GOP to Trump: Move on from Judge Curiel’s Mexican heritage
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Ky. speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Barack Obama is condescending. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid veers from friendly in private to nasty before TV cameras. Those portrayals come from a new book by McConnell.
WASHINGTON >> A pair of powerful Senate Republicans on Sunday warned Donald Trump to drop his attacks on a Latino judge presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University, joining the widespread rejection of their presumptive presidential nominee’s treatment of the federal jurist. A third prominent Republican who also supports Trump urged the candidate to start acting like “a potential leader of the United States.”
“We’re all behind him now,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned, adding that it’s time for unifying the party, not “settling scores and grudges.” “I hope he’ll change his direction.”
So far, Trump has refused, reiterating in interviews broadcast Sunday that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage means he cannot ensure a fair trial involving a billionaire who wants to build a border wall to keep people from illegally entering the United States from Mexico. Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican-born parents — making him, in Trump’s view, “a hater of Donald Trump.”
“I couldn’t disagree more” with Trump’s central argument, McConnell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I don’t condone the comments,” added Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on ABC’s “This Week.”
And Newt Gingrich, who became speaker of the House promising to open the GOP more to minorities, delivered the harshest warning of all.
“This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made. I think it’s inexcusable,” Gingrich, a former presidential contender, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Their remarks solidify the line GOP leaders have drawn in recent days between themselves and Trump, with whom they’ve made a fragile peace over their sense that almost anyone would be a better president than Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The GOP pushback against Trump comes two days before presidential primaries in California, home to more Latinos than whites. It’s the final major battleground between Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Far ahead of Sanders in the delegate race, Clinton is poised to clinch her party’s nomination in the next few days.
Trump has no more competition for the GOP nomination, but he does have significant issues with the most senior elected members of the party he hopes to lead.
On Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan tepidly endorsed Trump — but 24 hours later disavowed the billionaire’s remarks about Curiel.
Trump University is the target of two lawsuits in San Diego and one in New York that accuse the business of fleecing students with unfulfilled promises to teach secrets of success in real estate. Trump has maintained that customers were overwhelmingly satisfied. Trump’s legal team has not sought to have Curiel removed.
For a party that in 2012 explicitly pinned its survival on drawing support from Hispanics, Trump’s words create an ugly series of headaches.
Racial politics, for one. Asked on CNN whether it was racist to link Curiel’s ethnicity to his ability to be fair, Trump replied, “No.”
Asked the same question three times, McConnell thrice refused to respond directly and repeated a statement about disagreeing.
“I think it’s a big mistake for our party to write off Latino Americans,” said McConnell, R-Ky.
Gingrich answered was: “I think that it was a mistake … I hope it was sloppiness,” he said of Trump’s attacks on Curiel. “(Trump) says on other occasions that he has many Mexican friends, et cetera, but that’s irrelevant. This judge is not Mexican. This judge is an American citizen.”
Corker, R-Tenn., expressed the same discomfort many other Republicans in Congress have complained about when they’re asked to respond to, or justify, Trump’s remarks. “I thought this interview was going to be more about the foreign policy arena,” Corker said on ABC.
Like Ryan, all three Republicans have endorsed Trump. But their comments carried the implicit caveat that their support depends at least in part on Trump dropping his criticism of Curiel. All three also suggested ways Trump could move beyond his legal issues.
Corker, who recently met with Trump in New York, said Trump “has a tremendous opportunity” to build out his foreign policy agenda.
Gingrich urged Trump to become more of a statesman.
“Trump has got to, I think, move to a new level,” he said. “This is no longer the primaries. He’s no longer an interesting contender. He is now the potential leader of the United States and he’s got to move his game up to the level of being a potential leader.”
Trump has already rejected calls for him to change. “You think I’m going to change?” he asked during a combative news conference last week at Trump Tower in New York. “I’m not changing.”
McConnell’s advice was blunt.
“This is a good time, it seems to me, to begin to try to unify the party and you unify the party by not settling scores and grudges against people you’ve been competing with,” he said. “I’d like to see him reach out and pull us all together and give us a real shot at winning this November.”
