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But Trump is, and will be, president. And as the most consequential body of black lawmakers in the country, the CBC should still use the opportunity to make clear to the president that there are initiatives he could realistically pursue that would make good on his promise, made in his October Gettysburg speech, outlining his “Contract with the American Voter” and proclaiming: “We have failed our inner cities and in so doing have failed our African American and Hispanic communities.”

It starts with the budget. There’s no chance that Trump and CBC members will see eye to eye on the budget, which slashes the safety net while beefing up military spending. But there’s at least one idea kicking around the halls of Congress that almost anyone, even Trump, would be hard-pressed to argue with.

As recently as last year, Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), the CBC’s elder statesman, got bipartisan backing for his 10-20-30 plan: “At least 10 percent of a federal program’s funds should go to counties where 20 percent of the population has lived below the poverty line for 30 years.” It’s pretty straightforward, has the support of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), and though it would no doubt benefit African American communities that face a disproportionate share of poverty in this country, the proposal’s race neutrality might be a selling point for Trump. As Clyburn says, “If you’re talking about poverty rates, then you’re talking about white people in Kentucky and West Virginia” as well as “Latinos in New Mexico and Arizona” and “Native Americans in South Dakota and Alaska.”

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Though he made a distinct appeal to white voters and a very different one to voters of color, Trump presented himself as a working-class champion, and 10-20-30 is totally in keeping with that message.

One of the ways those messages diverge, though, is in his rhetoric on crime. In the same August speech where he first declared that “law and order must be restored,” a coded refrain that rings hollow with many African Americans, he sought to portray himself as a tribune for equal justice, saying, “I will fight to ensure that every American is treated equally, and honored equally.”

CBC members should tell Trump that if those words are more than just gloss, then he should huddle up with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and reverse the objective, already stated, that the Justice Department “pull back” on oversight of police departments. That oversight is near and dear to African Americans who look to hold law enforcement accountable for the disparate treatment black citizens often receive at the hands of police.

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Caucus members should remind Trump that criminal justice reform efforts — already underway — are one of the few policymaking areas in Washington where there’s anything close to bipartisan consensus.

And the CBC should raise the issue of health care, if for no other reason than to remind him that Obamacare remains quite popular with black voters. A 2015 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that more than 70 percent of African Americans support Obama’s signature health-care law — the one the GOP is trying to repeal.

Though I’m sympathetic to those who’ve reportedly told CBC Chairman Cedric L. Richmond that this meeting is a fool’s errand, Richmond is ultimately right when he replies that “as policymakers, we cannot let the only opinions that he’s getting about the African American community … come from entertainers and people who he’s comfortable with that only tell him what he wants to hear.”

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