Why you can't miss what Donald Tump said this weekend

"Shithole" countries, revisited.

If there is ONE thing I believe deeply about the next 7 months, it’s this: We need to listen closely to what Donald Trump says on the campaign trail because it is the best indicator we have into how he thinks and what he will do if he is elected president again in November.

Which brings me to Trump’s speech to several hundred VERY wealthy donors in Florida this weekend. The big headline out of that fundraiser was that Trump claimed to raise more than $50 million — a massive sum from a single event and double what President Joe Biden raised from his big event with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama late last month.

But, for me, the real headline out of the event came out of something Trump told donors at the event. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman has the details:

About midway through his remarks, the attendee said, Mr. Trump began an extensive rant about migrants entering the United States, at a time when President Biden has been struggling with an intensified crisis at the Southern border.

“These are people coming in from prisons and jails. They’re coming in from just unbelievable places and countries, countries that are a disaster,” Mr. Trump told his guests, according to the attendee. The former president has made a similar claim the heart of his campaign speeches.

He then appeared to refer to an episode during his presidency when he drew significant criticism after an Oval Office meeting with federal lawmakers about immigration during which he described Haiti and some nations in Africa as “shithole countries,” compared with places like Norway.

“And when I said, you know, Why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries, I’m trying to be nice,” Mr. Trump said at the dinner, to chuckles from the crowd. “Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”

He continued, “And you know, they took that as a very terrible comment, but I felt it was fine.”

Ahem.

Those comments made me think of Trump’s speech in Wisconsin six days ago when he said this: “Now they are coming from the Congo, Yemen, Somalia, Syria. They are destroying our country.”

Which begs the question: Why are Norway, Denmark and Switzerland “nice” countries where we want immigrants to come from while immigrants from Congo, Yemen, Somalia and Syria are “destroying” our country.

I would, uh, suggest — strongly — that it is what people look like in those countries that is the difference in Trump’s mind.

People from Norway, Switzerland and Denmark are, overwhelmingly, white. People from Congo, Yemen, Somalia and Syria are not.

But wait, you say. Maybe Trump is just talking about the relative stability of these countries. As in, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland have functioning democracies while some of the other countries Trump views less fondly don’t.

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Maggie mentions in her piece Trump’s past comments about “shithole” countries — and I think it’s worth revisiting that episode because it shines light on exactly what Trump means.

In 2018, Trump rejected a bipartisan immigration deal negotiated in Congress. His express reasoning for doing so was because the deal would have allowed immigrants from Haiti and countries in Africa rather than Norway.

As the Associated Press reported at the time:

Trump specifically questioned why the U.S. would want to admit more people from Haiti. As for Africa, he asked why more people from “shithole countries” should be allowed into the U.S., the sources said.

Trump didn’t elaborate on why people from Norway were preferable to people from Haiti or Africa. But, then Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was asked, during a Senate hearing, about what Trump meant. Here’s what she said:

So, what Trump is saying is that “the people of Norway work very hard” and that “from a merit-based perspective we’d like to have those with skills who can assimilate and contribute to the United States”?

Riiiiiight.

Also, Nielsen doesn’t know if Norway is predominantly white. Really? REALLY?

Look, I am always hesitant to accuse a politician of being a racist. Because I don’t know what is in Donald Trump’s heart.

But, I know what comes out of his mouth. And it’s this: He believes that people from predominantly white, European countries are “nice” and “hard working” while people from Africa, Haiti and Syria and “destroying” our country.

Like, the subtext is just plain old text here. We shouldn’t overthink this sort of thing. Trump is telling us, repeatedly, what he believes.

Right? Right!

And whether Trump is technically a racist or not is, weirdly, sort of besides the point to me. He has repeatedly shown his willingness to weaponize race (and stereotypes around race) to his political advantage.

In short: He knows exactly what he is doing here. “Nice” = white. Not nice/dangerous = not white.

It’s that simple. And we need to take note of it. Because that view — or, at a minimum, the willingness to indulge that view — has and will continue to inform how he talks and how he will govern.

Muslim ban. Mass deportations. You see where this is all going.