Michael Cohen appeared for a congressional hearing on Wednesday.
Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal lawyer, said during his Wednesday testimony that Trump has been calling some countries "s***holes" since before becoming president. "Mr. Trump is a racist. The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries 's***holes.' In private, he is even worse," Cohen told the House Oversight Committee. He continued: "He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a 's***hole.' This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States." "While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way," Cohen also stated.
Trump reportedly used the word to describe El Salvador, Haiti, and a number of African countries during a January 2018 meeting on immigration. The Washington Post reported that, according to some lawmakers in the room, Trump asked, "Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?" and suggested that the US instead focus on attracting more people from places like Norway.