80 responses to “GOP to Trump: Move on from Judge Curiel’s Mexican heritage”
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Poor republicans for being taken in by a fraud. What were republican voters thinking when they voted for someone with absolutely no experience? I sympathize with their situation however as all their candidates were pretty bad and the Donald was the best of a very bad lot. Eisenhower, even Uncle Ron must be spinning in their graves.
Forget that he has no experience. His statements get more bizarre by the day, and he chooses to remain ignorant to the Constitution and to the limits of presidential power. He is spectacularly unfit for the office.
With his well proven ability to make enemies, he is VERY lucky that he was born into a wealthy family. Very.
“Who cares” what the people go Hawaii think? Most don’t vote and don’t care, and by the time the polls open the new president has already been determined.
People of Hawaii and better start saving their money, anybody see the new unemployment numbers, the worse since 2010.
Continue with the mud slinging……………..
For your education, unemployment in Hawaii was at historic lows much like your IQ.
oxtail this is a response to your unemployment answer. Hawaii isn’t a country, it’s a state…….Am I going to fast for you? Visitors come from other states to visit Hawaii……So, if people aren’t working in the other 49 states how do you think Hawaii’s unemployment will look in a year?
Did you know Hawaii has the 3rd most government employees in the US? Did you know Hawaii has more money going out than coming in?
Hawaii is another Detroit in the making, just a matter of time…….
…And, Detroit isn’t a state, it’s a city.
So this is mudslinging and Trump saying that neither Latino or Muslim judges are capable of carrying out their oaths of office? Right. Of course.
You support an overt racist and white supremacist. Just admit it and be a man.
Contrary to what you wrote, thank you for caring about what I write. For your education – people in Hawaii has probably the highest personal savings rate in the Nation. Always did, probably always will (it’s the Hawaii ethnic makeup thing, if you don’t know). Hawaii also has one the highest income levels in the Nation, much thanks to the job pay and benefits government and union jobs offer. Frankly, I don’t see how all this relates to your leader’s racist tendencies but thank you for giving me an opportunity to educate you.
I have nothing but contempt from the old Republican Party leaders who have buried their heads in the sand and bowed low to trump. He has taken over the Party with his shibai. Shocking demise of the GOP.
If the party disappeared in the entirety, we’d be better off. They keep coming up with false arguments like transgender bathroom emergencies, same sex marriage, manufactured fraudulent in-person voter fraud and the like. They used to be the part of big ideas. Now they are the party of imbeciles.
Won’t happen. It’s like wishing for disappearance of racist whites, which is at least half of all whites in the US.
oxtail, you’re truly a piece of work.
Peter (Boots), there is something anti-PC with Trump’s rant against this Hispanic Federal Judge. The organization is “La Raza”, which this Federal Judge is a member and supporter. I would reserve my judgement on this specific issue. More may become exposed to all of us.
You swallow and love it, don’t you?
Can you say “banana”?
Yes, it’s always a hidden conspiracy with you. Always. It’s always that “more may be exposed to all of us” involving some kind of secret or subterfuge that his extensive vetting for jobs as prosecutor and federal judge failed to pick up. But you know the real truth, right? Right. Exactly.
Just accept the fact that Trump is a racist and you embrace him.
Ba a man for once.
Cannot be a man when he accepts and embraces his slave status.
Curiel is a member of La Raza Lawyers of California (the Latino bar association of California), just as other lawyers belong to Catholic, Mormon, black or women’s bar associations. There are multiple group whose names include the word “raza,” and belonging to one of them doesn’t make you a member of all of them anymore than belonging to the Gray Panthers means that older white women are members of the Black Panthers.
As much as he would like to act like a private citizen–he is not–he is the Republican nominee for the highest position in the land. There is a total lack of comportment, decorum, respect for office as well as cognizance to the other EQUAL branches of government. Instead, we are presented with almost daily sophomoric rants and tantrums that lack civility, reek of boorish and petty behavior…..if you cannot see that, I feel sorry for you to be both objective and responsible.
