President Donald Trump receives his second official condemnation from Miami-Dade County. The first was for \u201cracist\u201d comments about Mexico, the latest for a \u201cshithole\u201d comment about Haiti.<\/b>
\nCalling his remarks on Haiti \u201cshameful\u201d and a new low, Miami-Dade commissioners, including a Republican congressional candidate, unanimously denounced President Donald Trump\u2019s reported slander of a country with close ties to South Florida.
\u201cThis country owes a whole lot more to Haiti than the president ever imagined,\u201d said Jean Monestime, the county\u2019s first Haitian-American commissioner and a former chairman of the county board. He sponsored Tuesday\u2019s resolution to condemn what he called the \u201cshameful comments\u201d Trump reportedly made in an Oval Office meeting, describing Haiti and other developing nations as \u201cshithole countries.\u201d
The Jan. 12 remarks, confirmed by some participants, set off an instant round of condemnation from Miami-Dade officials, including Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Republican. A formal county denunciation arrived Tuesday, when the 13-member commission met for the first time since the storm.
Though commission proclamations routinely address national and global issues, veterans of the chamber said that they could not remember a time when the commission voted to denounce what a sitting U. S. president had said. \u201cI\u2019ve never heard of that,\u201d said Commissioner Joe Martinez, a former commission chairman and a Republican. \u201cAnd a lot of them had screwed up.\u201d Harvey Ruvin, Miami-Dade\u2019s elected clerk and a former commissioner of what was then Dade County, agreed.
\u201cThere\u2019s never been a situation anything near like this,\u201d said Ruvin, a Democrat and Miami-Dade\u2019s longest serving elected official. \u201cThere maybe was stuff on policy, but not directly condemning a president [for his remarks]. That goes back to 1972 for me.\u201d
The resolution does not use the word \u201cshithole,\u201d but described \u201cdisparaging\u201d remarks by Trump about Haiti and other countries on the eve of the eighth anniversary of the 2010 earthquake that ravaged the island nation. The resolution also notes that Trump asked why the United States didn\u2019t allow more immigrants from countries like Norway and fewer from countries like Haiti, El Salvador and nations in Africa. Monestime\u2019s resolution said the statements \u201cdefy the ideals that this country stands on \u2014 diversity, equality and inclusion.\u201d
Trump reportedly made the remarks during a debate over special immigration status granted to people from countries suffering extreme hardship, including Haiti after the earthquake and El Salvador following a 2001 earthquake there.
In a Jan. 12 tweet, Trump said he was misquoted. \u201cNever said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country,\u201d the Twitter posting said. \u201cMade up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings \u2014 unfortunately, no trust!\u201d
This was actually Trump\u2019s second official condemnation from the Miami-Dade commission for something he said. The first came days after he announced his presidential bid in 2015, when the commission voted to denounce his comments on immigrants from Mexico entering the United States illegally. Trump said rapists and other criminals were crossing the border; the commission, meeting 15 miles from the Trump Doral resort, unanimously voted to send him a certified resolution calling the remarks \u201cracist.\u201d
At the time, Trump was a long-shot presidential contender and a local hotelier who had just been rebuffed in his bid to take over Miami-Dade\u2019s Crandon golf course. On Tuesday, the commissioners voted 9-0 to condemn remarks by the sitting president in the Oval Office.
A spokesman said that Gimenez, who sat on the commission dais for the discussion but did not weigh in, supported the resolution. Three of the six Republicans on the commission \u2014 District 27 congressional candidate Bruno Barreiro, Esteban \u201cSteve\u201d Bovo and Rebeca Sosa \u2014 were there for the vote. Two others, Martinez and Javier Souto, stepped away from the dais when the anti-Trump item came up on the agenda, while Jose \u201cPepe\u201d Diaz missed the meeting altogether.
\u201cThis is a community that\u2019s majority immigrant,\u201d said Barreiro, the only commissioner to appear at local rallies for Trump in 2016 after favorite sons Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio dropped out of the primaries. He\u2019s now running to succeed fellow Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in her left-leaning district. \u201cWe have to stand for immigrants. It\u2019s important.\u201d
While the president has denied using the language, U. S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, said publicly that he did. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, has reportedly confirmed it privately and came close to confirming it publicly. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican who attended the Oval Office meeting, has refused to confirm or deny what Trump said.
Miami-Dade commissioners represent a county that Hillary Clinton won by 30 points, but district voters have sent an even mix of Republicans and Democrats to the 13-member board, which has one independent. Commission seats are chosen through nonpartisan primaries.
Before the vote, nobody on the board defended Trump.
\u201cThe president\u2019s words hurt,\u201d Bovo said. \u201cThey\u2019re bothersome. And they\u2019re inappropriate.\u201d
Commissioner Barbara Jordan, a Democrat, cited Michelle Obama\u2019s 2016 convention speech \u201con going high\u201d in the face of partisan attacks in saying she would hold her tongue to a degree. \u201cGod, please help me from going low,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cHow we have been admired across the world is being diminished almost every day. I hope that we\u2019ve reached the point where we can\u2019t get any lower.\u201d<\/p>\n

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