Alisha Laventure, the daughter of Haitian immigrants and a TV news anchor in Dallas, delivered a powerful rebuttal to President Trump’s infamous comments in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday. In the meeting, Trump reportedly questioned why the United States would provide protections for people in Haiti and African nations, calling them “shithole countries.”

According to reports, Trump pushed for Haitians to be excluded from any immigration deal, asking, “Why do we want people from Haiti here?”

On Friday, Laventure offered a very personal response, saying that she “sat up until 3 a.m. trying to figure how to address this.” She recounted her parents’ journey from Haiti and their experience in the United States. “They busted their butts. And when you look at what they’ve managed to accomplish, there is no denying they are rock stars,” Laventure said.

Then she laid into Trump.


Enough is enough! If the head of any corporation said what the president said yesterday, that person would be fired. Why should we accept any less from the President of the United States of America?A country, by the way, that’s played a hand in the poverty Haiti and other nations face today. We have a right and a responsibility to hold the president to a higher standard. His rhetoric falls far from it. If my job is to report the truth – the truth is, what the president said was hurtful. It was mean. And to be blunt — it was racist. If you’re willing to let this language fly, you’re part of the problem. Elected officials — that includes you.

Watch Laventure’s whole commentary.

While Laventure encouraged elected officials to denounce Trump, some Republican officials are aggressively defending him.