Luján, Grisham blast Trump, GOP at DNC
New Mexico’s two Democratic representatives tore into Trump during Wednesday’s session.
Albuquerque Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham, speaking Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, ripped into Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for some of his controversial remarks about women.
Her colleague, Rep. Ben Ray Luján of Santa Fe, blasted House Republicans for being “afraid to stand up to the birthers and bigots and conspiracy theorists” such as Trump.
Both of New Mexico’s Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives spoke to conventioneers long before the prime-time speeches of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Tim Kaine, running mate of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“We all know how Donald Trump talks about women,” Lujan Grisham said. “He’s suggested that working mothers aren’t giving one hundred percent at their jobs. He’s called breast-feeding ‘disgusting.’ He thinks that equal pay for women gets away from, and I quote, ‘capitalism.’ ”
The breast-feeding line was in reference to a claim from a lawyer who was deposing Trump in a lawsuit. Last year, lawyer Elizabeth Beck told CNN that in 2011 Trump had an “absolute meltdown” when she requested a break from the deposition to pump breast milk. “He got up, his face got red, he shook his finger at me and he screamed, ‘You’re disgusting. You’re disgusting,’ and he ran out of there,” Beck told CNN.
Trump’s lawyer responded in the report that Trump had called Beck “disgusting” because she “was about to use her breast pump in the middle of the deposition room.”
In her speech, Lujan Grisham said, “We have a motto in Congress: When women succeed, America succeeds. Right? Right? But that motto seems to scare Donald Trump and [running mate] Mike Pence.
Of Pence, governor of Indiana, she said he “thinks women belong in the home — not running companies, not serving in the military, and certainly not running the country. … Hillary Clinton understands we need to support the millions of families who are caring for elderly or disabled family members.”
Luján, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, talked mostly about the importance of electing Democrats to Congress to help Clinton implement her ideas. He was on stage about 13 minutes, but that included three videos played during his talk. Those featured current Democratic House member, new House candidates and “average citizens” complaining about Republicans in Congress.
“For nearly six years, House Republicans have put party over country,” Luján said. “… If your member of Congress is supporting Donald Trump … ask yourself this: What does that say about their leadership? Their character? Their values?”
Luján began his speech talking about his family and New Mexico
heritage. “I come from a family of pioneers,” he said. “My grandparents took on the elements, lived through the Great Depression, survived poverty and family tragedy, and made a place for themselves in New Mexico before it was a state.
“There, they tilled their land, raised their crops, protected what they had, and tried to help others. I grew up on that small farm. I spent my childhood turning dirt, stacking wood, feeding animals.”
Luján, who was wearing a bolo tie with inlaid turquoise in the shape of a zia symbol, said, “I know I may not look like your typical member of Congress. And, it’s true, I haven’t really gotten the bolo tie look to catch on.”