Not much to choose from. Do what you want, free country. I’m tired of lyin Hillary, bj Bill, KKK Mitch, phony Ryan, . Going to try something different.
Boo, recall the late 1990’s if this “La Raza” organization is the same from Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California that wanted sovereignty from the United States o become a separate nation.
And it’s difference from the ultra-orthodox catholic off-shot that the late Justice Scalia belonged to…..???
The Judge belongs to an Association of Hispanics Attorneys that represent illegal immigrants. The Raza.
Hmmm…. I thought that in America, everyone has a right to fair representation. What country are you living in?
oxtail01 – The ignorance here gets more shocking by the day. Most of the posters seem to not have any idea whatever about the Constitution works and how law is applied.
Yes, Boots, what were Democrat voters thinking when they voted for someone with absolutely no experience, namely Obama?
When your argument for your racist candidate fails, be sure to change the subject.
Trump has taken the sheets off the Republican Party, revealing their true identity and now Republicans are reluctantly begging Trump to stop saying what they all agree with and return to code words and dog whistle politics. Nixon advisor Lee Atwater outlined Republican policies succinctly when he said, “You start out in 1954 by saying, “N____er, n____er, n___ger.” By 1968 you can’t say “n___er”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N___er, ni___er.”
It turns out it’s hard for a racist imbecile to not be a racist anymore. Ever harder to not be an imbecile anymore.
Today, Trump said that a Muslim judge may not be impartial either. We knew for sure he hates Mexicans and Muslims, but I wonder how that wide circle of enemies will expand.
The most amusing comments on this forum now are from his supporters. Tells me something uncomfortable about the public education system.
The old goat for Kentucky thinks that Trumps going to listen to him or anyone else. The bully is going to be his own self and i don’t think he cares what anybody says.
McConnell urges Trump to back off racist attacks on an American judge? This is coming from the man who recently wrote that “There are no serious barriers to voting anymore anywhere in America” I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.
Not wanting to offend the racist base, McConnell, in his best Lee Atwater mode, refused to state the obvious truth –– that Trump’s attacks on Judge Curiel are racist.
“Is that not a racist statement?” Chuck Todd asked McConnell.
“I couldn’t disagree more with a statement like that,” McConnell said.
Todd again asked if the statement was racist.
“I couldn’t disagree more with what he had to say,” McConnell said.
“OK, but you think it’s a racist statement to say?” Todd asked.
“I don’t agree with what he had to say,”
I think this old racist keeps an Asian wife in his trophy case next to his guns and the white robe with a pointy cap.
The white establishment politicians can’t admit they’re backing a racist, white supremist. By “move on”, they mean “just don’t say it in public even though we agree with you”. Trump will make “America Great Again” as long as you’re white. Any other color and you’ll be treated as a 2nd class citizen. Sick Heil Trump!
The thing he may not even understand that was brought up by a marketing expert is how much he has already hurt his brand. His supporters generally can’t afford the things he peddles, like his condos and such. The people who can afford them, particularly women by historic percentages, loathe him. Some folks living in Trump-labeled buildings want the name taken off because they’re embarrassed. That will probably ramp up as he continues his descent into racism and xenophobia.
Klastri, the United States has moved so far Left, a candidate as Trump comes across as fringe Right. In reality, the Right (Republicans and a few Conservative Republicans) has compromise their beliefs and positions to the Left for years and now we have a Trump. It’s refreshing to see and watch Trump challenge the politically correct Left and win. Trump may become President of the United States and reverse 50 years of the Left’s strategy to change America. Maybe the Left understands this challenge and becomes the reason why they are becoming radicalized.
You are truly blind if you believe Trump stands for positive change. He is a product of privileged white background with finest the money can buy provided to him. He, in fact want the established white privileged life he enjoys to be not changed. He stands for white supremacy, nothing more, nothing less. Yes, America has changed over the last 50 years, through Democrat and Republican politics, and for the most part positively no thanks to either parties but through the will of the people who, unlike you, rejects politics of fear, racism, and exclusivity. To somehow disregard all the good things that have happened over the last 50 years and blame a particular ideology for all your perceived ills is truly deplorable, pathetic, and a sad indicment of a miserable life you’re suffering through. May you find some peace in your lifetime.
