Julian Castro on Iowa: ‘This is a total mess’

DES MOINES, Iowa — Julian Castro, who dropped out of the presidential race and threw his support to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, on Monday ripped the Iowa caucuses after reporting problems left the public with no results hours after caucuses ended.

“This is a total mess,” Castro said after Warren spoke and the crowd had mostly emptied out without knowing who won the contest. “People can see with their own eyes tonight the fact that we still don’t have any results. Their process is broken. This is not the way that we should start our process to nominate the most important public service servant in our country and in the world.”

Before ending his campaign, Castro became a fierce critic of the Democratic nominating contest, arguing, among other things, that the heavily white population in Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t reflect the diversity of the modern party. He seized on the reporting fiasco to renew his assault on the system.

“We’re going to have to evaluate after this primary is done, at the DNC, evaluate how we do this,” he said. “The debate thresholds, the order of the states, the caucus versus primary. What happened tonight made the argument for itself. Nobody can deny that this is a broken way to do it. It was a total mess.”

As far as the results, Castro echoed the comments of Warren campaign manager Roger Lau, who said the race had Warren fighting for the lead with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg and with Joe Biden well behind.

“What happened tonight was that the bottom fell out for Joe Biden,” he said. “And that Elizabeth Warren had a comeback. She did better than people expected, and she has a campaign that is built to last.”

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