Flashback: In 2010 Larry King Live Interview, Donald Trump Advocated For Racial Profiling Of Latinos

Trump: “Mexico Doesn’t Have A Lot Of Blondes, Ok?”

During a 2010 interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, Donald Trump advocated for Arizona’s contentious SB 1070, also known as the “Papers Please” law, which compelled law enforcement officers to ask for proof of citizenship based on someone’s “race, color or national origin” or “thick foreign accent.”

Trump justified his support for the law claiming “there’s killings all over the place,” “the drug dealers are coming in,” and backed the racial profiling aspect of the law saying “Mexico doesn’t have a lot of blondes.” In 2012 the Supreme Court struck down key provisions to the law, including the requirement that immigrants obtain or carry immigration papers and allowing police to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants without warrants.

LARRY KING (HOST): Arizona’s new law – what do you make of it?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, it all starts with the federal government not coming out with a law. They’ve been talking about it for years and they still haven’t done anything. And Arizona is really getting crime-ridden, I mean these people coming over, there’s killings all over the place, there’s shootings all over the place.

KING: But do you favor stopping people on the streets?

TRUMP: I think, you know, what are you going to do? You’re going to stop people to see whether or not they’re supposed to be there and personally as a citizen I wouldn’t mind. I really wouldn’t mind.

KING: You wouldn’t?

TRUMP: I would not personally mind.

KING: You’re from Slovenia, would you mind if people from Slovenia were stopped if they looked funny?

MELANIA TRUMP: Well I think everybody needs to have papers and be legally here. So we need to have papers if we go anywhere else in the world so people need to have also the  papers here.

[…]

KING: But can you see where Mexican-Americans might be a little offended at – if they look the wrong way?

TRUMP: Well I can see that, but if you think about it, I mean nobody wants to say it, you have a Mexican-American and then you have a blonde guy walking down the street, well Mexico doesn’t have a lot of blondes, ok? And these are the people that are coming across the border.

KING: So you’re in favor of profiling?

TRUMP: I am favoring going out and keeping – if people come into the country illegally I am favoring saying you have to get them out. You need laws. We have no law – nobody even knows what the law is. People are streaming across the border and sometimes it’s the drug dealers and what’s happening now the drug dealers are coming in and that’s a big problem. They’re coming in and they’re killing.