Former New York Governor George Pataki accused Donald Trump of slandering Mexicans and said he thinks Trump’s recent comments about Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) service disqualifies him for the presidency.
On Breitbart News Sunday, the 2016 GOP presidential candidate told host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman that Trump was “outrageous” for “demeaning Senator McCain for what truly was heroism.” In Iowa on Saturday, Trump, angry that McCain referred to the thousands of Arizonans who turned out for Trump’s rally to address illegal immigration as “crazies,” said that McCain is a “war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, okay? I hate to tell you. He’s a war hero because he was capture, okay?”
“It’s not something that anybody believes is worthy of a president of the United States,” Pataki said. “It’s another reason why Trump has disqualified himself from leading this country… He’s not going to be president of the United States… We should move on to an intelligent discussion of the issues like border security and like doing everything in our power to not allow this Iranian nuclear deal to go forward.”
He also said that Trump “really slandered millions of Mexicans” because he didn’t say “some or illegals were rapists and thugs,” he “said Mexicans are rapists and thugs.”
“When someone demeans a group of people like that… I’m not going to sit back and take it–and I don’t think anybody in this country should,” Pataki said, adding that his “grandparents were immigrants and they sat through that type of rhetoric.”
He acknowledged, though, that there are “way too many” illegal Mexicans in the United States and that the country’s lack of border security is allowing illegal immigrants who are “drug dealers, terrorists, petty criminals” to enter. Referencing Kate Steinle’s murder in San Francisco at the hands of an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times, Pataki said that “we are paying a price right now for not having a willingness to control our border.” But Pataki disputed that there are 30 million illegal immigrants in the country and insisted that the number is 11-12 million. He said if elected president he would do “whatever it takes” to secure the border, tighten up “dramatically our visa system,” and take “every measure possible to make sure that people come here legally.”
During his announcement speech, Trump, clearly speaking about illegal immigrants from Mexico, said, “they’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Trump recently addressed the uproar over his comments, saying, “I don’t see how there is any room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the statement I made on June 16th during my Presidential announcement speech.” Trump said his comments below were being “deliberately distorted by the media”:
When Mexico (meaning the Mexican Government) sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you (pointing to the audience). They’re not sending you (pointing again). They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs.They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people! But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people. It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.