Donald Trump escalated his attacks against the judge who’s handling a fraud case against his now-defunct university, declaring he was biased against him because, “We’re building a wall. He’s a Mexican.”
In the interview Trump dismissed the suggestion that his attacks on the judge’s heritage were racist.
“If you are saying he can’t do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism?” CNN’s Jake Tapper asked the presumptive Republican presidential nominee during a sit-down interview set to air Sunday.
“No, I don’t think so at all. He’s proud of his heritage [and] I respect him for that,” Trump responded.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel should recuse himself from overseeing the civil fraud lawsuit because he’s an American of Mexican descent. Curiel grew up in Indiana and was appointed to the Superior Court of San Diego, Calif. in 2006.
“It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Trump said of Curiel’s Mexican heritage during an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
“I’ve had lawyers come up to me and say, ‘You’re being treated so unfairly it’s unbelievable,'” Trump claimed on Friday, adding that Curiel is “a member of a society that’s very pro-Mexico.”
“I have had ruling after ruling after ruling that’s been bad rulings, OK?” he said.
Trump continued, “We’re building a wall. He’s a Mexican. The answer is he’s giving us unfair rulings. This judge is giving us unfair rulings.”
The billionaire’s criticism of Curiel has confounded Republican lawmakers, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, who view his already low favorability ratings among Hispanics as a potential roadblock in his bid for the White House.
“Paul Ryan doesn’t know the case,” Trump told Tapper.
“Hillary Clinton is a stiff,” he added, when asked about Clinton’s reaction to his attacks against Curiel.
The former secretary of state described the attacks as “racist” and her campaign’s Latino outreach director Lorella Praeli blasted Trump in a statement Friday.
“The fact that Donald Trump doesn’t see Judge Curiel and his family as Americans makes him unfit to be president of this great nation, a nation of immigrants,” Praeli said. “In Trump’s version of America, this Latino family isn’t really American.”
