1] In a racially-charged criminal case, Trump continued to state, as late as 2019,
[12][13] that a group of black and Hispanic teenagers were guilty of the 1989 rape of a white woman in the
Central Park jogger case, despite the five males having been officially exonerated in 2002, based on a confession by an imprisoned serial rapist that was confirmed by DNA evidence.
[14][15][16]
Trump launched his
2016 presidential campaignwith a speech in which he spoke with an extremist view of Mexican immigrants: "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
[17][18] He said that Justice
Gonzalo P. Curiel, who was born in
Indiana, should be disqualified from deciding cases against him because "this judge is of Mexican heritage".
[19] He retweeted false statistics claiming that African Americans are responsible for the majority of murders of
white Americans, and in some speeches he has repeatedly linked African Americans and
Hispanics with violent crime.
[20][21] During the campaign, Trump used the fears of the white
working class voters, and created the impression of global danger of groups that are deemed to pose a challenge to the nation.
[22]
Trump made comments following a
2017 white supremacist rally in
Charlottesville, Virginia, that were seen by critics as implying moral equivalence between the white supremacist marchers and those who protested against them as "very fine people".
[23][24] In 2018, during an
Oval Office meeting about immigration reform, Trump allegedly referred to
El Salvador,
Haiti, and African countries as "****holes", which was widely condemned as a racist comment.
[25][26] In July 2019, Trump tweeted about four Democratic congresswomen
of color, three of whom were American-born: "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done."
[27] News outlets such as
The Atlantic criticized this comment as
a common racist trope.
[28] He later denied his comments were racist, saying "if somebody has a problem with our country, if somebody doesn't want to be in our country, they should leave."
[29]
Trump's controversial statements have been condemned by many observers around the world,
[7][30][31] but excused by some of his supporters as a rejection of
political correctness[32][33] and by others because they harbor similar racial beliefs.
[34][35] Several studies and surveys have shown that racist attitudes and racial resentment have fueled Trump's political ascendance, and have become more significant than economic factors in determining the party allegiance of U.S. voters.
[35][36] Racist and
Islamophobic attitudes have been shown to be a powerful indicator of support for Trump.
[37]
