Condemn Trump, say Hispanic leaders
Some Republican candidates avoiding issue
Hispanic leaders are warning of harm to Republican White House hopes unless the party ’s presidential contenders do more to condemn Donald Trump, a businessman turned presidential candidate who’s refusing to apologize for calling Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers.
Trump’s comments, delivered in his announcement speech last month, have haunted the GOP for much of the last two weeks and dominated Spanish-language media.
It’s bad timing for a Republican Party that has invested significantly in Hispanic outreach in recent years, given the surging influence of the minority vote.
Yet several Republican candidates have avoided the issue altogether, while those who have weighed in have declined to criticize Trump as strongly as many Hispanic leaders would like.
“The time has come for the candidates to distance themselves from Trump and call his comments what they are: ludicrous, baseless and insulting,” said Alfonso Aguilar, a Republican who leads the American Principles Project’s Latino Partnership.
“Sadly, it hurts the party with Hispanic voters. It’s a level of idiocy I haven’t seen in a long time.”
The political and practical Trump-related fallout has intensified in recent days.
The leading Hispanic television network, Univision, has backed out of televising the Miss USA pageant, a joint venture between Trump and NBC, which also cut ties with Trump.
The reaction from Republican presidential candidates, however, has often been far less aggressive.
In a recent interview on Fox News, conservative firebrand Ted Cruz insisted that Trump should not apologize.
“I like Donald Trump,” said Cruz, a Texas senator who is Hispanic. “I think he’s terrific. I think he’s brash. I think he speaks the truth.”
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said simply that Trump is “wrong.”
“Maybe we’ll have a chance to have an honest discussion about it on stage,” Bush said last weekend while campaigning in Nevada.