Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, has a history of speech and actions that have been viewed by scholars and the public as racist or sympathetic to white supremacy. Journalists, friends, family, and former employees have accused him of fueling racism in the United States. Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of racism.
In 1973, Trump and his company Trump Management were sued by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination against African-American renters; he settled the suit, entering into a consent decree to end the practices without admitting wrongdoing. From 2011 to 2016, Trump was a leading proponent of the debunked birther conspiracy theory falsely claiming president Barack Obama was not born in the United States. In a racially charged criminal case, Trump continued to state, as late as 2024, that a group known as the Central Park Five mostly made up of African American teenagers were responsible for the 1989 rape of a white woman in the Central Park jogger case, despite the five males having been officially exonerated in 2002. Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign with a speech at Trump Tower, in which he said that Mexico sends criminals to the border: "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." During the campaign, Trump stoked the fears of conservative white working class voters, creating the impression of global danger from groups that are deemed to pose a challenge to the nation.
Trump made comments following a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that were seen by critics as implying moral equivalence between the white supremacist marchers and those who protested against them as "very fine people". Trump excluded white nationalists from the "very fine people" comment, stating that "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally". In 2018, during an Oval Office meeting about immigration reform, Trump referred to El Salvador, Haiti, and African countries as "shitholes", which critics condemned as a racist comment. In July 2019, Trump tweeted about four Democratic congresswomen of color, three of whom were American-born: "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done." News outlets such as The Atlantic criticized this comment as a common racist trope. He later denied his comments were racist, saying "if somebody has a problem with our country, if somebody doesn't want to be in our country, they should leave."
Trump's controversial statements have been condemned by many observers around the world, but excused by some of his supporters as a rejection of political correctness and by others because they harbor similar racial beliefs. Several studies and surveys have shown that racial resentment has contributed to Trump's political ascendance, and has become more significant than economic factors in determining the party allegiance of U.S. voters. Racist and Islamophobic attitudes have been shown to be a powerful indicator of support for Trump.
Pre-presidency
Housing discrimination cases In 1973, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Trump Management, Donald Trump and his father Fred, for discrimination against African Americans in their renting practices.
Testers from the New York City Human Rights Division had found that prospective Black renters at Trump buildings were told there were no apartments available, while prospective white renters were offered apartments at the same buildings. During the investigation, four of Trump's agents admitted to using a "C" (for "colored") or "9" code to label Black applicants and stated that they were told their company "discouraged rental to blacks" or that they were "not allowed to rent to black tenants," and that prospective Black renters should be sent to the central office while white renters could have their applications accepted on site. Three doormen testified to being told to discourage prospective Black renters by lying about the rental prices or claiming no vacancies were available. A settlement was reached in 1975 where Trump agreed to familiarize himself with the Fair Housing Act, take out ads stating that Black renters were welcome, give a list of vacancies to the Urban League on a weekly basis, and allow the Urban League to present qualified candidates for 20% of vacancies in properties that were less than 10% non-white.
Elyse Goldweber, the Justice Department lawyer tasked with taking Trump's deposition, has stated that during a coffee break Trump said to her directly, "You know, you don't want to live with them either."
The Trump Organization was sued again in 1978 for violating terms of the 1975 settlement by continuing to refuse to rent to Black tenants; Trump and his lawyer Roy Cohn denied the charges. In 1983 the Metropolitan Action Institute noted that two Trump Village properties were still over 95% White.
Central Park jogger case
On the night of April 19, 1989, Trisha Meili was assaulted, raped, and sodomized in Manhattan's Central Park. On the night of the attack, five juvenile males—four African Americans and one of Hispanic descent—were apprehended in connection with a number of attacks in Central Park committed by around 30 teenage perpetrators. The prosecution ignored evidence suggesting there was a single perpetrator whose DNA did not match any of the suspects, instead using confessions that the suspects said were coerced and false. They were convicted in 1990 by juries in two separate trials, receiving sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years. The attacks were highly publicized in the media.
On May 1, 1989, Trump called for the return of the death penalty by taking out a full-page advertisement in all four of the city's major newspapers. He said he wanted the "criminals of every age" who were accused of beating and raping a jogger in Central Park "to be afraid." Trump told Larry King on CNN: "The problem with our society is the victim has absolutely no rights and the criminal has unbelievable rights" and, speaking of another case where a woman was raped and thrown out a window, "maybe hate is what we need if we're gonna get something done."
