Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had made “some very stupid statements” about Mexican immigrants.
Carter, a one-term Democratic president long maligned by Republicans, rejected Trump’s comments about the types of Mexican immigrants crossing the border.
“I think he’s made some very stupid statements and I think ill-advised statements about immigrants,” Carter, who once approached Trump for a donation to his presidential library, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.” “He’ll get a tiny little part of the Republican Party support — the ones that agree with him in an extreme way — but he’s a flash in the pan.”
Trump has repeatedly stood by his remarks that many of these undocumented immigrants are “rapists” and “killers.”
When asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday about a report that some of the workers building a Trump hotel in Washington were undocumented, Trump said he “can’t guarantee” that all of them are here legally.
Carter, promoting his new autobiography, “A Full Life,” also weighed in on Democratic presidential fight between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Carter voiced confidence that Clinton would win the nod.
“I don’t think there’s much doubt that, in the long term, Hillary’s still the pre-eminent candidate for the Democratic nomination,” Carter said. “She and Bill together have made probably the most acutely aware and knowledgeable and competent political team that we’ve ever seen.”
