President Donald Trump asked a former member of his Hispanic advisory council on Monday night if he liked “the country” or “Hispanics” more in a bizarre attempt to prove his own supposed fondness for the Hispanic community.
During a campaign rally in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Trump singled out Steve Cortes, who had served as one of the President’s Hispanic advisers before becoming a CNN political commentator.
Joking that Cortes “looks more like a WASP than I do,” Trump claimed that nobody “loves his country more” or “Hispanic” (singular) more than Cortes.
“Who do you like more, the country or the Hispanics?” he then asked Cortes, who seemed to chose the former in response.
“He says the country,” Trump said. “I don’t know. I may have to go for the Hispanics, to be honest with you. We got a lot of Hispanics. We love our Hispanics.”
The speech, held in a New Mexico city with a large Hispanic population, struck a contrast between Trump’s remarks during his rally in May in majority-white Panama City, Florida, in which the President laughed at a supporter’s suggestion to shoot migrants at the southern border.
“That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that stuff,” he said at the time.
Watch Trump on Monday below:
Trump asks a former Hispanic adviser if he prefers "the country" or "Hispanics" pic.twitter.com/zGlh8sPs70
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 17, 2019
