Donald Trump released a statement on Tuesday assuring that his comments about the Mexican-American judge presiding a case against Trump University were misconstructed as a categorical attack against people of Mexican heritage.
Trump had suggested last week that the Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, who was born in Indiana, was biased against the business person due to his immigration policies, which include deporting illegal immigrants and building a wall along the southern border, as reported by the New York Times.
“The American justice system relies on fair and impartial judges. All judges should be held to that standard,” the presumptive Republican presidential candidate wrote in a statement. “I do not feel that one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial.”
According to Trump, it is unfortunate that his comments were misconstrued as a categorical attack against Mexican people, as he assured to be friend with and employ thousands of people of Mexican and Hispanic descent.
The controversial remarks were considered as racists within the Democratic and Republican community. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has supported Trump’s candidacy, said during a press conference on Tuesday that Trump’s remarks were the textbook definition of a racist comment, as reported by CNN.
Ryan assured that even though he would not defend Trump, it was necessary to concentrate on his agenda project. He also commented that although he disavowed the racist remarks, Hillary Clinton was not the solution for the current problems in America.
Trump University
The for-profit school created by Trump has been the subject of multiple investigations, and most recently, a class action by its Californian students. The university has been portrayed by former managers at the institution as an unscrupulous business that relied on high-pressure sales tactics and employed unqualified instructors. Some of them have called the university a ‘fraudulent scheme.’
Employees testified that the school exploited vulnerable students that are willing to pay great amounts of money for Trump’s insights. According to Ronald Schnackenberg, a sales manager at Trump University, he was reprimanded for not pushing a financially struggling couple hard enough to sign up for a $35,000 real estate class.
Schnakenberg said that later he watched with disgust as a fellow Trump University salesperson persuaded the couple to purchase the class anyway. He preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money, he added.
Sealed documents from the University were published last month under court order. Among those, there were internal guidebooks for employees of the institutions that provided detailed instructions for how to sell the classes, even to skeptical and reluctant consumers, by tapping into their physiological needs.
Source: The New York Times