After the interview, a Trump campaign spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that Trump was “clearly referring to murderers, not migrants”.
The White House denounced Trump’s comments about “bad genes”.
“That type of language is hateful, it’s disgusting, it’s inappropriate and has no place in our country,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during the daily press briefing on Monday.
Trump has faced backlash for his rhetoric targeting undocumented immigrants since he started running for president in 2015. But his language has grown more dark and vilifying in his latest campaign.
Trump has said undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and even advocated for removing people from the country who are here legally, such as Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance (Ohio), have amplified false claims that immigrants are eating pets in the Ohio town.
Trump’s latest comment referring to “bad genes” takes his rhetoric toward immigrants a step further, playing into tropes that foreigners are genetically inferior to Americans and responsible for societal problems - such as violent crime - as a result.
Trump has previously broached the topic. In 2020, he praised a campaign rally crowd in predominantly White Minnesota for having “good genes.” He also touted the “racehorse theory,” the idea taken from horse racing that people with superior qualities will pass those strengths on to their children.
“You have good genes, you know that, right?” Trump said. “You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it? Don’t you believe that? The racehorse theory - do you think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”
Harris and Biden have repeatedly rebuked Trump over the language he has used to target immigrants, especially focusing on his allegation that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the nation. They have linked it to the ideology of Adolf Hitler, who argued in his manifesto Mein Kampf that Jews were subjecting Germans to “blood poisoning”.
Trump has sought to distance himself from the connection, saying last year that he is “not a student of Hitler”.
Campaigning for Biden this year in South Carolina, Harris brought up Trump’s “poisoning the blood” comment and said, “For years, the former president has stoked the fires of hate and bigotry and racism and xenophobia for his own power and political gain.”
Jean-Pierre, the White House spokeswoman, also brought up Trump’s “poisoning the blood” comment on Monday while condemning his latest controversial remarks.
“This president, this vice-president - we’re going to continue to forcefully reject this kind of vile, disturbing, hateful, hateful speech,” Jean-Pierre said. “It has no place - no place - in the country.”
