From the moment he launched his candidacy by attacking Mexican immigrants as criminals, President Trump has returned time and again to language that is racially charged and, to many, insensitive and highly offensive.
Whether it is a calculated strategy to appeal to less tolerant and broad-minded supporters or simply a filter-free chief executive saying what’s on his mind, the cycle is by now familiar: The president speaks, critics respond with outrage, and Trump’s defenders accuse his critics of hysterically overreacting.
The latest instance came Thursday, during a White House meeting with congressional lawmakers on immigration. Trump asked why the United States would accept immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa and the Caribbean, rather than people from places like Norway, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
A glimpse at some of the president’s earlier provocations:
JUNE 16, 2015
When Trump announced his campaign for president
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems.…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”
DEC. 7, 2015
At a South Carolina rally five days after the San Bernardino terrorist attack
Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”
FEB. 28, 2016
CNN interview
After disavowing the endorsement of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Trump equivocated when he was asked in a nationally televised interview whether he would say flatly that he did not want the vote of Duke or other white supremacists.
“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So I don’t know.”
JUNE 3, 2016
Pointing to a black man surrounded by white Trump supporters at a campaign rally in Redding
“Look at my African American over here. Look at him.”
JUNE 5, 2016
In a CBS interview
Trump said the Mexican ancestry of a federal judge born in Indiana should disqualify him from presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump because of his proposed border wall.
After he called U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel “a member of a club or society very strongly pro-Mexican,” a reporter asked Trump whether he would also feel that a Muslim could not treat him fairly because of his proposed Muslim ban. “It’s possible, yes,” Trump said.
JULY 16, 2016
At a rally in Ohio
Trump defended his posting on Twitter of a six-pointed star, a pile of cash and an image of Hillary Clinton with the caption, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” Widespread denunciations of the tweet as anti-Semitic led an aide to delete it, but Trump said it should have stayed up.
“Just leave it up and say, no, that’s not a star of David, that’s just a star,” he said. It “could have been a sheriff’s star,” he said.
SEPT. 22, 2016
Presidential debate with Hillary Clinton
“Our inner cities, African Americans, Hispanics are living in hell because it’s so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot.”
JUNE 2017
At an Oval Office meeting, according to a New York Times report quoting unnamed officials. A White House spokeswoman denied the report.
Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS” and Nigerian immigrants will never “go back to their huts” in Africa.
AUG. 15, 2017
Days after a woman was killed and dozens injured in Charlottesville, Va., after torch-bearing Ku Klux Klansmen and other white supremacists waving Confederate flags and chanting “Jews will not replace us” confronted counter-protesters over the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue
“I think there is blame on both sides.…You also had people that were very fine people on both sides.…Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”
AUG. 22, 2017
At a rally in Phoenix, referring to the removal of Confederate monuments
“They’re trying to take away our culture. They’re trying to take away our history. And our weak leaders, they do it overnight. These things have been there for 150 years, for a hundred years. You go back to a university and it's gone. Weak, weak people.”
SEPT. 22, 2017
At a political rally in Alabama, where he denounced black football players who have taken a knee during the national anthem to protest racial discrimination in the criminal justice system
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s fired!’”
NOV. 27, 2017
Slur directed at Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has claimed Native American heritage, in his remarks honoring Navajo veterans for their service in World War II.
“You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”
NOV. 29, 2017
Trump retweet
Trump drew condemnation from British Prime Minister Theresa May for sharing three anti-Muslim videos from a far-right British nationalist who was recently arrested for inciting hatred and violence against Muslims. The videos purported to show Muslims engaged in violent or anti-Christian acts. One of them, titled “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” did not actually show a migrant beating the boy; the attacker was born and raised in the Netherlands.
mark.barabak@latimes.com | Twitter: @markzbarabak
michael.finnegan@latimes.com | Twitter: @finneganLAT
UPDATES:
Jan. 12, 2:25 p.m.: This article was updated with additional instances of President Trump’s racially charged language.
This article was originally published 6:30 p.m. Jan. 11.