In the midst of an uproar by journalists, pundits, and Democratic politicians over President Donald Trump’s alleged reference to African nations as “sh*tholes,” no one bothered to ask what normal Americans thought — and it turns out many just shrugged their shoulders, according to a Tuesday poll.
A MSN poll found that 51% of respondents did not think the president’s comments were racist, while 48% percent disagreed. One percent were undecided.
Not surprisingly, a respondent’s party affiliation was the biggest predictor of how he answered. Eighty-three percent of respondents who claimed the comment was racist were Democrats, while only 10% of Republicans saw the remark that way.
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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 “sh*thole.” 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.”
This report, by Joe Simonson, was cross posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
