Donald Trump is no friend of foreigners, unless you're a dictator from Russia, or a supermodel from Slovenia. I mean, remember when he peddled that idiotic conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii? How about when he launched his presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals? Since he became president, he's remained America's racist grandpa, tweeting racist images, calling Senators racial slurs and attempting to "ban all Muslims" from entering the country. For someone who claims to be "the least racist person you've ever met," he sure makes a lot of racially charged remarks. Currently, Trump is negotiating with lawmakers over how to help "Dreamers" - young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. The Obama-led Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program - aka DACA - granted short-term passes to these 700,000 undocumented immigrants, so they could live and work without fear of deportation. However, last September, Trump killed the program, for seemingly no reason. And now he says he won't sign any legislation that helps dreamers unless it includes a plan to build his famous "wall." (Even though it's impossible, ineffective and ridiculously expensive - also, Mexico's not paying for it!) During today's negotiations, some congressional lawmakers proposed granting visas to people from Haiti, El Salvador and African nations who are here on temporary protected status. That status has already been terminated for more than 200,000 immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Nicaragua, who now have just a few months to decide whether they should leave or face deportation. In response to this reasonable request that shows the basic minimum of human decency, Trump scoffed, asking "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Then he suggested the U.S. "should have more people from places like Norway." (White countries are good and brown countries are bad, apparently.)

Donald Trump made a Pearl Harbor joke in the Oval Office that left everyone completely stunned.

Worst of all, the Japanese Prime Minister was there at the time.


Donald Trump’s Pearl Harbor joke is not exactly out of character

We all know that Donald Trump pretty much says exactly what he is thinking.

From offensive comments made to multiple reporters to threats against other countries - most recently Iran - he is a straight shooter in the extreme.

While that rubs some people up the wrong way, his fans love it.

It really depends on where you stand on it all.

However, in this public engagement, it didn’t quite get the response that some of his jokes do.

That’s because he was referencing one of the darkest moments in the history of relations between Japan and the USA.

It’s not the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it’s not far off.

Trump was greeting Japanese Prime Minister Sanar Takaichi at the White House when he was asked about the recent bombing of Iran during Operation Epic Fury.

His response left everyone shocked.

Donald Trump’s Pearl Harbor joke didn’t go down well

Trump had just been asked why the USA didn’t tell allies that it was about to bomb Iran as part of a joint operation with Israel.

To start with, Trump explained that the USA ‘went in very hard’ and ‘didn’t tell anybody because [they] wanted surprise’.

He then went off-script, adding: “Who knows better about surprise than Japan?”

After a bit of awkward laughter, he clarified the joke: “Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK?”

That remark was met with audible groans, before the room fell into an eerie silence.

Takaichi’s face dropped, clearly the joke didn’t land with her.

As she realized what Trump had said, her eyes told a whole story.

Then Trump returned to the matter at hand, stating: “He’s asking me about surprise, and we did.”

“And because of that surprise, we knocked out ... we probably knocked out 50 percent ... and much more than we anticipated doing.

“So if I go and tell everybody about it, there's no longer a surprise.”

Pearl Harbor was a brutal Japanese assault

The Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 left more than 2,400 US service personnel dead and injured a further 1,200 or so.

Four American battleships were sunk by the Japanese forces and it remained the most deadly attack on American turf until the events of 9/11 in 2001.

Perhaps not a laughing matter, then.

Still, nothing is off the table where Trump is concerned.

Featured image credit: CSPAN

During his tenancy as the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump has come under fire for a whole range of reasons. Right from the beginning, his legitimacy as President was questioned after he lost the popular vote, and, following a number of White House staff disagreements, a host of reactionary executive orders and some dubious claims surrounding "the wall" and travel ban, his approval ratings have been falling ever since. More than anything, though, the thing that seems to cause the most uproar amongst the American people (and, indeed, the rest of us watching from around the world) are the President's inflammatory tweets. As if announcing impromptu bans on trans people in the military and goading Kim Jong Un with insults via social media wasn't already enough of a risky move for Trump, his Twitter account now gone one step further by retweeting three posts from Jayda Fransen. For those who aren't familiar with Fransen, she is the deputy leader of Britain First - a far-right political group based in the UK. The party's platform is primarily based on bigotry and racism, with Britain's Muslim population being the target for many of their attacks - both politically and physically. Fransen is especially vocal about her hatred of Muslims, and frequently shares her views on Twitter. Earlier today, she posted three videos depicting various individuals of Islamic faith committing violent or disrespectful acts and, of course, she used them to demonize an entire race of people. The videos were then retweeted by Trump's Twitter account. Fransen tweeting the videos in order to incite hatred against a group of people is bad enough, but for Donald Trump - the President of a country which is home to over three million Muslims - to host the message on his own platform is just horrifying. In doing so, Trump is essentially validating the stance of an extremist party and publicly supporting the victimization of a group that already faces mass prejudice in the USA. Not to mention the fact that Fransen has actually been criminally convicted of hate crimes before. Just last year, the deputy leader of the party was charged with religiously aggravated harassment against a mother-of-four who was wearing a hijab. Her viewpoints are considered utterly unpalatable by the majority of the British population and one would expect Trump to be conscious of this when spreading her message. The videos are especially troubling at this point in time, as hate crimes against minorities have increased since Trump's election. Sadly, this sort of message coming from the President is only likely to push that number even higher. Calling out individuals for disrespectful or illegal actions is fair enough, but using the actions of one person to justify hatred against millions of others who happen to be a part of the same religion is simply absurd. As President of a country that has huge racial diversity, Donald Trump should be careful about the messages he sends out to his supporters.

