That time Donald Trump put a Republican on blast for dissing Mexicans
Donald Trump has made waves throughout his foray into the 2016 Presidential Election with his incendiary and often racist comments, specifically concerning Mexican-Americans. But according to BuzzFeed News, in the halcyon days of 2000, Trump called out presidential candidate Pat Buchanan for the exact same behavior:
When Trump was toying with a presidential bid for the Reform Party in the late 90s and early 2000s, he criticized potential opponent Pat Buchanan on at least two occasions for “egregious examples of intolerance,” singling out Mexicans (and others) as one of the groups of people Buchanan had disparaged.
“Pat Buchanan has been guilty of many egregious examples of intolerance. He has systematically bashed Blacks, Mexicans, and Gays,” wrote Trump in his 2000 campaign book The America We Deserve.
Trump went further in an interview with the The Advocate, calling Pat’s writings on Mexicans and other minorities “disgusting.”
Trump said that he used to like Buchanan—the two had appeared on Crossfire together—but that he was “disgusted” by the things he read that Buchanan had said or written in the past, saying, with no sense of his own future and irony, “[Pat Buchanan] wants to divide Americans.”
BuzzFeed notes that in at the time of the book’s publication, both men were attempting to lock down the Reform Party nomination in the 2000 Election.
“It is a disgrace; it is overrun; it’s treated with contempt by the Mexican government, by illegals,” Buchanan told reporters during one stop on the border that year.
“Exploding crime statistics, swamped social services, and the rise of ethnic militancy tell the sad story,” Buchanan’s platform on stopping undocumented immigration read.
Buzzfeed News included a scan of The Advocate interview and it ends with Trump calling Buchanan a hypocrite. It’s all too perfect, really.
David Matthews operates the Wayback Machine on Fusion.net—hop on. Got a tip? Email him: [email protected]