Democrats across the nation forcefully condemned Donald Trump on Monday, arguing that the billionaire has leveled racist attacks against the federal judge who’s handling a civil lawsuit against his now-defunct online college.
Outside the presumptive Republican nominee’s gilded Manhattan skyscraper, New York City council members Melissa Mark-Viverito and Carlos Menchaca accused Trump of making “gross” and “vile” comments about U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, an Indiana-born American citizen.
The two Hispanic lawmakers described Trump’s behavior as abnormal, especially for “someone running to be president of the United States.”
“Donald Trump’s attacks on Judge Curiel are racist. He is quite literally saying Judge Curiel can’t do his job because of his ethnicity,” Mark-Viverito, who serves as speaker for the New York City Council, said from a podium placed at the entrance of Trump Tower.
She continued, “Why is Donald Trump attacking Judge Curiel? Because he does not like his rulings on Trump University. The same fake university which urged people to benefit off the foreclosure crisis, the same crisis which hit Latino families so hard in places like Nevada and Florida. Let that sink in for a moment.”
Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 miles away, members of the Indiana Democratic Party offered their own defense of Curiel, a fellow Hoosier, by railing against the state’s Republican committee.
“We’ve known for a long time about the kind of toxic, divisive and destructive campaign Donald Trump has been running thus far,” party chairman John Zody told reporters. “[But] this press conference is not about Donald Trump. We’re here today to publicly call out the Indiana Republican Party and its candidates and elected officials for turning a blind eye and not sticking to the morals we know as Hoosiers.”
Zody proceeded to call on his political opponents to join him in “condemning [Trump’s] remarks against a Hoosier.”
“Case details aside, Trump used ‘Mexican’ as a derogatory phrase to describe Judge Curiel,” said former Democratic State Rep. John Aguilera. “With any other politician, I would be shocked to hear about these attacks on Gonzalo, but with Donald Trump I’m reminded of a personal interaction I had with him a couple decades ago.”
Aguilera claimed he was selected by the Trump Organization to be a “minority investor” in an Indiana casino resort project Trump was spearheading in the early 1990s. “Unfortunately for the minority investor group, Trump Indiana did not follow through on their commitment to the group and we were not allowed to participate as investors.”
“So frankly, I’m not surprised by seeing Trump attack good, honest people like Judge Curiel,” he said, adding that “Gonzalo is a Hoosier and we must work together to defend one of our own.”
Trump’s calls for Curiel to recuse himself from the case because his Mexican heritage is an “inherent conflict of interest” have earned him criticism from fellow Republicans, in addition to Democratic lawmakers and activist groups nationwide.
“Mr. Trump’s comments demonstrate both a lack of respect for the judicial system and the principle of separation of powers,” Maine Sen. Susan Collins said Monday, joining a long list of GOP figures who’ve condemned the billionaire’s attacks.
Nevertheless, Trump has refused to back down despite jeopardizing his relationships with Republican leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose support took months to get. During an interview over the weekend, the de facto GOP nominee even said he would level similar attacks against a Muslim-American judge if he or she were handling the Trump University case.
“All I want to do is find out why am I being treated so unfairly by a judge?” Trump told Fox News Monday morning, insisting that his criticism of Curiel is not fueled by racism.
