After VP-wannabe Newt Gingrich blasted Donald Trump for his “inexcusable” attacks on the Hispanic judge overseeing the Trump University case yesterday, I opined that Gingrich’s newly-found sensitivity was more a matter of politics than integrity. Today, as some of Fox’s Trump-loving hosts – whom I have never seen object to Trump’s previous bigotry – fell in line with Gingrich, I’m more certain than ever.
Trump, of course, thinks it’s “inappropriate” that Gingrich criticized him. He said on Fox & Friends this morning:
TRUMP: As far as Newt is concerned, I saw Newt, I was surprised at Newt. I thought it was inappropriate what he said.
But cohost Brian Kilmeade pressed the point, Believe me, he would not have made such a big deal of this criticism on his own.
KILMEADE: Well, he [Gingrich] really believes that you can’t bring up someone’s ethnic background if they were born here in this country and that they are a federal judge. He was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger originally.
Kilmeade also cited Republican Senators Bob Corker and Mitch McConnell who have also criticized Trump. And then continued.
KILMEADE: But in a time in which the economy just put together an anemic 38,000 jobs and you want to fix the economy, how does it benefit Donald Trump becoming president to talk about the ethnicity of a school that most of the country doesn’t care about?
[…]
Why would Newt Gingrich, who you really respect… He wasn’t just firing off. He said some nice things about you in that interview but says, ‘I can’t condone’ – He doesn’t understand where you’re coming at with this. Does anything like that get through to you and make you reform your tactics when somebody who’s been a supporter of yours comes out and says this is a huge mistake?
Later, Fox’s Outnumbered show also went after Trump. We saw a mashup of Republicans criticizing him over his remarks. The show’s #OneLuckyGuy, Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz said, “It’s wrong of him to have said it.”
Even Trump’s adoring fan, Harris Faulkner criticized Trump.
From Media Matters:
HARRIS FAULKNER (CO-HOST): But I also want to point to a couple of facts. So, the judge is of Mexican heritage. He was born in America. Judge Napolitano pointed out this morning, people are criticizing him, as Donald Trump has, for belonging to a group called La Raza. Napolitano says no, the key word there is was. He used to be a member or supporter, or whatever it was. He said as a sitting justice he can’t belong to any advocacy group. My question for Donald Trump is, if you take out Curiel based on his heritage, would you have taken out Thurgood Marshall, our first African-American sitting Supreme Court justice, during the civil rights conversations in cases? And furthermore, would you take out Clarence Thomas? I mean it’s—it bears the question.
In other words, powerful Republicans are worried.
And did you notice what was missing? Nobody said they found Trump's comments offensive, just improper.
Watch it below, from the June 6 Fox & Friends and Outnumbered.
I mean, it’s not like he’s ever let his skin tone direct any sort of empathy for cases brought on behalf of underprivileged African-Americans. He’s almost always voted the
I think a better case would be the example of Scalia and Alito’s continual opposition to any social issue that runs contrary to old-line Roman Catholicism and their absolute refusal to even consider recusing themselves from cases involving LGBT rights or abortion.