After spending a year and a half in office, Donald Trump has definitely made his mark on America. He's arguably been the subject of more sex-based scandals, held responsible for more diplomatic blunders, and certainly experienced more Twitter faux pas than any other serving president in US history, and yet he still has the support of millions of voters.

However, the former businessman might not be able to count on his fanbase for much longer, as it turns out that almost half of the American electorate believe that their current president is a racist.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll released this week, 49 per cent of people think Trump is racist, 47 believe he is not, and the remainder are undecided. Moreover, 44 per cent are convinced that Trump's "racist beliefs" have motivated his tough immigration policy, 60 per cent agreed that separating families at the border is a violation of human rights, and 22 per cent of Republicans believe that the president's actions in office have emboldened racist behaviour in others.

Let's take a quick look at the evidence that might have urged people to come to this conclusion, shall we?

From the beginning of his campaign for the presidency, he kept pushing the narrative that Mexican immigrants were criminals. He showed disdain for Muslim Americans and implemented a ban on immigrants from Muslim countries. He said that 15,000 Haitian immigrants "all have AIDS" and that 40,000 Nigerian immigrants would not want to "go back to their huts" after experiencing the USA. He said that the states did not want more immigrants from "s**thole countries".

But it wasn't just immigrants he showed hatred for.

Famously, Trump tried to argue that Barack Obama was not American. He also has a habit of implying that black and Hispanic people are more violent, and commented in one debate against Hillary Clinton: "Our inner cities, African Americans, Hispanics are living in hell because it’s so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot."

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And lest we forget all the white nationalists that support Trump. He famously described the white supremacists at the Charlottesville Rally last year as "very fine people", and accepted endorsements from known KKK members.

Long before he even announced he was running for president, though, Trump was rumoured to exhibit racist behaviour. Former employees of his claimed that he treated black staff differently to white workers, and is reported to have once said of a black accountant, "I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks."

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While the broader extent of Trump's racism may have only become visible due to his highly publicised treatment of immigrants (especially children) at the southern border, the truth is that he has always made these viewpoints known to anyone who was paying close enough attention.

It calls into question, then, what exactly the other 51 per cent are seeing when they watch Donald Trump do all these things?

Former US President Donald Trump has praised Nigeria's government for banning Twitter in the country following his ban from the platform.

Per BBC News, Trump issued a statement on Tuesday, June 8, addressing Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's temporary outlawing of the social media site after Twitter removed one of Buhari's tweets.

Per TechCrunch, the 45th POTUS wrote: "Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President."

Donald Trump Jr. recently asked Elon Musk to build a new social media platform for his father:

Trump continued:

"More COUNTRIES should ban Twitter and Facebook for not allowing free and open speech — all voices should be heard. In the meantime, competitors will emerge and take hold. Who are they to dictate good and evil if they themselves are evil?

"Perhaps I should have done it while I was President. But Zuckerberg kept calling me and coming to the White House for dinner telling me how great I was. [sic]"

TechCrunch reports that Buhari’s tweet was deleted for violating Twitter's abusive behavior policy after the president threatened punishment on secessionists in the southeastern part of the country.

On Monday, June 7, the Nigerian government ordered all state broadcasting media to delete their Twitter accounts and stop using the platform as a news source; allegedly in a bid to curb the spread of misinformation.

Trump himself was banned from a number of prominent social media platforms following accusations that he incited the January Capitol riots and then publically condoned the mob of pro-Trump supporters responsible for the violent insurrection.

In a statement posted to Twitter's blog site, a spokesperson for the social media giant wrote: "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them - specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."

As a result of this, Trump later launched a new blog-style website called 'From The Desk of Donald J. Trump' on Tuesday, May 4, in an attempt to circumvent his social media bans.

Credit: Abaca Press / Alamy

However, this website shut down not long after launching, with the URL donaldjtrump.com/ now redirecting visitors to a webpage where they can sign up for email and text alerts from the ex-POTUS.

In a post made on May 24, Trump wrote that: "This [blog] is meant to be a temporary way of getting my thoughts and ideas out to the public without the Fake News spin, but the website is not a 'platform'.

"It is merely a way of communicating until I decide on what the future will be for the choice or establishment of a platform. It will happen soon. Stay tuned!"

Featured Image Credit: Alamy/UPI