Donald Trump has come under fire once again for reportedly making offensive comments.
The 45th President of the United States is accused of referring to Haiti, El Salvador and certain nations in Africa as "s**thole countries" during a White House meeting last week. Now, forced to defend himself amidst international outrage and public condemnation from the United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU), Trump has insisted that he is not prejudiced.
Confronted by a reporter while heading to dinner at his golf club in Florida on Sunday, Trump was asked "What do you say to people who say you’re a racist?" The billionaire property mogul responded with, "No, no, I’m not a racist. I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you."
But while Trump has largely feigned indifference over the matter, it appears that his Vice President, Mike Pence, was at least a little embarrassed by his superior's comments. The Vice President and his wife, Karen Pence, were attending a sermon delivered by Dr. Maurice Watson - a Maryland pastor - on Sunday for "the congregation's honoring of Martin Luther King Jr. Day." However, Pence was said to have become "red-faced" when Dr. Watson used the sermon as an opportunity to respond to Trump's divisive "s**thole" comments.
While it would have gone relatively unnoticed that Dr. Maurice Watson used his Sunday sermon to respond to
Donald Trump's assertion that some African, Central American and Caribbean nations are "s**thole countries", his Vice President, Mike Pence, happened to be in the audience.
During the sermon, Dr. Watson asserted:
"I stand today as your pastor to vehemently denounce and reject any such characterizations of the nations of Africa and of our brothers and sisters in Haiti.
And I further say: Whoever made such a statement, whoever used such a visceral, disrespectful, dehumanizing adjective to characterize the nations of Africa, whoever said it, is wrong. And they out to be held accountable."
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While Pence, who was allegedly sitting amongst the congregation, doesn't appear in the video above, he can be seen in the following Instagram post:
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And according to a local news outlet, WUSA9, "the Vice President reportedly became visibly red-faced at times throughout the speech."
It certainly makes sense that Mike Pence was embarrassed, as his superior's ill-thought out comments have continued to invoke fresh criticism. Former US ambassador to South Africa under
Barack Obama, Patrick Gaspard, spoke to the Guardian about Trump's comments. "Methinks he doth protest too much," he said.
“In the legion of absolutely outrageous things that this man has said and done, what occurred this past week has just tipped us over into a place of near insanity and this seems to be a textbook case of conduct unbecoming the commanding officer of the United States of America.
The disparaging remarks come in the wider context of Trump dismantling the foreign policy apparatus of the US. These kind of sentiments are disorienting for our partners. They’re not entirely sure what to make of the American identity at the beginning of the 21st century."
