You're associating "POC" with shitholes. He's associating cultures with shit holes. Which is demonstrably true.

let alone a compassionate and tolerant one

What gave you the idea that Trump is required to be compassionate and tolerant? I must have missed that law during my constitutional studies.

but it is NOT NORMAL for a politician to say something like this

LBJ constantly whipped his dick out in the white house and even had a name for it. You realize there is no defined "normalcy" for an elected official and that's what makes America great. The politicians are the people. They aren't supposed to be some elite group of politically correct agents for corporations like the Democrats and Republicans. That's one of the main reasons Trump was elected to begin with. Because he is abnormal.

I'd have more respect for his defenders if they stopped doing mental gymnastics trying to justify his statements as "not racist" and just embraced the racism.

No mental gymnastics here. Please show me how his statement was about race and not about cultures. (you can't and shit talking a culture isn't racist) It isn't my responsibility to prove a negative so if his remarks were racist it should be easy for you to explain how.