Trump once denied using this slur about Haiti and African nations
President Donald Trump admitted Tuesday to using the slur “shithole country” to disparage Haiti and African countries during a meeting with lawmakers in 2018, boasting about a comment that sparked global outrage during his first term.
At the time, Trump denied making the derogatory statement during a closed-door meeting, but on Tuesday he showed no qualms about repeating it at a rally in Pennsylvania. He then denigrated Somalia as “dirty, filthy, disgusting and crime-ridden.”
Trump was boasting in his speech that he “announced last week a permanent pause on third world migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries,” when someone in the crowd shouted out the 2018 remark.
This led him to recall the 2018 incident. His account was faithful to the description given at the time by those briefed on the Oval Office meeting.
“We had a meeting and I said, ‘Why are we only taking people from shithole countries, right? ‘Why can’t we get people from Norway, Sweden?'” Trump told rally attendees.
“But we still take people from Somalia,” he continued. “Places that are a disaster. Dirty, dirty, disgusting, crime ridden.”
The White House at the time did not deny Trump’s comments, but the president posted on Twitter the day after the news broke that “that was not the language I used.” He added that he “never said anything derogatory about Haitians.”
In 2018, Trump’s comments denigrating predominantly black nations while seeking more migration from predominantly white countries were widely denounced as racist. Some congressional Republicans condemned the remarks, and foreign leaders were outraged. The government of Botswana summoned the American ambassador and the president of Senegal, Macky Sall, expressed shock, stressing that “Africa and the black race deserve the respect and consideration of all.”
But since then, Trump has exceeded many of the standards and traditions of decorum that had guided his predecessors, both during his first term and in the years since. He often peppers his public remarks with swear words, and this year he dropped the F-bomb while the cameras were rolling – twice.
On Thanksgiving, in two lengthy social media posts complaining about immigrants, he humiliated Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz using a dated slur toward people with intellectual disabilities. When asked by a reporter if he stood by a comment that many Americans find offensive, Trump was unrepentant. “Yeah. I think there’s something wrong with him,” he said.
