How did the controversy begin over Donald Trump's attacks on the judge in the Trump University lawsuit? It began when Donald Trump couldn't stop talking about the Trump University lawsuit.
In the normal course of events, a campaign flap starts with an expose in the press, or an attack from a rival campaign, or perhaps an embarrassing gaffe. The candidate is then forced to discuss, or at least acknowledge, a matter he would rather not face. The candidate's biggest hope is that everybody will stop talking about it.
Not Trump. Of course there had been news reports and discussion of Trump University earlier in the campaign. But it wasn't in the news on May 27, when Trump appeared at a campaign rally in San Diego. The city just happens to be where the Trump University case will be tried in federal court, under U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel. While Trump has discussed the suit in speeches before, being in San Diego apparently put him in the mood to dissect it at length.
Great length. In a speech that went a little less than an hour, Trump spent more than ten minutes talking about Trump University. Ten minutes is a lot of time. It was far more, for example, than Trump spent talking about jobs — one week before a terrible jobs report raised serious questions about the recovery. Ten minutes was more than Trump spent talking about illegal immigration, his signature issue. Or veterans, a recent favorite. Or even, astonishingly, the damning State Department report on Hillary Clinton's email scandal.
No, Trump spent more time talking about the Trump University lawsuit than all of those. He discussed individual plaintiffs by name. He discussed various law firms. His opinion on summary judgment. And more. And, in the course of his extended remarks, Trump said of Curiel, "So what happens is the judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great. I think that's fine..."
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04.19.2024