Racial views of Donald Trump

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Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has a history of speech and actions that have been viewed by scholars and the public as racist or sympathetic to white supremacy. Journalists, friends, family, and former employees have accused him of fueling racism in the United States. Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of racism.^[1][2]

In 1973, Trump and his company Trump Management were sued by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination against African-American renters; he settled the suit, entering into a consent decree to end the practices without admitting wrongdoing.^[3][4][5] From 2011 to 2016, Trump was a leading proponent of the debunked birther conspiracy theory falsely claiming president Barack Obama was not born in the United States.^[6][7] In a racially-charged criminal case, Trump continued to state, as late as 2024,^[8] that a group known as the Central Park Five mostly made up of African American teenagers were responsible for the 1989 rape of a white woman in the Central Park jogger case, despite the five males having been officially exonerated in 2002.^[9][10][11] Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign with a speech in which he said that Mexico sends criminals to the border: "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."^[12][13] 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.^[14]

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", despite Trump stating that "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally".^[15][16][17] In 2018, during an Oval Office meeting about immigration reform, Trump allegedly referred to El Salvador, Haiti, and African countries as "shitholes", which was widely condemned as a racist comment.^[18][19] 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."^[20] News outlets such as The Atlantic criticized this comment as a common racist trope.^[21] 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."^[22]

Trump's controversial statements have been condemned by many observers around the world,^[4][23][24] but excused by some of his supporters as a rejection of political correctness^[25][26] and by others because they harbor similar racial beliefs.^[27][28] Several studies and surveys have shown that racial resentment has contributed to Trump's political ascendance, and has become more significant than economic factors in determining the party allegiance of U.S. voters.^[28][29] Racist and Islamophobic attitudes have been shown to be a powerful indicator of support for Trump.^[30]