Jacob Monty, Donald Trump‘s adviser on immigration, has dumped the presidential candidate in an epic manner. Wednesday night, Mr. Monty, who was part of the Trump National Hispanic Advisory Council, had a rude awakening.
Like millions of Americans, he watched Trump deliver one of the most important speeches of his political career. In front of a roaring crowd in Arizona, Mr. Trump gave a speech on immigration that is described by many as dark while others viewed it as strong and putting America first.
In the presentation, Trump said there would be no legal status for undocumented workers and more or less asked for them to self-deport. He did not have many positive things to say about Hispanics and Latinos in the country and instead pushed the narrative some of them are dangerous criminals, who came to America to harm people. Trump told his supporters:
“For those here today illegally who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and only one route: to return home and apply for re-entry under the rules of the new legal immigration system.If we can save American lives, American jobs, and American futures, together we can save America itself.”
After claiming earlier in the day that he did not talk about the wall with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Trump said during the speech:
“We are going to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it, saying. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall.”
Many former and current KKK members backed the speech. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke praised Trump in a tweet, which read:
“Excellent speech by Donald Trump tonight. Deport criminal aliens, end catch and release, enforce immigration laws & America First.”
Appalled by Trump’s rhetoric, Monty released a statement announcing that he is withdrawing his support for Trump and is exiting the campaign. The high-profile surrogate said he is jumping ship because he feels that he was lied to after many of Trump’s campaign officials promised that he was softening his position on immigration and was going to handle the thorny issue with compassion and in a humane way.
In several interviews Thursday, Monty slammed Trump and said that he was maybe secretly working to lose the election to start a nativist media empire with Roger Ailes and Breitbart‘s Executive Chairman and new campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon. Monty said on MSNBC:
“After I heard that, there was no way I could continue to be part of a prop apparatus for Mr. Trump. So, I resigned. And it’s a sad day because I am no fan of Hillary Clinton.”
Asked why did Trump fail to pivot on immigration. Monty said:
“It is possible that Trump listens to whoever talks to him last. The other possibility is that maybe he does not want to win. Maybe this is a media play. And I feel serious about that.”
He added:
“You can usually count on someone’s self-preservation instincts. Not only is this the right thing to do, this is the only way that he can win the White House. And that he didn’t follow it suggests to me that maybe winning is not part of the game plan. Maybe this is part of a media play where he wants to create a media empire that will focus on the millions nativists that believe that the country needs to control immigration.”
He concluded by:
“And if that’s his play, it will be good and he’ll have millions of followers. But he won’t win the presidency.”
Monty later appeared on CNN where he said that while he is for the construction of the wall, he cannot stand behind the Republican nominee’s idea to have a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, tear families apart, and make this country “less brown.” He explained:
“When he called for the deportation of DACA recipients, that is just unrealistic, cruel, not productive for the economy because they’re working, they’re going to school. The biggest thing for me is when he completely punted on the issue of what to do with the 11 million when we discussed that with him,” he said. “He completely punted on that issue. And when I saw that, I had to resign because I’m not going to be a prop for his image like the president of Mexico was yesterday.”
He said that he regrets being part of this propaganda machine. He stated:
“It was the right thing for me to do to try to see if we could reason with him and get him to articulate a plan that was realistic and Republican. But what we heard last night was not a Republican plan.That was pure populist propaganda.”
Some experts believe problems with Latino supporters might hurt Trump’s candidacy more than the things he says.
