As Donald Trump tries for a second time to take the Oval Office, Black folks aren’t letting him forget about his racist behavior over the years. Now, he has set his sights on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. Here are all the times Trump pissed off Black people.
On July 21, President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor instead. Shortly following the announcement, Trump and his team wasted no time attacking Harris. “Harris will be even WORSE for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden,” Trump senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a memo.
Despite a history of saying racially offensive comments, whether it was through his birther conspiracy about Barack Obama or immigration policies, Trump has lied about what he has done for Black people.
“My administration is delivering for African Americans like never before. No President has done more for our Black community,” he said once. “My Admin has done more for the Black Community than any President since Abraham Lincoln,” Trump also has said on X.
However, aside from Lincoln that credit goes to Lyndon B. Johnson who signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During his presidency, hate crimes increased exponentially.
In 1989, the Central Park 5 — consisting of four Black teens and one Latino teen— were accused of attacking and raping a white woman in New York City. Trump took out ads in newspapers that read: “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” The teenagers later had their convictions overturned, but Trump never apologized for his actions.
In 1973, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the Trump Management Corporation for failing to follow the Fair Housing Act. There was evidence discovered by federal officials that showed he refused to rent apartments to Black people. Ultimately, he signed an agreement that stipulated he would not discriminate to renters of color without admitting to his history of discriminatory behavior.
Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice” was a huge hit in the 2000s but he wanted it to garner controversy. In 2005, he publicly shared his thoughts on having the show focus on Black people versus white people. Trump stated that he wanted to create “a team of successful African Americans versus a team of successful whites. Whether people like that idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world.”
In an April interview with TIME Magazine, Trump insisted that if he is elected to the White House for a second time, he will fix “anti-whiteness” in this country. “I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country and that can’t be allowed,” he said.
Trump, who is the first president to undergo a criminal trial, has made it a point to target Black district attorneys — Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis — with racist remarks for prosecuting him. Terms he has used to describe them include “animal” and “rabid.” Of course, Trump also called them “racist.” He attacked Attorney General Letitia James too: “I’m under investigation. This time it’s civil investigation by another racist in reverse who also campaigned on, ‘I will get Trump, I will get him.’ This was her campaign,” Trump said about James.
In January 2018, then-President Donald Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House. According to a Democratic aide, when the group discussed immigration from Africa Trump asked why America would want immigrants from “all these shithole countries” and that the U.S. should more migrants coming from places like Norway.
Trump later denied the remarks by tweeting, “The language used by me at the...meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.”
In 2019, Trump posted multiple tweets that targeted a group of House Democrats: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. He stated, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” before telling the U.S. government how to handle its problems.
Last year, Trump quoted Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” to state that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America. He denied knowing the origins of the phrase, but doubled down on it anyway. “They are poisoning the blood of our country. And I’m not talking about a specific group, and I never read ‘Mein Kampf,’ and I have no idea what Hitler said other than I’ve seen on the news... And I will tell you, a big percentage of the people coming in are from prisons and from mental institutions and are terrorists. And we cannot let that…and that is poisoning our country.”
In an attempt to (sadly) win over Black voters, Trump in February said he can relate to us being treated unfairly by the criminal justice system. “I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing,” Trump said at the Black Conservative Federation’s annual gala. “They were doing it because it’s election interference. And then I got indicted for a second time, a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me because they’ve been hurt so badly and discriminated against.”
“I’m being indicted for you, the Black population. The mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot. And you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. It’s incredible. You see Black people walking around with my mug shot on the shirts.”
In March, Trump posted on his website that he would reverse the Biden administration’s “woke equity” programs if he gets elected for a second term. He also said he will implore Congress to establish a restitution fund for those “unjustly discriminated against by these destructive policies.” “Every institution in America is under attack from this Marxist concept of ‘equity,’’’ Trump said in 2023.
Barack Obama becoming this country’s first Black president infuriated Trump, as he pushed the lie that Obama was not born in the United States. Obama ultimately shared his birth certificate and called out Trump as a “carnival barker.” Trump recanted his conspiracy theory in 2016.
During the 2020 peaceful George Floyd protests, then-President Donald Trump sent thousands of National Guard troops to D.C. He also deployed numerous unidentified federal law officers — most from Department of Homeland Security—to protestors in Portland, which led to avoidable and unnecessary injuries.
Similar to his Obama birtherism lies, Trump falsely suggested before the 2020 election that Vice President Kamala Harris — the first Black woman to hold the position —did not “meet the requirements” to be President Joe Biden’s running mate.
On Jan. 6, 2021, following Trump hosting a rally with his most loyal supporters, severaly insurgents violently stormed the Capitol in an attempt to hold onto presidential power. The mob broke through police barricades and within 36 hours of the attack, five people died.
In February, Trump made a baffling appearance at “Sneaker Con” at the Philadelphia Convention Center to promote his “Never Surrender High-Tops” for $399. Many folks called out how Trump was using sneaker culture —popularized by Black and brown folks — to turn a profit.
