Editorial: Trump and the ‘Mexican’ Judge
The Republican leader expanded his list of alleged antagonists to include Mexican-Americans as part of the lawsuit filed against his University
Students who paid tens of thousands of dollars to study at Trump University must have suspected something was wrong when they were offered to take a picture with a cardboard figure of the mogul instead of with the real man. This is only one of the irregularities cited in the lawsuit for multi-million dollar fraud filed by former students. Still, Donald Trump believes that he is being accused because the judge is “a Mexican.”
Two cases are pending – one in California and another one in New York – against the institution, which closed a few years ago. Last week, Southern District of California Judge Gonzalo Paul Curiel ordered more than 1,000 pages of documents to be unsealed, under the criteria that Trump is a presidential candidate and the public has the right to know.
The response of the presumptive Republican nominee was to say that Curiel is “a hater of Donald Trump,” adding that the judge – nominated by President Obama – must leave the case, citing bias. Trump said that Curiel’s supposed animosity comes from being “Mexican.” Spewed from the podium, the claim rouses a crowd of followers who feverishly wants to “build that wall,” this time to prevent judges from attacking the candidate.
In his ignorance and irresponsibility, Trump’s attack is carried out against a Mexican-American born in Chicago, not an immigrant. His criticism is no longer directed to undocumented people or foreigners but includes dozens of millions of people born in the U.S. whose Hispanic last name and disagreement with Trump makes them, in his eyes, suspicious of deliberately antagonizing him.
Lawsuits are normal for Trump. He turned litigation in court into a way to intimidate his adversaries and getting his way when an obstacle appeared in his path preventing him from fulfilling his goals. Many of those cases have been dismissed. He has also lost many of those cases, which he denies. It is not unusual for Trump to be in this situation in which he is being accused of fraud for the operations of one of his businesses. What is new is that Mexicans are also in court.
Yesterday, Trump told a group of veterans that illegal immigrants received better benefits than them. How much longer will the national leader of the Republican Party continue to feed hatred with his lies?
