Republican lawmakers on Tuesday stopped short of saying Donald Trump is a racist, even though they said he made racist remarks about federal district court judge Gonzalo Curiel.
“You have to look at a body of work for a long period of time before anybody calls anybody else a racist,” Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., told the Washington Examiner.
Perdue and other GOP backers of Trump have condemned Trump’s attacks on Curiel, who is overseeing a lawsuit against the now-defunct Trump University. Trump said Curiel could not impartially rule on the case due to his Mexican heritage, since Trump has called for building a wall along the Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants.
“I think that Mr. Trump’s comments were inappropriate,” said Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a longtime Trump acquaintance. “Knowing him personally, I don’t think he is a racist at all. But, I think that he’s in the big time now and he’s going to be criticized and make some mistakes. And this was definitely a mistake.”
Earlier Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., became the highest ranking GOP leader to accuse Ryan of making a racist remark.
“Claiming a person can’t do the job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment,” Ryan said. But Ryan was quick to distinguish a racist comment from actually calling Trump a racist.
“I’m saying that the comment was,” Ryan told Fox News Radio Tuesday. “I don’t know what’s in his heart and I don’t think he feels that in his heart, but I don’t think it’s wise and justifiable to suggest that a person should be disqualified from their job because of their ethnicity.”
Similarly, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused to say over the weekend whether even Trump’s comments were racist. “I couldn’t disagree more with what he says,” McConnell offered instead.
Other senators also refused to say Trump is a racist when confronted by reporters on Tuesday, and instead either said it was “inexcusable,” or dodged the question.
Republican lawmakers have struggled to defend their support of Trump even as they cringe at his slash-and-burn campaign style and regular stream of offensive remarks.
Trump has also been accused of sexism because of comments he has made against women, including Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and entertainer Rosie O’Donnell.
Democrats are gleefully working to link Trump’s comments to the GOP, which is struggling to hold onto Senate control in November.
“I think it’s clear now that the Republican Party is the party of Donald Trump,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said on Tuesday. “That’s why Senate Republican leaders refuse to condemn Donald Trump’s attacks on a federal judge as being racist.”
Trump on Monday appeared to reinforce his Curiel statements, by telling supporters in a campaign to continue level attacks against the judge. On Tuesday, Trump issued a lengthy statement that said his comments were “misconstrued” as an attack on anyone with Mexican heritage, but didn’t apologize for his comments.
His most enthusiastic Republican supporters in Congress have asked him to apologize. They argue Trump’s actions and lifelong practices as a businessman show he’s neither racist, nor sexist. He’s hired many women to serve in high-level positions in his company, for example.
“It’s a terrible statement,” Perdue said of the Curiel attack. “It’s not representative of him, or his campaign or the Republican Party and I’m hoping we’ll see that corrected.”
