In a rare display of bipartisan harmony, Democrats and Republicans joined together Monday in rejecting Donald Trump’s comments about the ethnicity of a judge overseeing a class action suit against his shuttered university.
Members of both parties derided the brash billionaire for his racist remarks on how U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel — who is presiding over an enormous fraud class action in a federal court in San Diego against Trump University — wouldn’t be fair in the case due to his “Mexican heritage.”
At a rally outside Trump Tower, in Midtown, more than 50 people, led by New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, rallied in calling for the temperamental tycoon to take back his claims about Curiel.
“Donald Trump’s attacks on Judge Curiel are racist,” Viverito, who is backing Hillary Clinton, said. “He’s quite literally saying Judge Curiel can’t do his job because of his ethnicity. That is the definition of racism.”
“It Is gross, its vile, and it is not normal behavior for anyone, let alone someone running for President of the United States,” she added. “In Donald’s world someone’s ethnicity can disqualify them from doing their job, and their religion can disqualify them from coming to this country.”
Added Council Member Carlos Menchaca, the only Mexican-American on the Council: “Judge Curiel does not deserve this kind of racist, xenophobic commentary from any campaign.”
Clinton, too, piled on, releasing a new campaign ad that highlighted many of the remarks Trump’s fellow Republican have made about the mogul regarding his comments about Curiel.
Former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn also lent her voice to the chorus, calling Trump “dead racist.”
“He’s tripling down on an un-American view,” she said during an interview on CNN Monday.
“If he is concerned for whatever reason about the ethics or impartiality of this judge, which you have the right to be,” Quinn added, “then why haven’t his lawyers moved to have this judge taken off this case?”
“They haven’t done it because there is no judicial reason,” she added.
Even Curiel’s brother pounced on Trump, calling the candidate’s comments a product of “ignorance.”
“I don’t think he is strictly an outright racist like some of your Ku Klux Klan. Those kind of people really are racist. They have no redeeming qualities,” Raul Curiel told CNN. “Trump, I don’t believe, is that caliber of person. But he is very, very uninformed.”
An increasing number of Republicans took on their party’s presumptive nominee as well.
Former GOP candidate John Kasich tweeted Monday that “attacking judges based on their race &/or religion is another tactic that divides our country. More importantly, it is flat out wrong.”
“@RealDonaldTrump should apologize to Judge Curiel & try to unite this country,” he added.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) called Trump’s comments “absolutely unacceptable” in a statement Monday.
“Mr. Trump’s comments demonstrate both a lack of respect for the judicial system and the principle of separation of powers,” she added.
Kasich and Collins joined House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who all condemned Trump’s remarks Sunday.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California governor and current host of Trump’s old TV show, “The Apprentice,” backed up Curiel as well. The movie star pol appointed Curiel as a state judge in 2007.
“Judge Curiel is an American hero who stood up to the Mexican cartels,” he wrote on Twitter. “I was proud to appoint him when I was Gov.
Trump, for his part, hit back Monday, but only against Gingrich, whose criticism — he called Trump’s remarks “inexcusable” on Sunday — he labeled “inappropriate.”
Trump has said Curiel, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, has “an absolute conflict” with his case because he is “of Mexican heritage,” citing his own stance against illegal immigration, and his pledge to seal the U.S.-Mexico border with a wall.
The mogul, however, found at least one defender Monday: Carl Paladino.
“By far he’s not a racist,” Paladino, the honorary New York State co-chair of Trump’s campaign said on CNN.
“This is incredible that you want to pull this word out and use it because it always pushes back on the white guy. That’s not fair,” added Paladino, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in New York in 2010.
“Donald Trump might have some anxiety about this particular judge because he lives in the same real world that I do where this type of thing does go on,” he added, “where the ethnicity means something, OK?”
