On race and ethnicity, Trump has always been a divider

As Donald Trump moved through his adult life, he has regularly demonstrated an extraordinary level of concern about the ethnic and racial identity of people he encountered. When he testified before a committee in Congress about competing casino operators from Native American tribes he complained, out loud, that they “don’t look like Indians to me.”

In his book about Trump’s years as a casino operator in Atlantic City, former Trump executive John R. O’Donnell wrote of how his boss made bigoted statements about African-Americans and Jews. O’Donnell quoted Trump saying:

“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 tell you something else. I think that’s guy’s lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks.”

Trump has both confirmed and denied the accuracy of O’Donnell’s reporting. In May 1997, he told Playboy writer Mark Bowden about the book generally, “The stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.” Two years later, when he was eying a third party run for president he told Tim Russert, “I’ve never said anything like it.”