2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro has a message he wants to deliver to Donald Trump—and he’s making sure Trump has no chance of missing it. “President Trump: You referred to countries as shitholes,” Castro says in a new ad that will air exclusively on Wednesday in New Jersey, where Trump is now vacationing. “You urged American congresswomen to ‘go back’ to where they came from. You called immigrants rapists. As we saw in El Paso, Americans were killed because you stoked the fire of racists.
“Innocent people were shot down because they look different from you,” he continues. “Because they look like me. They look like my family. Words have consequences. ¡Ya basta!” Castro concludes—enough. While all candidates must denounce the president’s racism, this particular message is one that only Castro can deliver, as the election’s lone Latino candidate. And to make sure that Trump doesn’t miss it, The Washington Post reports, “the ad will also appear in the Bedminster area that morning during ‘Fox & Friends,’ a show the president frequently watches.”
“Donald Trump’s hateful rhetoric inspired the largest violent attack on the Latinx community in history,” Castro campaign manager Maya Rupert told the Post. “Yet, even in the wake of this attack his campaign continues to use words like ‘invasion’ to describe immigrants, and attacks two of the most prominent Latino politicians.” A USA Today analysis found that Trump has spewed “invasion” rhetoric at least 19 times since 2017. In his scrawlings, the white supremacist mass shooter who targeted the El Paso community complained about a “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. “Julián isn’t afraid of Donald Trump or his bigoted agenda,” Rupert continued, “and will continue to expose his racism and division until he defeats him next November.”
