Many denounced Trump’s suggestion that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is hearing a lawsuit against Trump University and whose parents were born in Mexico, might be biased because of his heritage.
Advertisement
“Paul Ryan continues to endorse someone who spews racist rhetoric – the “textbook definition” of a coward more concerned with partisan politics than the good of the country”, said Meredith Kelly, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Trump has brought up Mexico, Mexican citizens and Muslims numerous times in campaign speeches.
On Tuesday afternoon, apparently bowing to pressure, his campaign issued a statement in which Trump did not apologize and again said the judge should be removed, but added he would not be commenting further.
Trump tried to turn his combative reputation into a positive, pledging to fight against special interests and a rigged system and in favor of American values.
The response to Trump’s comments from fellow Republicans has been swift and harsh, with many top GOP elected officials distancing themselves from Trump.
Donald Trump said Tuesday that while he thinks he has received unfair rulings from a federal judge in San Diego in a civil class- action lawsuit against now-defunct Trump University, he will no longer comment on the situation.
In the statement, Trump claims that he will stop talking about the judge and the case. “I’m hoping to be able to get there, but it’s been problematic”. “There are issues, not the least of which lately with his statements about the judge he commented on, which I just fundamentally disagree with him on”.
He said of Mr Trump’s comments: “It’s ridiculous”. Trump said. “I’m not building a wall between Scotland and the United States”.
Trump has kept up that line as recently as this past weekend, when he told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday that he had been “treated very unfairly” by Curiel, who he noted was of “Mexican heritage”.
On Tuesday, he joined Trump in doubling down against the criticism, declaring the real estate mogul’s career of more than 40 years is marked by inclusion for all ethnicities and women, too.
Trump’s lawyers meant to file the 92-page financial disclosure form he made public last summer at the time he announced he was running for president.
“Trump’s continuing missteps, punctuated by his outrageous and indefensible comments about Judge Curiel, make that goal much more hard to achieve”, said Lanhee Chen, a senior adviser to former presidential candidate Marco Rubio and who is a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution.
Last Thursday, Trump told The Wall Street Journal that Curiel had “an absolute conflict” in presiding over the litigation given that he was “of Mexican heritage” and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association. “No, I do not”, Ryan said. “I don’t think it reflects wells on us as a nation”. Later, Trump said a Muslim judge might not be fair to him.
And Republican Sen. Mark Kirk on Tuesday became the first major Republican to rescind his endorsement of Trump, saying he his party’s presumptive presidential nominee “does not have the temperament” to hold the job of president and that he “cannot and will not support” Trump.
Advertisement
Turnout could be light because Trump has already sewed up the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
