On a conference call with supporters Monday, Donald Trump advised his public advocates to very specifically push back against reporters and others who criticize Trump's argument that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel's "Mexican heritage" gives him an "inherent conflict of interest" in the Trump University fraud case. "The people asking the questions — those are the racists," Trump said, according to Bloomberg Politics. "I would go at 'em." Republican lawmakers have been distancing themselves from Trump's comments, and on Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan called them the "textbook definition of racism." And on CNN Tuesday, Trump backer Jeffrey Lord went at 'em.
"Speaker Ryan has apparently switched positions and is now supporting identity politics, which is racist," Lord told Carol Costello, with GOP strategist Ana Navarro looking on, bemused. Costello asked Lord if he was calling Ryan a racist, and Lord said, "I am accusing anybody, anybody who believes in identity politics, which he apparently now does, of playing the race card. The Republican establishment is playing this. Sen. [Mitch] McConnell is playing this." Costello cut in, "Do you know how ironic that is, that you're calling all of those particular Republicans racist?"
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