The saga of Donald Trump & Company Out of Control continues with the latest inflammatory statement from the Trump camp: an assertion that it’d be OK to accuse a woman judge of being biased against him, too. And, ironically, this new twist came hours after the (AP and NBC declared) presumptive Democratic Party nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton predicted Trump would consider women judges biased, too.
To defend real estate mogul Donald Trump‘s claim that a federal judge is biased against him because of his “Mexican heritage,” his campaign spokeswoman argued on Monday that it also would be acceptable to accuse a female judge of bias on the basis of gender.
“Well, it would depend on her past and decisions she made as a judge,” Trump’s national spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said.
Noting that Trump’s sister is also a federal judge, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Pierson if it would be “awful” to accuse her of bias “in regard to some case because she’s a woman.”
But Pierson would not rule it out, adding that “there is no question that there are activist judges in this country.”
“CNN gives a platform to Black Lives Matter, and that entire premise is injustice in the system due to race,” she said.
While top Republicans have condemned Trump’s attacks against U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who Trump claims has “an absolute conflict” in presiding over a fraud case involving Trump University because his parents are from Mexico, Pierson insisted her boss is correct to go after Curiel. Trump has pledged that he will continue the attacks, and on Sunday, argued that a Muslim judge could also be biased against him.
“There’s an injustice occurring here,” Pierson said. “The media doesn’t understand it. That’s the way it has always been for Republicans. He is not backing down because the media wants to pressure, call him names, call him racist. Doesn’t matter which GOP individual comes out, they’re not there and they don’t have the facts. That’s why Mr. Trump is the nominee.”
So other GOPers that criticize Trump for talking in a way that many note is in the classic mode of an outright racist are ignorant. And now we have Trump and the latest from his spokesperson saying that Hispanics, women and Muslims judges could be accused of being biased against him.
Apparently Trump’s idea of an unbiased, fair judge would be Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Dick Morris (who may be soon be hired by the Trump campaign).
Just hours earlier, Clinton had predicted the Trump campaign might question women judges’ ability to unbiased as well:
Hillary Clinton predicts Donald Trump will start attacking other demographics of judges, possibly including women or people with disabilities, after repeatedly accusing U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel of bias due to his Mexican heritage.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday night, the presumptive Democratic nominee described how Trump’s “hateful rhetoric” could have a ripple effect on other groups.“He’s trying to demean and defame a federal judge who was a very accomplished federal prosecutor. … I imagine he’ll move on to women judges because he’s been insulting women so regularly, or maybe a judge with a disability, or perhaps one who was a former POW, or African-American,” she said when asked by Maddow about a potential “racial conflagration” in the country.
“This is dangerous nonsense that undermines the rule of law, that makes him appear to be someone who has no respect for fellow Americans, and I think it is yet more evidence why this man is dangerous and divisive and disqualified from being president,” Clinton said.
Meanwhile, if the Trump campaign’s comments on Trump not backing down sound like it’s something from the top, it indeed is: the big political story has been a Bloomberg report (obviously leaked) of a Trump conference call to supporters ordering then to press the issue of Curiel, defend him — and attack journalists who raise the issue, calling them racists.
If there needed to be proof that Trump is out of control this report is it. Here’s a chunk:
An embattled Donald Trump urgently rallied his most visible supporters to defend his attacks on a federal judge’s Mexican ancestry during a conference call on Monday in which he ordered them to question the judge’s credibility and impugn reporters as racists.
“We will overcome,” Trump said, according to two supporters who were on the call and requested anonymity to share their notes with Bloomberg Politics. “And I’ve always won and I’m going to continue to win. And that’s the way it is.”
There was no mention of apologizing or backing away from his widely criticized remarks about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing cases against the Trump University real-estate program.
When former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer interrupted the discussion to inform Trump that his own campaign had asked surrogates to stop talking about the lawsuit in an e-mail on Sunday, Trump repeatedly demanded to know who sent the memo, and immediately overruled his staff.
“Take that order and throw it the hell out,” Trump said.
Told the memo was sent by Erica Freeman, a staffer who circulates information to surrogates, Trump said he didn’t know her. He openly questioned how the campaign could defend itself if supporters weren’t allowed to talk.
“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…
And:
A clearly irritated Trump told his supporters to attack journalists who ask questions about the lawsuit and his comments about the judge.
“The people asking the questions—those are the racists,” Trump said. “I would go at ’em.”
Suggesting a broader campaign against the media, Trump said the campaign should also actively criticize television reporters. “I’d let them have it,” he said, referring to those who Trump portrayed as hypocrites.
To be sure, a parade of Republicans have tried to put some or a lot of distance between themselves and Trump. But so many of them are saying they will vote for Trump to stop Hillary Clinton that in terms of branding the Republican Party is quickly being rebranded in the minds of many key demographics that party will need in the furture as the Trumpublican Party.
Most campaigns try to limit political bleeding; Trump perpetuates it.
And thrives on it.
Cartoon by DonkeyHotey via Flickr
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.