Trump and his Republican defenders are falling over themselves these days trying to claim against all evidence that the president “doesn’t have a racist bone” in his body as he has declared on Twitter.
While Trump supporters refuse to believe their own eyes and ears when it comes to the president’s demonstrable bigotry, a new article on Politico by the former president of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City provides copious and irrefutable details that anyone with an iota of intelligence could only interpret as formidable proof of Trump’s lifetime of racist attitudes.
Working closely with Donald Trump “at the highest levels of the Atlantic City casino empire over which he once held sway” for three and a half years, Jack O’Donnell is intimately familiar with the president and witnessed his bigoted behavior firsthand.
According to O’Donnell:
“I saw him treat black people and minorities as inferior. I heard him say vulgar, bigoted things and I rebuked him for them. But he did not quit. Indeed, he has continued it to this day.”
O’Donnell traces the roots of Trump’s racist behavior to the federal lawsuit against the Trump Organization — then still controlled by his father — alleging discrimination against African-Americans in the rental housing the company owned in New York City.
The former casino executive quotes Trump as telling him and other senior executives in his circle that:
“Blacks don’t want to live with whites, so why isn’t it OK for whites not to want to live with blacks?”
He also relates the fact that Trump hated the affirmative action guidelines required to be followed in order to maintain the casino’s gaming license, telling his staff that it was a “waste of money to train people who did not have the ability.”
O’Donnell’s anecdotes of his time working with Trump provide numerous other incidents of unquestionable racism.
“I recall one busy Saturday night, walking the casino floor with him, when he saw what he considered an inordinate number of black customers. “It’s looking a little dark in here,” he calmly stated. It was his way of telling me to limit our charter bus programs in urban neighborhoods,” O’Donnell relates.
While Trump’s prejudice was primarily aimed at African-Americans and Latinos, the ugly specter of anti-Semitism was also part of his repertoire as demonstrated by one personnel meeting that O’Donnell attended at Trump Tower.
“One of our senior managers, who happened to be African-American. Donald considered him incompetent and wanted him fired. When I acknowledged some shortcomings in the man’s performance, he instantly became enthused. ‘Yeah, I never liked the guy,’ he said. ‘And isn’t it funny, I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.’”
“I was mortified. We were in a restaurant in Trump Tower. I worried he’d be overheard. But he went on, ‘Besides that, I’ve got to tell you something else: I think the guy is lazy, and it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is. I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.’”
These words coming from the mouth of a future president should have been enough to disqualify Trump from ever running for any type of public office, much less the presidency.
Trump’s words and actions since the time that O’Donnell describes have not been any less laden with proof of Trump’s bigoted worldview. From his “shithole countries” comment to his attempted Muslim ban to the “fine people on both sides” remark on the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, the president has proven his racism again and again.
After his attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color this week, Trump’s racism is front and center in the news again. Given his proven long history of bigotry, it will be fruitless to expect anything else from him.
He must be driven from office as soon as possible to restore the ideals that this country has aspired to since the dawn of the civil rights era. Write your representative now to make sure that the next time impeachment is brought to a vote, it will pass overwhelmingly regardless of political considerations.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Jack O’Donnell on Politico.
