The MEA response came after Opposition members and former diplomats criticized the government for not offering a stronger response to the U.S.
NEW DELHI / WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): India, on Thursday, April 23, 2026, called posts by U.S. President Donald Trump that quoted derogatory remarks about India and Indian immigrants as “uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste”.
The posts, which included a video by American right-wing anchor Michael Savage and the four-page text of his comments, called countries such as India and China “hellholes” while criticizing U.S. immigration laws.
The response from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) came after Opposition members and former diplomats criticized the government for not offering a stronger response to the U.S. The Congress, in particular, mounted a sharp attack accusing the Prime Minister of “being afraid of” the U.S. in the face of repeated insults.
“The remarks are obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste. They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-U. S relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests,” the MEA spokesperson said late on Thursday night. Earlier in the day, at a briefing, the government had decided to take a safer approach however, with the MEA spokesperson saying only that they had “seen some reports”.
Addressing viewers of the “Savage Report” on Newsmax channel, Mr. Savage had said that the U.S. had gone “from the melting pot to the chamber pot”, as a result of the relaxed immigration laws, comments that were then reposted by Mr. Trump on his “Truth Social” page.
“A baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet,” he said, comparing Indians and Chinese immigrants unfavorably to “European Americans of today and their ancestors” including Irish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanians, Romanians and Russians, and questioning their loyalty to America.
Asked about whether the view amplified by Mr. Trump was endorsed by the U.S. Embassy or U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, the Embassy spokesperson quoted Mr. Trump as saying that “India is a great country with a very good friend of mine (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) at the top”. The U.S. embassy did not explain or backpedal the comments, which is understood to have upset the government, and in its second statement, the MEA said it had “seen the comments, as also the subsequent statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in response”.
In a likely reference to Chinese and Indian IT professionals in the U.S., Mr. Savage also said that “Gangsters with laptops” had “robbed Americans and treated them like “second class citizens”. While Mr. Savage’s rhetoric is not uncommon, given anti-immigrant views and online hate campaigns targeting immigrant schemes including H-1B visas, it is surprising that the comments were shared by the U.S. President.
The MEA’s initial response had led to sharp criticism of the government on social media.
“Indians have played a vital role in America’s success. What is stopping us to raise this at the highest levels of the American government?” asked Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge in a post, demanding that Mr. Modi “react to this intimidation and indignation of 140 crore Indians.”
Jawaharlal Nehru University Chancellor and former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal said that it was necessary for India to convey its concerns, given that Indians were already being targeted in the U.S. by Mr. Trump’s MAGA supporters. “We could say that it is for the U.S. leadership to decide whether giving attention to such extreme views contributes to better understanding between the people of our two countries,” he added.
The controversy also drew a comment from the Iranian Consulate in Hyderabad, that called Mr. Trump’s post “racist”. “China and India are the cradles of Civilization. In fact, the ‘Hellhole’ is where its war-criminal president threatened to decimate the civilization in Iran”, the Consulate’s X account said.
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