In 2002, an imprisoned serial rapist confessed to the jogger's rape, which was confirmed by DNA evidence, and the convictions of the five men were vacated. They sued New York City in 2003 for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress. Lawyers for the five defendants said that Trump's advertisement had inflamed public opinion. The city settled the case for $41 million (~$ in ) in 2014. In June of that year, Trump called the settlement "a disgrace" and said that the group's guilt was still likely: "Settling doesn't mean innocence. [...] These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels."
In October 2016, when Trump campaigned to be president, he said that Central Park Five were guilty and that their convictions should never have been vacated, attracting criticism from the Central Park Five themselves and others. Republican senator John McCain retracted his endorsement of Trump, citing in part "outrageous statements about the innocent men in the Central Park Five case." Yusuf Salaam, one of the five defendants, said that he had falsely confessed out of coercion, after having been mistreated by police while in custody. Filmmaker Ken Burns, who directed the documentary The Central Park Five that helped clear the names of the accused, called Trump's comments "the height of vulgarity" and "out and out racism".
In June 2019 in response to Ken Burns' documentary and the Netflix miniseries When They See Us, Trump stood by his previous statements, saying "You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt. If you look at Linda Fairstein and if you look at some of the prosecutors, they think that the city should never have settled that case. So we'll leave it at that."
Black professionals In a 1989 interview with Bryant Gumbel, Trump stated: "A well-educated Black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market." Fortune magazine reported that Trump's statement was not confirmed by studies of factual evidence concerning the impact of an applicant's race on their job prospects.
In his 1991 book Trumped! John O'Donnell quoted Trump as allegedly saying:
I've got Black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys wearing yarmulkes.... Those are the only kind of people I want counting my money. Nobody else... Besides that, I've got to tell you something else. I think that the guy's lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in Blacks.
Trump told Playboy magazine in an interview published in 1997, "The stuff O'Donnell wrote about me is probably true." Two years later, when seeking the nomination of the Reform Party for president, Trump denied having made the statement.
Native American casino industry During the early 1990s, competition from an expanding Native American casino industry threatened his Atlantic City investments. During this period Trump stated that "nobody likes Indians as much as Donald Trump" but then claimed without evidence that the mob had infiltrated Native American casinos, that there was no way "Indians" or an "Indian chief" could stand up to the mob, implied that the casinos were not in fact owned by Native Americans based on the owners' appearance, and depicted Native Americans as greedy.
In 2000, Trump and his associates were fined $250,000 () and publicly apologized for failing to reveal that they had financed advertisements criticizing the proposal of building more Native American casinos in the Catskill Mountains, which alluded to Mohawk Indians doing cocaine and bringing violence, asking: "Are these the new neighbors we want?" The advertisements, claiming to be funded by "grass-roots, pro-family" donors, were actually designed by Roger Stone, while Trump approved and financed the million-dollar venture.
In 1993, Trump argued in Congress with ranking U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources member George Miller over Native American casinos. Trump felt the competition would hurt his own gambling interests. Miller asked, "Is this you?," discussing Indian ethnicity: "We're going to judge people by whether they have Indian blood whether they're qualified to run a casino or not? Trump responded, "That probably is me, absolutely. Because, I'll tell you what. If you look at some of the reservations that you've approved, that you, sir in your great wisdom have approved, I'll tell you right now, they don't look like Indians to me." Miller responded, "Thank God that's not the test of whether or not people have rights in this country or notwhether or not they pass your 'look' test." In 2024, Ana Cabrera of MSNBC remarked, "Congressman George Miller of California, who confronted Trump in that 1993 clip, said that was the most irresponsible testimony he had heard in his 40 years in Congress."
The Apprentice
In April 2005, Trump appeared on Howard Stern's radio show, where Trump proposed that the fourth season of the television show The Apprentice would feature an exclusively white team of blondes competing against a team of only African-Americans. Stern asked Trump if that would start a "racial war", to which Trump replied: "it would be handled very beautifully by me ... I'm very diplomatic." The proposal was rejected by television executives at NBC. The actual fourth season of The Apprentice concluded with Trump asking the male African-American winner of the season, Randal Pinkett, to share the honor with the runner-up, a white woman. Pinkett said this was "racist".