Trump Manages to Be Racist While Admitting He’s Wrecking Farms
Donald Trump said that undocumented workers are “naturally” better at farm labor than other people, in an interview on CNBC Tuesday.
“These people—you can’t replace them very easily. You know, people that live in the inner city are not doing that work,” Trump said. “These people do it naturally, naturally.”
Trump appeared to acknowledge in the interview that his ruthless mass deportation campaign is hurting farms, which rely on undocumented immigrants as an easily exploitable labor force. He said that he’s planning to release new immigration rules and regulations, claiming, “We’re taking care of our farmers. We can’t let our farmers not have anybody.”
But what about taking care of the workers? No need, as far as Trump is concerned. They’re “naturally” predisposed to backbreaking labor.
“I said … to a farmer the other day, ‘What happens if they get a bad back?’ He said, ‘They don’t get a bad back, sir, because if they get a bad back they die.’ I said, ‘That’s interesting isn’t it?’” Trump continued.
“These are, in many ways, very special people.”
It is true that undocumented workers often take unwanted, difficult jobs—but that is not due to being “special” but to a lack of options and a vulnerability to exploitation. Trump’s comments traffic in the exact type of centuries-old racist myths that, by advancing the idea that certain races are made to labor and others are made to rule, promote white supremacy.
Trump on undocumented farm workers: "People that live in the inner city are not doing that work. They've tried, we've tried, everybody tried. They don't do it. These people do it naturally. Naturally ... they don't get a bad back, because if they get a bad back, they die." pic.twitter.com/HxXtKtIPLa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2025