NBC
By Suzanne Gamboa
November 4, 2015
Representatives
of Latino groups say GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's
willingness to retweet an image of rival Jeb Bush in a Mexican sombrero
and next to a swastika
shows why they are planning protests on Wednesday night against
"Saturday Night Live" for having Trump host the show on Nov. 7.
"He
keeps pushing the envelope so that the more that people find his
comments acceptable, the more he pushes outwardly on those issues. He
presses those buttons even harder,"
said Felix Sánchez, founder of National Hispanic Foundation for the
Arts (NHFA).
"That
is why the protest is out there. We know he's using Latinos as a wedge
issue. African Americans used to be the classic conservative wedge issue
and now Latinos and
Latino immigrants have become the new wedge issue," said Sánchez.
On
Monday, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus asked "Saturday Night Live"
and parent company NBC Universal to "disinvite" Trump to the show.
Brent
Wilkes, the executive director of the League of United Latin American
Citizens, wrote in an opinion article published Wednesday in the
Huffington Post that allowing
Trump to host the program "is nothing short of a slap in the face to
the more than 50 million Latinos living in the U.S."
The
NHFA is one of several groups planning an "All Out for SNL Dump Trump
Rally" outside 30 Rockefeller Center, the location of the SNL studio.
Others are the National
Council of La Raza, National Hispanic Media Coalition, the National
Hispanic Leadership Agenda, America's Voice, the League of United Latin
American Citizens and the National Institute for Latino Policy. Other
national groups like MoveOn.org and Justice League,
as well as local groups, are also participating. The groups have stated
they are bringing more than 460,000 signatures of people asking SNL and
NBC to rescind its invitation of Trump.
The tweet also read, "ADIOS JEB, aka JOSÉ."
Jeb
Bush, a former Florida governor, is married to a Mexican woman, Columba
Bush. He speaks Spanish fluently, which he has used in his campaign,
something also criticized
by Trump.
Sánchez
said Trump's retweet of the tweet is a response to some polls showing
he's slipped behind Ben Carson in the GOP race for the party's
nomination. "If you lose ground
in the polls, you know which button to push harder because it
absolutely resonates with a certain kind of bigoted mentality in this
country."
The NHFA created and posted a video on YouTube criticizing NBC and SNL, saying they were "sanitizing bigotry."
Representatives
of Latino groups say GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's
willingness to retweet an image of rival Jeb Bush in a Mexican sombrero
and next to a swastika
shows why they are planning protests on Wednesday night against
"Saturday Night Live" for having Trump host the show on Nov. 7.
"He
keeps pushing the envelope so that the more that people find his
comments acceptable, the more he pushes outwardly on those issues. He
presses those buttons even harder,"
said Felix Sánchez, founder of National Hispanic Foundation for the
Arts (NHFA).
"That
is why the protest is out there. We know he's using Latinos as a wedge
issue. African Americans used to be the classic conservative wedge issue
and now Latinos and
Latino immigrants have become the new wedge issue," said Sánchez.
On
Monday, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus asked "Saturday Night Live"
and parent company NBC Universal to "disinvite" Trump to the show.
Brent
Wilkes, the executive director of the League of United Latin American
Citizens, wrote in an opinion article published Wednesday in the
Huffington Post that allowing
Trump to host the program "is nothing short of a slap in the face to
the more than 50 million Latinos living in the U.S."
The
NHFA is one of several groups planning an "All Out for SNL Dump Trump
Rally" outside 30 Rockefeller Center, the location of the SNL studio.
Others are the National
Council of La Raza, National Hispanic Media Coalition, the National
Hispanic Leadership Agenda, America's Voice, the League of United Latin
American Citizens and the National Institute for Latino Policy. Other
national groups like MoveOn.org and Justice League,
as well as local groups, are also participating. The groups have stated
they are bringing more than 460,000 signatures of people asking SNL and
NBC to rescind its invitation of Trump.
The
tweet that Trump retweeted on Wednesday has since been deleted, but not
before being redistributed on Twitter by critics. The tweet originated
from the account @Life
&Liberty.
The tweet also read, "ADIOS JEB, aka JOSÉ."
Jeb
Bush, a former Florida governor, is married to a Mexican woman, Columba
Bush. He speaks Spanish fluently, which he has used in his campaign,
something also criticized
by Trump.
Sánchez
said Trump's retweet of the tweet is a response to some polls showing
he's slipped behind Ben Carson in the GOP race for the party's
nomination. "If you lose ground
in the polls, you know which button to push harder because it
absolutely resonates with a certain kind of bigoted mentality in this
country."
The NHFA created and posted a video on YouTube criticizing NBC and SNL, saying they were "sanitizing bigotry."
SNL has told NBC News Latino it is not commenting on the protests or controversy regarding Trump's appearance.
In
his speech declaring his presidential run, Trump said people that
Mexico sends to the U.S. bring drugs, crime and are rapists.
The Trump campaign suggested on Wednesday that his retweet was accidental.
"This
was retweeted by Mr. Trump like hundreds of others. He did not see the
accompanying image and the retweet has since been deleted," spokeswoman
Hope Hicks said in
a statement.
Hicks
emailed the same statement when asked whether Trump planned to
apologize for retweeting the swastika image and whether he had further
comment on the follower that
he retweeted.
Kristy Campbell, Bush's national press secretary, responded with sarcasm to the retweet Tuesday night.
Emily Benavides, also a spokeswoman for Bush who heads his Hispanic media outreach, went further Wednesday:
"This
is just the latest in a series of offensive and derogatory tweets from
Donald Trump," she said in a statement. "The American people, and the
Hispanic community in
particular, deserve more respect and decorum from presidential
candidates."
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