The New York Times has stated President Trump made derogatory remarks about Haitians and Nigerians during an Oval Office meeting back in June:
According to six officials who attended or were briefed about the meeting, Mr. Trump began reading aloud from the document, which his domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, had given him just before meeting. The document listed how many immigrants had received visas to enter the United States in 2017.
More than 2,500 were from Afghanistan, a terrorist haven, the president complained.
Haiti sent 15,000 people. They "all have AIDS", he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.
Forty thousand had come from Nigeria, Mr. Trump added. Once they had been in the United States, they would never "go back to their huts" in Africa, recalled two officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive conversation in the Oval Office.
Of course, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denies Trump made the comments and so do Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly who was the Secretary of Homeland Security at the time of the meeting.
But I do not believe them.
Let us remember we are talking about a man who began his presidential campaign by referring to Mexican as rapists and drug dealers. Let us remember we are talking about a man who didn't believe a federal judge could perform his job because of his family's Mexican heritage.
If Donald Trump is capable of calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers and capable of saying Mexican heritage disqualifies someone from being a federal judge then why isn't he capable of claiming Haitians have AIDS or Nigerians live in huts?
It is well worth noting that last month the Trump Administration ended Temporary Protected Status for about 60,000 Haitians currently living in the United States due to the 2010 earthquake on the impoverished island. This raises the question if Trump's personal animosity towards Haitians resulted in a change in U.S. policy.
Naturally, there will be a significant segment of Trump supporters who will dismiss this report as fake news. But there will also be a significant segment of Republicans who believe Trump said these things but as long as Trump appoints conservative judges and signs a tax cut into law they will not care.
There are those of us who believe that the appointment of conservative judges and signing tax cuts into law aren't enough to overcome bad character, but we are few in number and yield little influence.
As long as this is the case then it is a certainty that a majority of the country will shrug off Trump's remarks about Haitians and Nigerians just as they shrugged off his remarks about Mexicans when they pulled a lever for him in November 2016.
These people would be on Santa's naughty list, but alas there is no Santa Claus. Instead we elected a Grinch.
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