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Fending off several controversies on Tuesday, Donald Trump started another when he proclaimed at a North Carolina rally that “our African-American communities are in the worst shape they’ve ever been ... Ever. Ever. Ever.”

Donald Trump Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The plainly inaccurate statement, which was immediately lambasted on social media for failing to consider the long history of slavery and racial discrimination against African Americans, marked the latest misstep by the Trump campaign as the Republican nominee has struggled to harness the terrorist attacks in New York and New Jersey for his political advantage.

A day after the apprehension of suspected bomber Ahmad Khan Rahami, Trump made his remarks in Kenansville, North Carolina, and repeated familiar themes to crowds at multiple rallies across the swing state. “Immigration security is national security,” he said, and repeatedly read the lyrics of the The Snake, a 1960s soul song about a woman who finds a dying snake and nurses it back to health. The snake then fatally bites her. To Trump, this was a parable about the consequences of the United States taking in refugees.

The Republican nominee went on to describe Clinton as “the vessel for all the global special interests seeking to run our lives” and said that the “failed political establishment” had “vested” in her “all of their money, all of their hopes for another generation of corruption”. Trump also argued that the “dishonest media” had “bled this country dry”.

But, Trump ran into more controversy when the Washington Post reported that the billionaire converted $258,000 in donations to the Donald Trump Foundation to settle lawsuits against himself. The payments represent an apparent violation of tax laws that could potentially even force the IRS to shut down the Trump Foundation. Trump further stoked controversy by bragging on Tuesday about spending “OPM – other people’s money”.