Eric Trump is facing backlash after he referred to protesters in Los Angeles who've come out against the Trump administration's immigration raids as "mongoloids" during an interview with conservative influencer Benny Johnson.
"Mongoloid" is an old-fashioned slur for people with Down syndrome. It stems from John Langdon Down, the physician who first described Down syndrome, who believed that those with the condition bore similarities to people of Mongolian origin.
The term has long been considered dated and offensive but Eric Trump used it without abandon, saying:
"You flip to the other side of the country, you go to LA, you look at these overpasses where these mongoloids are throwing cinder blocks at cops and cop cars and ravaging them, a fleet of cop cars that was absolutely destroyed."
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Many have harshly criticized Eric Trump after the video of him using the slur went viral.
Eric Trump is not alone in making ableist comments. His brother, Donald Trump Jr., has also been harshly criticized for making offensive remarks about people with disabilities.
Trump Jr. was criticized in 2023 after he called Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman the "vegetable Senator from Pennsylvania," a reference to the auditory processing disorder Fetterman developed after experiencing a stroke in 2022.
Fetterman uses a captioning device to read interview questions and follow Senate proceedings. This is a common practice among people with auditory processing or hearing issues, such as those that would happen as a result of a stroke.
Trump Jr. used Fetterman's disability to suggest Fetterman's 2022 election win was illegitimate. He implied that the only way a "vegetable" like Fetterman could be elected would be if the Democrats engaged in ballot-harvesting, a common talking point among conservatives who've embraced lies and conspiracy theories about electoral fraud.
