Hey guys, I don’t think he’s gonna pivot. Trump got warmed up with birther racism. He launched his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists. He described the many fine Nazis in Charlottesville. And this week, during a meeting at the White House, he complained about all the immigrants from Haiti and African countries: “‘Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?’ He suggested that America should allow more people from countries like Norway instead.” Aside from habitual lying and relentless self-aggrandizement, racism is Donald Trump’s most consistent trait. Here are my ten quick thoughts on Trump’s shitholing of America: Shithole, USA.

+ Trump denies the remark. Senator Dick Durbin was in the meeting and says the president said what was reported, in addition to other “things that were hate-filled, vile and racist.”

+ The New Yorker: A Racist in the Oval Office.

+ It’s probably a reasonable time to take another look at a December NYT article in which Trump complained that Haitians “all have AIDS” and said that once Nigerians saw America, they’d never “go back to their huts.”

+ “By many measures, the most-educated immigrant group in the U.S. isn’t East Asians. It’s Africans.” As for getting more Norwegians to come to America, there are two key limiting factors. First, they don’t do that well when they come here. And second, there are these stats: “Norway is the world’s happiest country (the U.S. ranks 14), the place with the most political freedom (the U.S. ranks 45), most press freedom (the U.S. ranks 43rd), and most prosperity (the U.S. ranks 18).”

+ Among cable and broadcast news outlets, there was a lot of handwringing about whether or not to quote the president directly. The point isn’t that they used the word shithole. It’s that they finally used the word racist.

+ “Countries where birds don’t lay eggs.” One bright spot for America’s image abroad: It turns out it’s pretty hard to translate shithole into other languages.

+ Somewhat lost in the hubbub of a remarkable day, the president also gave an interview in which he described his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un” and canceled his trip to London (citing false reasons).

+ Oh, and the WSJ is reporting that a Trump Lawyer Arranged $130,000 Payment for Adult-Film Star’s Silence.