Donald Trump would prefer if the United States were an “Aryan nation” with no immigrants, said a Republican hoping to knock the president off the party’s ticket in 2020.
Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld launched the attack at Trump this week, saying that Trump appears to be aligned with neo-Nazi groups when it comes to immigration.
“I celebrate that America has always been a melting pot,” Weld said, via Newsweek .
“It seems he would prefer an Aryan nation.”
Trump has faced bipartisan criticism for his hardline approach to immigration, which included instituting the zero-tolerance policy that led migrant children to be separated from their parents and placed in detention centers.
Weld and others have noted that Trump frequently uses language shared by white supremacist groups when referring to immigration and that Trump’s belief in “bloodlines” is in line with arguments used by many racist groups when trying to argue for European and white supremacy.
“I know that sounds strong and tough, but he’s very interested in bloodlines, and it has resonance,” Weld said.
Weld has officially launched a campaign for the Republican nomination in 2020, saying he would “fear for the republic” if Trump were to be re-elected.
Weld has emerged as a frequent critic of Donald Trump, including a recent attack as a “one-man crime wave” related to actions to take down the Russia investigation. As The Inquisitr noted, Weld was responding to the public release of a redacted version of the Russia report that outlined the actions Trump took and directed others to take in order to stymie the investigation.
“This man is a one-man crime wave,” Weld said in a statement, via Business Insider .
“He instructed senior legal officials, senior national security, senior intelligence officials to lie, he actively sought out and suborned perjury. That is obstruction of justice and the President is fortunate that in substance Bob Mueller gave him a mulligan.”
GOP challenger Bill Weld turns up the heat on Trump: “Seems he would prefer an Aryan nation” https://t.co/LnCh6Qvzq0
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 23, 2019
Weld has gained some attention for his run but appears to be a long-shot to unseat Trump. There has been very little polling related to a potential 2020 Republican primary, but what has been done shows an uphill battle for Weld. As CNN reported in April, the vast majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they support Trump in a matchup. As the Monmouth University poll showed, just 8 percent of these voters would definitely support Weld against Trump and another 10 percent said they were unsure. A full 54 percent said they would definitely be voting for Trump.
