Yes, Trump's tweet was racist. But BBC rules stop presenters saying so

All of the following things are true. Naga Munchetty, co-host of BBC Breakfast, is a very good TV journalist, one of the BBC’s best assets in fact. That tweet Donald Trump sent in July telling the non-white, female members of the Democratic ‘Squad’ to ‘go back’ to the countries they came from was racist. The BBC was correct, however, to partially uphold a complaint against Ms Munchetty for her on-air suggestion that the tweet was ‘embedded in racism’.

Why was the BBC correct to criticise one of its most important presenters for describing a racist tweet as racist? Because it is not a BBC reporter’s job to do that. It is not the role of an objective presenter with the national broadcaster to reveal their own thoughts or to seek to shape public opinion on political matters.

As the BBC said in its calm, balanced judgement on the Munchetty case, when it comes to deciding what motivates Trump, or what motivates all sorts of political people and events, ‘those judgements are for the audience to make’.