India’s foreign ministry says comments by US radio host Michael Savage, broadcast by Trump, are “misinformed”.
Published April 24, 2026
Comments shared by US President Donald Trump referring to India as a “hellhole” were “in poor taste” and at odds with the relationship between the countries, an Indian official has said.
Trump did not make the comment himself, but reposted it without comment on his Truth Social account on Thursday. The statement came from conservative radio host Michael Savage.
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Criticizing birthright American citizenship, which Trump has sought to restrict, Savage said: “A baby here instantly becomes a citizen, and then they bring the whole family over from China or India or some other hellish place on the planet.”
On Thursday evening, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal reacted by saying the comment was “obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste.”
The comments “certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests,” Jaiswal added.
The US embassy in New Delhi said: “The president has said ‘India is a great country with a very good friend of mine at the top.'”
China’s Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the matter.
“It hurts all Indians”
India’s main opposition Congress party called the “hell” comment “extremely insulting and anti-India. It hurts all Indians.”
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take up this matter with the US President and raise a strong objection,” the party said in X.
Indian government data shows that nearly 5.5 million people of Indian origin live in the United States. American Indians and Chinese Americans are the largest groups of Asian descent in the United States.
Savage’s comment, shared by Trump, continued: “There is almost no loyalty to this country among the immigrant class arriving today, which was not always the case. No, they are not like today’s European Americans and their ancestors.”
Trump and Modi enjoyed “warm ties during Trump’s first term, but relations cooled after India was hit last year by some of the United States’ highest tariffs, many of which were removed this year.”
India and the United States are “working now” on a trade deal aimed at avoiding further tariff increases and boosting mutual sales.
Trump has repeatedly used insulting language to refer to foreign nations and immigrant communities, and recently called Somali immigrants “trash.”
In 2018, Trump made global headlines for referring to El Salvador, Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.”