My gosh, you might be diluted– tell me why then are members of his own party, so,concerned about his racist views–https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-worries-rise-amid-hostile-trump-comments-on-latinos-and-muslims/2016/06/05/986545e8-2a1c-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html
??????
You really fancy yourself a political scientist, don’t you? Your writings are all nonsense, of course. You’re stuck in 1950 and don’t realize that the world has passed you by.
Does it ever get exhausting to be afraid of everything? How did Republicans get to be such cowards?
So where are all the minority race Trump backers now? The guy who posts with a “…Lee” as his handle, the Hawaiian guy, the Japanese guy, and other non-whites so willing to accept their 2nd class citizenships. You’re all SICK!
Trump is deliberately trying to provoke Latinos and other non-whites to violently attack him and his supporters in order to instill fear and hatred of racial minorities in the minds of white voters. His campaign strategy is to motivate whites to vote for him out of fear of violent non-whites. He believes that racial fear and hatred is the factor that will motivate overwhelming numbers of whites to vote for him in November. Attacking Judge Curiel for being “Mexican” is not an inadvertent mistake. This is part of a deliberate campaign strategy to divide this nation by race and attempt to unify all white voters on the side of the Republican Party.
Exactly. His speeches actually sounded better in the original Afrikaans.
except that 1. statistically, there are more non-white citizens than there are white ones.
2. There are a significant amount of white voters that will never vote Republican or vote for Trump.
There are also significant amount of oreos and bananas who still love being walked about on a leash by their white masters. It’s like “Stockholm Syndrome” where these poor souls actually relish their slavery.
Oreos, bananas and oxtail soup. Great Censor where are you?
Hey, Sarge22, you really don’t care about racism as long as it’s from your Repub. leaders do you? But as soon as I, or someone else, point out the absurdity of racist position you and others like you take, than you’re all in a rage. The funny thing is, like most other white racists, you don’t know you ARE one.
Great Censor where are you?
People like sarge22 and lespark are more cowardly than the established Repub politician who at least are “denoucing” Trumps racist remarks. These guys have no courage either to admit they stand by Trump’s racist remarks or coming out and denouncing it. All they can do is take Trump’s tactic of throwing mud on everything and everyone else in the hopes that their bigotry doesn’t stand out. Are you guys man enough to stand by your man’s remarks?
sarge22 – You bark constantly about people infringing on Trump’s “freedom of speech” but when someone exposes Mr. Trump, or someone who embraces a racist like you, you want censorship.
That makes about as much sense as anything else you write.
A white person is questioning the fairness of another person because of their race. We are quite justifiably outraged. But how is this different from African Americans questioning the fairness of white jurists? A politically correct double-standard exists.
You think that is political correctness?
Particularly in the south, there is overwhelming solid evidence – really overwhelming – of racist juries. You are equating that to questioning the heritage of a federal judge who was born and raised in Indiana?
Is that actually what you meant to write?
He sounds like McConnell. Have to make excuses to cover up the racist streak.
You been pounding your head into the sand for too long as you don’t know the difference between a black tried before an all-white jury (as was the case so often in the past – jury of your peers?) and a white racist attacking the integrity of a JUDGE sorely based on his ethnicity.
Don’t you spit out the bone regardless of the color of the ox? It’s about a person’s qualification to adjudicate something of importance. Without going into their race.
Trump went solely into race baiting – poor you for not recognizing that.
And you are suggesting that a lifetime of service as a prosecutor and jurist isn’t enough? Then what is? You’re suggesting that there’s something secret about this judge that makes him unqualified? What, exactly, are you talking about?
