In the midst of an uproar by journalists, pundits and Democratic politicians over President Donald Trump’s allegedly referring to African nations as “shitholes,” no one bothered to ask what normal Americans thought — and it turns out many just shrugged their shoulders, according to a Tuesday poll.
The MSN poll found that 51 percent of respondents did not think the president’s comments were racist, while 48 percent disagreed. One percent were undecided.
Predictably, an individual’s party was the biggest predictor of how they answered. Eighty-three percent of respondents who claimed racism were Democrats, while only 10 percent of Republicans deemed the remark racist.
While the president has denied using that specific language in his meeting with lawmakers, a number of those in the media and Washington have called him a racist for the comment. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, one of the individuals in the room during the alleged comment, was one of the first to assert the president’s use of “shithole.” Some Republican attendees dispute Durbin’s account.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Cory Booker said he had “tears of rage” after he heard about the comment.
“I hurt,” Booker told Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “When Dick Durbin called me I had tears of rage when I heard about this experience in this meeting.”
Via BizPAC
