South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham called for Republicans to rescind their endorsements for Donald Trump after he accused the judge in the Trump University lawsuit of bias because of racial heritage.
“This is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy,” Graham told The New York Times. “If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it,” he added. “There'll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”
U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel—who presides over two Trump University lawsuits—was accused by Trump o being “biased,” a “hater,” and in a speech, alluded to Curiel’s ethnicity saying that he “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.”
Curiel was not born in Mexico though he was born in East Chicago, Indiana, to parents who had immigrated from Mexico.
Graham joins a number of Republicans who have denounced the statements, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan who called the remark a “textbook definition of a racist comment.”
Former Speaker of the House and rumored Trump VP pick Newt Gingrich was also critical of the statements, saying “This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made, and I think it’s inexcusable,” said Gingrich on Fox News.
“If a liberal were to attack Justice Clarence Thomas on the grounds that he’s black, we would all go crazy.”
Host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough has made a call for GOP senators to reevaluate their allegiance to Trump.
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, said that the party has “to start calling him out today,” adding that GOP leaders can’t allow Trump to “run roughshod over what remaining national reputation we have as a national party.”
This comes one day after the MSNBC host compared the presumptive Republican nominee’s remarks about the Judge’s heritage to Nazi Germany.
“I mean, this sounds like Nuremberg,” Scarborough said to Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). “‘Are you 1/32nd Jewish?’ ‘Are you 1/16th black?’ ‘Are you 1/8th Mexican?’ I mean, what standard is this? This is not American.”
Trump has not apologized for his remarks, and said to his staff to take an order to downplay the accusations on the judge “and throw it the hell out,” in a report by Bloomberg politics.
“Are there any other stupid letters that were sent to you folks?” Trump said. “That’s one of the reasons I want to have this call, because you guys are getting sometimes stupid information from people that aren’t so smart.”
Through it all, Trump remains defiant.
“The people asking the questions—those are the racists,” Trump said to supporters. “I would go at ‘em.”
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