The Washington Post has exposed in a new report some of the most troubling, racism-fueled undercurrents in Donald Trump’s relationship with the African American community. They uncovered devastatingly racist comments like:

“I think the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is. I Believe that. It’s not anything they can control.”

One of the biggest holes in the party apparatus that the Republicans want to take them to the White House is the hemorrhaging of minority support.

The African American community’s votes handed Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic nomination, and their support, along with that of other minority groups, is gearing up to hand Clinton the presidency in November.

An NBC News poll report from shortly before Clinton secured the presumptive Democratic nomination reads as follows:

‘[Clinton] wins black voters 84 percent to 9 percent — a 75 point gap — and wins Hispanics 65 percent to 28 percent.’

The numbers have not changed much, if at all, according to available estimates. Clinton still leads among black voters by a wide margin.

With Trump as the head of the Republican Party, courting the black vote on the part of the GOP quickly exposes itself as a fool’s errand. The Washington Post helps explain why, reaching back through stories of Trump’s decades working as a businessman.

The Post cited personal testimony from a former business associate of Trump’s, John O’Donnell, former president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.

O’Donnell wrote a memoir covering his experiences working with Trump, a book which reveals disturbing comments Trump made — and did not initially or explicitly deny.

The book reads, quoting Trump:

‘I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza — black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. Those are the kind of people I want counting my money. Nobody else.’

Trump thus spewed sickening racism against two ethnic groups at the same time. In an interview soon after the book was published, he said it was “probably true” — although he later backtracked and said the book was “fiction.” Trump also admitted to having never read the book.

Seriously.

Other stories come to light in the Washington Post’s investigation as well.

One notable example comes from 1989 when, as the Post puts it, Trump “inserted himself into a racially charged case in New York City.”

At the time, a group of teenagers was accused of the violent attack and rape of a jogger. The teenagers were all from minority groups, both Hispanic and African American.

Trump took it upon himself to make his face known in the controversy over the case. He purchased a full page advertisement in 4 New York newspapers, calling for the death penalty to be used once more and “warning of roving bands of wild criminals.”

The boys were eventually freed from custody and cleared after a longtime criminal confessed to the crime.

Trump? He refused to back out of his comments and called the resolution of the case a “disgrace.”

These revelations come with a telling number out of the currently ongoing Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

That number is 18. There are only 18 African American convention delegates out of a total of 2,472.

In other words, the Republican Party is staggering under Trump’s racism and losing nearly all reasonable hope of respectably showing its face on election results night.

Featured Image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, available under a Creative Commons license.