Donald Trump’s attacks against a federal judge’s Mexican heritage have led two Republican officials in New Jersey to formally withdraw from the GOP.
John Labrosse, the Republican mayor of Hackensack, N.J., and his deputy mayor Kathleen Canestrino switched their party registration to “independent” this week, following the firestorm over Trump’s suggestion that U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel is incapable of presiding over a case involving Trump University because he’s “a Mexican.”
“With some of the things that have been said lately, we’re not going to support that type of language,” Labrosse and Canestrino said in statement. “The divisive and racist statements that Trump keeps making are insulting to many of our people and completely unacceptable.”
The two GOP officials hail from a city where nearly half the residents are foreign-born and 12,600 are Spanish speakers, according to census data.
“Hackensack is a very diverse city, and diversity has always been our strength,” they said in a statement. “It wasn’t an easy decision. I think we owe it to the citizens of this town that we won’t tolerate that type of attack, whether it’s race or nationality or whatever.”
Labrosse and Canestrino both said Trump “needs to clean up his act.”
Trump’s comments about Curiel led others to withdraw their support for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as well.
Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk rescinded his endorsement of Trump earlier this week and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker declined to say whether he would continue to back Trump before the billionaire is officially nominated at the GOP convention in July unless he “renounces what he says – at least in regards to this judge.”