By Alberto R. Gonzales June 4
Alberto R. Gonzales served as White House counsel and U.S. attorney general in the George W. Bush administration. He is the dean and Doyle Rogers Distinguished Professor of law at Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tenn. “In 2014, when he certified the class-action lawsuit against Trump, Curiel appointed the Robbins Geller law firm to represent plaintiffs. Robbins Geller has paid $675,000 in speaking fees since 2009 to Trump’s likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, and to her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Curiel appointed the firm in the case before Trump entered the presidential race, but again, it might not be unreasonable for a defendant in Trump’s position to wonder who Curiel favors in the presidential election. These circumstances, while not necessarily conclusive, at least raise a legitimate question to be considered. Regardless of the way Trump has gone about raising his concerns over whether he’s getting a fair trial, none of us should dismiss those concerns out of hand without carefully examining how a defendant in his position might perceive them — and we certainly should not dismiss them for partisan political reasons.”
SandPounder, agree with your post. Seems there are many things in Judge Curiel’s closet that will be made public, such as the post by Sarge22 posted.
sarge22 – So you are buying into the theory that federal judges should disclose how they plan to vote, and somehow that can affect who hears a case? What, exactly, is wrong with you?
kuroiwaj – Here you go again with the conspiracy theories. How many times do you need to be proven wrong about your secret theories before you realize that you have a major problem?
Of course, there’s a hidden hand, harming white people. Great theory!
These African Americans are not the Republican Party’s presumed presidential candidate. What an ignorant comparison.
Like any other American citizen he needs to plead his case in court. Even his own attorneys haven’t objected to this judge presiding over this case. Democrats could never get a get a fair consideration from justice Scalia. The plain fact is that Trump is a bigot and racist and proves it every time he opens his foul mouth.
He could never get a recusal order. His lawyers are a lot smarter than Mr. Trump.
Goes to pattern: He hires smart people so he doesn’t have to be.
The best thing the Republican Party can do for themselves and for our Country is to speak out against and distance themselves from this maniac Trump!
There by historically setting a precedent for future candidates that this kind of behavior will never be tolerated in American Democracy!
Lets see if the Republican Party has the integrity to do this!
They won’t. They put themselves here now they have to live with it.
“”Trump has already rejected calls for him to change. “You think I’m going to change?” he asked during a combative news conference last week at Trump Tower in New York. “I’m not changing.”” Once a racist, always a racist.
United States District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the man presiding over the class-action lawsuit against Trump University, is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of San Diego and oversaw the gift of a law school scholarship to an illegal alien.
You don’t see the irony in overlooking and dismissing the potential fraud of Trump University while making excuses for your leader by besmerching everyone else? You do realize that, if you’re non-white, getting a fair shake under Trump’s way is not a possibility?
Be a man and tell us straight you endorse Trump’s racist remarks (not only in this case but in many others).
Oh yeah. Sure thing. Absolutely. Uh-huh.
You believe everything Alberto Dense-Man Gonzales writes, do you? You shouldn’t.
I know a guy who is just like Trump – He calls people by various offending names, he’s a bully, it’s his way or no way, and everything is fine as long as he gets what he wants. But he’s in the third grade so I cut him a little bit of slack. Trump, on the other hand, has no excuse. He and all the other Retrumplicans are an embarrassment to our great country [yes, it’s already great. It doesn’t have to be made “great again”].
Are you picking on oxtail?
Will we ever hear you denouncing all the racist remarks out of Trump’s filthy mouth and mind? Of course not!
Come on, I know you can do it – tell all of us you love Trump’s racist ways. Make me proud of you. You can express your true feelings – this is America. Oops, not in Trump’s America though.
The republicans are so hard up for the White House that they would her into a car driven by a drunk driver to get there.
Get
So the Republican leadership, finally horrified, is now asking TRump to basically lie about himself and pretend to be mature and…well…nice. Ain’t gonna happen.
The FED, Central Bankers, Wall Street, TBTF banks and the rest of the big money players have a huge vested interest in making sure the establishment candidate wins. It is a case of “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know”.
Thanks for supporting Mr. Trump. He’s going to lose in a historic landslide in November and will probably take the Senate Republican majority down as well.
Great work!