Politics –
Mexican Judge Comments Sink Trump

OK folks, cancel your Netflix account, pop some popcorn, gather grandma and the kids around the TV set and watch Donald Trump completely implode right before your very eyes. Today’s episode: Trump announces that the “Mexican judge” presiding over his Trump University case should be disqualified because of his race.

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U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, a federal judge in the Southern District of California, is overseeing a case against the now-defunct Trump University. Although Judge Curiel did the presumptive Republican nominee a huge favor by deciding to wait until after the November election to rule on the case, Trump is absolutely convinced Curiel is biased against him. Why? Because Curiel is Mexican. Trump believes his plan to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico has resulted in a conflict of interest for Curiel and now, he wants him off the case.

In an interview last Sunday on CNN, anchor Jake Tapper repeatedly asked Trump if his comments about Curiel were improper or could be construed as racist.  Trump avoided the question 12 times, but Tapper was relentless and forced the new leader of the GOP to respond.

“He’s proud of his heritage, OK? I’m building a wall,” Trump told Tapper. “He’s a Mexican. We’re building a wall between here and Mexico.”

“If you are saying he can’t do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism?” Tapper asked while reminding Trump that Curiel is an American who was born in Indiana.

“No, I don’t think so at all,” Trump replied. “We live in a society that’s very pro-Mexico, and that’s fine. That’s all fine.  But I think he should recuse himself.”

“Because he’s a Latino?” Tapper asked.

“I’m building a wall,” Trump maintained, while calling Curiel “a hater.”

If that wasn’t enough, Trump then headed over to CBS and doubled down on his remarks.

In an interview with John Dickerson of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Trump again referred to the judge as a “Mexican” who has a “conflict of interest” that prevents him from acting fairly because of the proposed border wall with Mexico.

“He is a member of a club or society, very strongly pro-Mexican, which is all fine,” Trump said. “But I say he’s got bias. I want to build a wall. I’m going to build a wall. I’m doing very well with the Latinos, with the Hispanics, with the Mexicans, I’m doing very well with them in my opinion.”

“You know, we have to stop being so politically correct in this country,” Trump continued. “And we need a little more common sense.”

When Dickerson asked the presumptive nominee if he also believed a Muslim judge would be similarly biased because of his call for a ban on Muslim immigrants, Trump replied “It’s possible, yes.  Yeah. That would be possible. Absolutely.”

By Monday morning, all hell had broken loose within the GOP.

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Prominent Republicans were tripping over each other racing to denounce Trump’s words, to distance his beliefs from that of the party’s and to hopefully salvage valuable Hispanic votes, which Trump and other down-ballot GOP candidates will desperately need come November.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he completely disagreed with the remarks. “All of us came here from somewhere else,” McConnell said in reference to Judge Curiel’s heritage. “That’s an important part of what makes America work.”

Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who is also chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appeared on ABC News’s “This Week” and said “I don’t condone the comments.  I think that he [Trump] is going to have to change.”

However it was Newt Gingrich — the former House speaker who has been among Trump’s most vocal supporters and widely considered as his ideal vice-presidential running mate — who completely ripped the presumptive nominee.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Gingrich said “This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made” and called his remarks “inexcusable.”

“I think that it was a mistake … I hope it was sloppiness. [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.”

Gingrich continued his tongue lashing: “Trump has got to, I think, move to a new level. 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.”

Ouch!

When “The Donald” got wind of Gingrich’s verbal spanking, he was less than pleased someone would dare chastise him.

“I saw Newt, I was surprised at Newt, I thought it was inappropriate what he said,” Trump said (TRANSLATION: Newt can forget about the VP slot).

When Trump heard that his Republican colleagues desperately want him to adjust his approach, he was equally defiant.

“I’m not changing,” he said during a fiery news conference at Trump Tower.

By Monday morning, Republican leaders were successful in convincing Trump to change and backpedal on his perceivably racist comments.  Initially, the Trump campaign issued a directive to all Republican operatives NOT to discuss the Curiel remarks so as to direct public attention elsewhere.  However, hours later the candidate himself nixed the idea, saying “not so smart” people were doling out advice in “his” campaign. That’s when Trump opted to double or even triple down by ordering his staff to not only ramp up bias claims against Curiel at every juncture, but to accuse reporters of being “racists” for even daring to question his criticism of the “Mexican judge.” He then called on all of his supporters to join in the fray, to stir up a dust storm and to make race the issue.

Ironically, Trump’s antics came only 24 hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan’s tepid endorsement of the billionaire. Now, Ryan and a boatload of Republicans who initially coalesced around him as the presumptive GOP nominee, are finding themselves between a rock and a hard place and likely regretting the day Donald Trump was ever born.

Since knocking out all of his GOP challengers, Donald Trump has become drunk with power.  However, instead of preparing to potentially become leader of the free world, Trump seems more interested in getting even with anyone he feels has ever crossed him. This has prompted his Republican cohorts into continuously reminding him that he’s not acting like a leader — like THE leader of the Republican Party.

“We’re all behind him now,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, adding that it’s time for unifying the party, not “settling scores and grudges.”

Sen. Corker recently met with Trump in New York and encouraged him to spend his energy building out a foreign policy agenda instead of remaining an attack dog.

“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,” Corker told his party’s soon-to-be nominee.

Donald Trump is continuing to prove he’s an unpredictable powder keg that could explode at any given moment. With that sort of temperament, Republicans are quickly resigning themselves to the notion that they will likely be defending their leader and his madness daily, from now until the general election.

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