Apparently CNN and Trump super surrogate Jeffrey Lord was on the Trump conference call earlier Monday afternoon and heeded his demands to attack Judge Curiel over his Mexican heritage.
It was as shameful and pathetic an attempt to blur the lines of decency and honesty I have ever seen.
Carl Bernstein was yelling "McCarthyism" off camera as Lord was droning on nonsensically about ethnicity and identity politics.
Lord savaged all the many Republicans who have criticized Trump for his racist smear and then tied himself into knots making ridiculous analogy after analogy and claiming that if any judge is a member of any kind of group, (ethnic only because religious groups never, ever are biased) they are unfit to be on the court because - freedom - and the constitution!
It was nauseating.
COOPER: Lets go back to you first. What do you think Newt Gingrich, Dr. Ben Carson, and other Republicans who have, you know Paul Ryan, who have come out against these comment.
LORD: Well, let me say first of all that I love Vice President Gingrich and I refer to him deliberately in that fashion but I do think, respectfully, that he made a mistake. As to Ben Carson...
(overtalk)
COOPER: He made a mistake because he publicly spoke against Donald Trump?
LORD: Frankly, I didn't read it about that. What he is saying there is, in essence, what I am saying. That the Judge should be about the Constitution and we should be about individuals in this country and not about racial identity which leads me to all of these other Republicans. And they are latching onto identity politics which is the grandchild of slavery, the son of segregation...respectfully to my friend, Carl, as somebody who worked with both Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, this is a total alliance, a total sellout to the racial politics of the Democratic Party and the American left, which has been going on since slavery.
COOPER: Are you talking about what Donald Trump ...what's interesting about what you are saying is you are not talking about what Donald Trump said, identifying this guy as Mexican, when in fact he is not Mexican, he is American born in Indiana. And, uh, Donald Trump is talking about his Mexican heritage, impacting and determining how he can rule. Isn't that identity politics?
LORD: Correct (head nod). This goes far beyond Trump University. This goes to appointing people to the bench and having a legal system where everybody is supposed to be judged by their skin color or their ethnic heritage. Donald Trump is simply picking this up and saying 'OK, well if that is where you are going then this guy shouldn't be on the bench..."
(overtalk)
COOPER: Jeffrey, that is the most nuanced, I mean you are doing back flips here to interpret something Donald Trump said.
LORD: No, no.
COOPER: You are saying that by identifying him as Mexican, and not even Mexican heritage, by labeling him by his identity, you are saying he is actually commenting on identity politics?
LORD: Anderson, Anderson the judge goes out of his way to identify himself as Latino. The judge does it.
COOPER: That's like saying a judge who is part of a Catholic Organization or a Jewish Organization...should Muslim judges not be allowed on the bench?
LORD: I am saying if they are belonging to organizations that is explicitly about race and bringing race into the judicial system, instead of the Constitution, that's the problem.
Lord then bashed Justice Sotomayor because she's a Latina. I'm sorry, I was being politically correct right there.
And Jeffrey Lord is an expert on Judge Curiel because he read the San Diego La Raza website and never bothered to check his record on cases.
