Former President Donald Trump told donors at a fundraiser this weekend that he wanted immigrants from “nice” countries “like Denmark” to travel to the United States and vowed to extend his controversial tax cuts for rich Americans if he’s elected to the White House later this year.
The New York Times first reported Trump’s remarks about immigrants from his high-dollar fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, this weekend. Trump spoke to guests at a mansion owned by a billionaire financier and appeared to defend his controversial 2018 remarks where he called certain nations — including Haiti and some in Africa — “shithole countries.”
“And when I said, you know, why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries, I’m trying to be nice,” Trump told donors, the Times reported. “Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”
“And you know, they took that as a very terrible comment, but I felt it was fine.”
The comments echo his longstanding anti-immigration rhetoric as he seeks a second term following his defeat in 2020. The former president also railed against migrants entering the U.S. along its southern border with Mexico on Saturday, claiming people were coming in “from prisons and jails.”
“They’ve been shipped in, brought in, deposited in our country, and they’re with us tonight,” Trump told guests, per the Times.
