Anderson Cooper fights back tears in emotional takedown of Trump's racism

Cooper used the majority of his show Thursday evening to discuss Trump’s comments about immigrants from Haiti and Africa, which were first reported in the Washington Post.

In an emotional monologue, the CNN host implored other reporters to point out that Trump’s remarks were not “racial” or “racially charged,” but “racist.”

“The sentiment the President expressed today is a racist sentiment,” Cooper said.

“The president of the United States is tired of so many black people coming to this country. Tired of immigrants from Haiti and Africa being allowed in,” Cooper said, reading the Post report on Trump’s remarks. “The president went on to say he would like to bring more people from countries like Norway. Norway, whose population is overwhelmingly of Nordic descent. White people, in other words.”

But these comments “are actually not anything new,” Cooper continued. He referenced another incident, as reported by the New York Times, in which Trump accused all Haitian immigrants of having AIDS, and said that Nigerian immigrants would never “go back to their huts” once they saw America.

Cooper then went on to launch an impassioned defense of the people of Haiti, recounting the time he spent there in 2010 after an earthquake devastated the country, killing over 300,000 people and displacing more than a million.

“I want to take a moment to talk about Haiti, a place that the president referred to as a shithole country,” Cooper said, fighting back tears as he told a story about watching a group of Haitians rescuing a young child.

“Guided only by the cries of the wounded and dying, they had no heavy equipment,” he said. “They just had their God-given strength and determination and courage.”

“I was there when a 5-year-old boy was rescued after being buried for more than seven days,” Cooper said as he began to choke up. “Do you know what strength it takes to survive on rainwater in concrete — a 5-year-old boy buried for seven days?”

Haitians “have a dignity,” Cooper added, “[that] many in this White House could learn from.”