Republicans from all sides of the party – including McConnell, previously – have publicly condemned the remarks and demanded that Trump change his tone.
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“I’m not going to speculate about what he might say, or what I might do”, McConnell told Bloomberg News in a podcast.
McConnel said Trump needs to “get on message” because the race against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton “is imminently winnable”. Goldwater opposed the bill and lost McConnell’s support.
Scott Jennings, a former adviser to McConnell and President George W. Bush says that McConnell’s comments about Trump show that he is trying to make sure the election doesn’t cause the party “serious problems” this year and down the road. He made no mention of his attacks against the judge in his scripted post-primary speech later that night.
The Senate Majority Leader said he now remains “comfortable” supporting Trump but would not rule out revoking his endorsement. He declined to answer.
Trump said he thinks federal judge Gonzalo Curiel would rule against him in a lawsuit over the candidate’s defunct Trump University real estate school because of the candidate’s proposal to build a wall along the border with Mexico. “So I haven’t given up hope, but certainly last week was not a good week for Donald Trump”.
The effect could be enormously harmful to Republicans in the November election, notably in “writing off Hispanic-American voters”.
Trump released a statement Tuesday, saying he regretted his comments about the judge were “misconstrued” as an attack on all Mexican Americans. Although Curiel’s parents are from Mexico, Curiel was born in IN and is known for his tough approach to Mexican drug cartels.
McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate in Kentucky in 1984, also unloaded on talk-radio hosts, on President Barack Obama and on Texas Sen.
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McConnell went on to say that he’s urged Trump to demonstrate “the seriousness of objective that is required to be president of the United States”.
