VOTE: Do you think U.S. President Donald Trump is a 'racist'?

Elisabetta Bianchini
Updated
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event commemorating the 400th Anniversary of the First Representative Legislative Assembly in Jamestown, Virginia on July 30, 2019. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event commemorating the 400th Anniversary of the First Representative Legislative Assembly in Jamestown, Virginia on July 30, 2019. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversies have come to a head with a series of comments being described by many as “racist.”

In an interview with C-SPAN on Tuesday, Trump dismissed the criticism by saying “everybody’s called a racist now.”

“I’m the least racist person there is in the world, as far as I’m concerned,” the U.S. president said.

Earlier this month, Trump took to Twitter to call out “the squad” of Democratic members of Congress and told them to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” This “squad” of female Democrats are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Following Trump’s tweets, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau felt compelled to respond, condemning his comments declaring “that’s not how we do things in Canada.”

The U.S. president also attacked Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings on Twitter, calling him a “brutal bully” of border officials after being a staunch critic of the treatments of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump also stated that Cummings’ Baltimore district is a “rat and rodent infested mess.”

Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to these comments to support Cummings and called Trump’s tweets “racist attacks.”

But this isn’t the first time the “racist” label has been used for Trump, with incidents of “racists” comments and actions spanning decades.

For example in 1991, the former president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey quoted a comment from Trump that stated: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it...I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks.” Trump originally denied making the statement but later said it was “probably true.”

A year later, the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino was fined $200,000 for moving black and women dealers off tables to accommodate a notable gambler’s prejudices.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll of 1,306 self-identified registered U.S. voters, conducted between July 25 and July 28, 2019, more than 50 per cent believe the U.S. president is a racist.

With white voters, only 46 per cent say he is racist, while 80 per cent and 55 per cent of black and Hispanic voters agreed with the statement.

So do you believe that U.S. President Donald Trump is a racist? See what our Facebook readers are saying:

Vote in the poll above and leave your thoughts in the comments below.