UPDATED 8/19
As the chances of a Donald Trump nomination seem increasingly likely, pundits from both sides of the aisle have been quick to note the candidate’s softening “tone.”
It’s seems only appropriate then to offer a reminder of the racist, xenophobic campaign Trump has run since June of 2015, as well as some quotes from before his Presidential campaign announcement.
Below are couple dozen of the most offensive quotes from Donald Trump — and counting.
1) When Donald Trump called immigrants from Mexico criminals and “rapists”:
“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, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
2) And then doubled-down on it:
“Somebody’s doing the raping. The thing is women being raped, well, then who’s doing the raping?”
3) And then again:
“I like Mexico. I love the Mexican people. I do business with the Mexican people, but you have people coming through the border that are from all over. And they’re bad. They’re really bad. You have people coming in, and I’m not just saying Mexicans, I’m talking about people that are from all over that are killers and rapists and they’re coming into this country.”
4) And one more time:
“We must have strong borders and not let illegal immigrants enter the United States. As has been stated continuously in the press, people are pouring across our borders unabated. Public reports routinely state great amounts of crime are being committed by illegal immigrants.”
5) When Donald Trump said he wanted to build a massive wall along the US/Mexico border — and make Mexico pay for it:
“I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me —and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”
6) When Donald Trump praised “Operation Wetback,” an Eisenhower-era mass-deportation plan that expelled one million Mexican nationals and an unknown number of US citizens:
“You’re going to have a deportation force, and you’re going to do it humanely. Look, we have to do what we have to do, and Ike did it and other people have done it.”
7) When Donald Trump retweeted an insult about Columba Bush, the Mexico-born wife of his former opponent Jeb Bush:
“Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican illegals because of his wife.”
8) When Donald Trump called the two supporters who urinated on and brutally assaulted a homeless Latino man in Boston “passionate”:
“I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”
9) When Donald Trump snarled “Go back to Univision” at Jorge Ramos — and then kicked him out of his press conference:
10) When Donald Trump refused to disavow the KKK or David Duke — not once, not twice, but three times:
“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. I mean, I don’t know — did he endorse me or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you’re asking me a question that I’m supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.”
11) When Donald Trump falsely claimed that he watched “thousands” of Muslim-Americans cheer 9/11:
“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.”
12) When Donald Trump’s campaign called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States:
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
13) When Donald Trump denigrated the military service of John McCain, who was tortured for over five years as a prisoner of war:
“[McCain is] not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
14) When Donald Trump insulted the appearance of Carly Fiorina, the sole woman running for the Republican Presidential nomination:
“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?! I mean, [Carly Fiorina’s] a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”
15) When Donald Trump insulted Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton with a vulgar sexual term:
“Even a race to Obama, she was gonna beat Obama. I don’t know who would be worse, I don’t know, how could it be worse? But she was going to beat — she was favored to win — and she got schlonged, she lost, I mean she lost.”
16) When Donald Trump made offensive comments about other women in media and entertainment:
- Megyn Kelly: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”
- Rosie O’Donnell: “Rosie O’Donnell’s disgusting both inside and out. You take a look at her, she’s a slob. She talks like a truck driver, she doesn’t have her facts, she’ll say anything that comes to her mind. Her show failed when it was a talk show, the ratings went very, very, very low and very bad, and she got essentially thrown off television. I mean she’s basically a disaster.”
- Ariana Huffington: “[She] is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man — he made a good decision.”
- Ivanka Trump, his daughter: “She does have a very nice figure. I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps, I would be dating her.”
17) When Donald Trump advocated killing the children and families of terror suspects:
“The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families.”
18) When Donald Trump said he could murder someone in broad daylight and get away with it:
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
19) When Donald Trump claimed President Barack Obama had a fradulent birth certificate and was not born in the United States:
“[President Obama] spent $2 million in legal fees trying on to get away from this issue, and if it weren’t an issue, why wouldn’t he just solve it? I wish he would because if he doesn’t, it’s one of the greatest scams in the history of politics and in the history, period. You are not allowed to be a president if you’re not born in this country. Right now, I have real doubts.”
20) When Donald Trump encouraged violence against Black demonstrators at his rallies:
“Maybe [the protester] should have been roughed up. It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
21) When Donald Trump said he’d pay the legal bills of a man who sucker-punched a Black demonstrator at another one of his rallies:
“I’m going to look at it. I’m going to see, you know, what was behind this, because it was a strange event. But from what I heard, there was a lot of taunting and a certain finger was placed in the air. Not nice. I’ve actually instructed my people to look into it, yes.”
22) When Donald Trump told an adoring crowd he’d like to assault a protester himself:
“Here’s a guy, throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else, when we’re talking. The guards are very gentle with him. He’s walking out, like, big high-fives, smiling, laughing. I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell ya.”
23) When Donald Trump insulted a female lawyer who requested a break during a deposition in order to pump breast milk:
“You’re disgusting, you’re disgusting.”
24) When Donald Trump used a slur against Japanese people in a 1989 TIME interview:
“Who the f knows? I mean, really, who knows how much the Japs will pay for Manhattan property these days?”
25) When Donald Trump was asked about the numerous white nationalist groups who have come out in his support:
“People like me across the board. Everybody likes me.”
26) When Donald Trump hurled a racial attack at a well-respected federal judge because of his Mexican heritage:
“Everybody says it, but I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel. The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine.”
27) And then doubled-down on his attack:
“I’ve had terrible rulings, I’ve been treated very unfairly. Now, this judge is of Mexican heritage. I’m building a wall. I’m building a wall…We are building a wall. He’s a Mexican. We’re building a wall between here and Mexico.”
28) When Donald Trump congratulated himself “for being right on terrorism” after the horrific mass shooting that took the lives of 49 members of Florida’s LGBTQ community:
“Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!”
29) When Donald Trump defended tweeting an anti-Semitic meme ripped from an internet message board for neo-Nazis and white supremacists:
“’You shouldn’t have taken it down,’” Mr. Trump recalled telling one of his campaign workers. “I said, ‘Too bad, you should have left it up.’ I would have rather defended it. That’s just a star.”
30) When Donald Trump launched a racial attack on Senator Elizabeth Warren:
“Crooked Hillary is wheeling out one of the least productive senators in the U.S. Senate, goofy Elizabeth Warren, who lied on heritage. Pocahontas is not happy, she’s not happy. She’s the worst. You know, Pocahontas — I’m doing such a disservice to Pocahontas, it’s so unfair to Pocahontas — but this Elizabeth Warren, I call her ‘goofy,’ Elizabeth Warren, she’s one of the worst senators in the entire United States Senate.”
31: When Trump insulted Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the military parents of a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq:
“If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me. But a plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet, and it looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that.”
32: When Donald Trump suggested Hillary Clinton should be shot:
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. And by the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
