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?"
Lord did not seem to grasp the irony, so Van Jones spelled out the flaw in his argument on Tuesday evening, also on CNN. "If I said, 'You can't be my judge because you're a white man, and white men have done horrible things to me,' you'd say I'm a racist," he told Lord. "But if Donald Trump says a Mexican can't be part of his judge, jury, he's a hero? And now he's an anti-racist? This does not make sense."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
If you're not tired of watching Lord flailing in the illogical morass of defending Trump by calling his accusers racist, watch Michael Smerconish and S.E. Cupp double-team him below. Peter Weber
-
Denmark's 'pornographic' mermaid statue is in hot waterUnder the Radar Town will reportedly remove voluptuous Big Mermaid, despite statue being 'arguably a bit less naked' than Copenhagen monument the Little Mermaid
-
August 10 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday's political cartoons include a global plastics problem, GOP enthusiasm over tariffs, and more
-
5 thin-skinned cartoons about shooting the messengerCartoons Artists take on unfavorable weather, a look in the mirror, and more
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oilSpeed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil
-
NY's Hochul vows response to Texas gerrymanderSpeed Read Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to play ball with redistricting that favors the Democrats
-
Texas Democrats exit state to block redistricting voteSpeed Read More than 51 legislators fled the state in protest of the GOP's plan to redraw congressional districts
