section_path: Political practice and rhetoric/Racial and gender views
section_name: Racial and gender views
paragraph_text: Racial and gender views
  
  Many of Trump's comments and actions have been characterized as racist. In a 2018 national poll, about half of respondents said he is racist; a greater proportion believed that he emboldened racists. Several studies and surveys found that racist attitudes fueled his political ascent and were more important than economic factors in determining the allegiance of Trump voters. Racist and Islamophobic attitudes are strong indicators of support for Trump. He has been accused of racism for insisting a group of five black and Latino teenagers were guilty of raping a white woman in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, even after they were exonerated in 2002.
  
  In 2011, Trump became the leading proponent of the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was not born in the United States. He claimed credit for pressuring the government to publish Obama's birth certificate, which he considered fraudulent. He acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S. in September 2016, though reportedly expressed birther views privately in 2017. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he made false attacks against the racial identity of his opponent, Kamala Harris, that were described as reminiscent of the birther conspiracy theory. In 2025, he promoted false claims of white genocide in South Africa and created the White South African refugee program.
  
  Trump has a history of belittling women when speaking to the media and on social media. He made lewd comments, disparaged women's physical appearances, and referred to them using derogatory epithets. At least 25 women publicly accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape, kissing without consent, groping, looking under women's skirts, and walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants. He has denied the allegations. In October 2016, a 2005 " hot mic " recording surfaced in which he bragged about kissing and groping women without their consent, saying that, "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.... Grab 'em by the pussy." He characterized the comments as "locker-room talk". The incident's widespread media exposure led to his first public apology, videotaped during his 2016 presidential campaign.