Today on Face the Nation, Donald Trump sat down with John Dickerson and discussed all the various ignorant views that Trump holds. Most people are focusing on the fact that Trump said he didn’t think a Muslim judge could give him a fair hearing either.
I’m still focused on this Curiel thing, myself. Trump seems fixated on the idea that Curiel had to dismiss the entire suit just because the named plaintiff withdrew from the case. That is not how class action suits work. Shockingly, Trump is as ignorant of the law as he is everything else.
But more, if Mitch McConnell or Bob Corker or Newt Gingrich might have thought that Donald Trump could be controlled, or made to stop making racist remarks about Judge Curiel, they were wrong. This clip might just be the worst one yet.
Trump: How do you allow the case to proceed, when the plaintiff asks to be dismissed from the case? The plaintiff, the one that brought the suit, said I don’t want to sue anymore, I don’t want to sue anymore. You know why they didn’t want to? Because she can’t win the case. (Ed. note – this is false, she withdrew because she didn’t want the publicity involved with this case during the middle of an election, and because Trump’s lawyers made her life a living hell). So the lawyers want her dismissed from the case. They go before the judge and he lets her out? Well, he can let her out, but you have to dismiss the case. (Ed. note – no, he doesn’t, especially since there were other named plaintiffs.)
Dickerson: Yeah, I guess I’m just confused what his (Curiel’s) Mexican parents have to do with that. Let me… (clearly trying to let Trump off the hook)
Trump: Well, excuse me. I want to build a wall. I mean, I can… I don’t think it’s very confusing. It has nothing to do with anything except common sense. You know, we have to stop being so politically correct in this country and we need a little common sense, John. And I’m not blaming, I’m proud of my heritage, we’re all proud of our heritage, but I want to build a wall. Now, the Hispanics, many of them like what I’m saying, they’re here legally. They don’t want people coming and taking their jobs and taking their house and everything else. They don’t want that.
Hey, you know who else is here legally? Judge Gonzalo Curiel. In fact, Curiel’s parents immigrated to the United States and both became citizens prior to the Great Depression. Thus, Curiel was born to two United States citizens, on United States soil, in Indiana. You do not get any more legally in this country than that. Gonzalo Curiel is legally eligible to run for President if he wants, that’s how much of a legal resident of this country he is.
Doesn’t that mean that, under Trump’s own criteria, Curiel has at least a chance of being fair to Trump and liking what he has to say about the wall?
Nah, of course not, that’s pretty much impossible for a “Mexican,” according to Trump.
Now here’s what’s interesting about Trump’s PR strategy with respect to Trump University. The media people who are interviewing Trump about this are so interested in getting him to repeat his racist talking point about Curiel that they are allowing him to filibuster with his insane legal theories about the case itself just so they can stay on task and get what they consider to be the most damaging answer out.
In so doing, the concern is that they may be allowing Trump’s story to gel with the public. And I think Trump believes that he can get away with making these racist comments if, at the end of the day, he plants in the heads of the American public that this lawsuit really is an unjust persecution of a great business enterprise.
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