The panel on
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program gave itself a poll Monday morning on whether Donald Trump's comments about Indiana-born U.S. Judge Gonzalo Curiel's Mexican heritage could be considered as racist, and the consensus was yes.
"It's completely racist," show co-host Joe Scarborough said, complaining that Trump is "getting worse" instead of better with his campaign. "Here you have a guy that is from Indiana. I think his family, if I'm not mistaken, had been in the country longer than Trump's grandmother."
Over the weekend, Trump told CBS' John Dickerson on the "Face the Nation" program that that he understands that Curiel is "proud of his heritage, and I think that's great that he's proud of his heritage," but still complained that the judge isn't treating him fairly because of his call for a wall at the U.S.-Mexican border.
Further, he told Dickerson that he could possibly also have doubts about a Muslim judge, because of his call earlier this year for a temporary ban for Muslim immigrants.
"Can I just do a poll? Is that racism?" co-host Mika Brzezinski asked panelist Nicolle Wallace, a former communications director for President George W. Bush, who said "yes."
She then turned to Scarborough, who made the "completely racist" comment, and then to frequent show guest and MSNBC show host Rev. Al Sharpton, who called Trump's comments "absolutely, unequivocally racist."
Sharpton also slammed Trump for remarking at
an event on Friday to "look at my African-American over there" while pointing at an African-American man in the audience.
"This is the guy the Republican Party says should be in charge of the government of the United States and the armed services, to appoint judges, Supreme Court judges — this is the guy [who says] 'look at my African-American over there,' While the Mexican judge, who is not Mexican, he's Indianan," Sharpton said.
It was noted that NBC News later spoke to the man in the audience, Gregory Cheadle, a candidate for Congress, who said he didn't take any offense from Trump singling him out.
However, the show noted that Trump retweeted a supporter who had posted a photo of an African-American family with the caption, "American families for Trump," but the family in question told
Buzzfeed that the photograph was taken at their family reunion, that they did not support the nominee, and that they were not happy the photo was used.
Scarborough also complained that Republicans such as House Speaker Paul Ryan "can't be morally outraged this week when they knew what he was doing last week."
"I said, all the way back in December, I would never endorse Donald Trump so long as he supported banning 1.4 million people for entering the last best hope for a dying world, the United States of America, simply because of the god they worship, simply because they were Muslim," Scarborough insisted.
With Ryan's endorsement of Trump, "he endorses his racism against Muslims, Paul Ryan endorses his racism against Mexicans. Paul Ryan endorses his racism against Americans who may have, oh, I don't know, 1/16th Mexican blood in there, saying they're disqualified to be judges."
Related Stories:
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.