House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) criticized Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) for posting the names and employers of dozens of San Antonio residents who donated to President Donald Trump’s campaign.
“People should not be personally targeted for their political views. Period,” Scalise said on Wednesday. “This isn’t a game. It’s dangerous, and lives are at stake. I know this firsthand.”
The Louisiana congressman’s remarks came in response to a tweet Castro posted a day prior that called out various local businesses which have made financial donations to the president during the 2020 election cycle. The tweet also included a list of 44 private citizens, along with their current employers, who are reported to have also contributed.
“Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump,” Castro wrote in the original tweet. “Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’”
Despite facing widespread backlash, the Texas congressman defended himself by contending that “no one was doxxed” since the post did not include private addresses or phone numbers.
“No one was targeted or harassed in my post. You know that. All that info is routinely published.” Castro replied after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarty (R-CA) scolded the “shameful and dangerous” post. “You’re trying to distract from the racism that has overtaken the GOP and the fact that President Trump spends donor money on thousands of ads about Hispanics ‘invading’ America.”
“If the events of this past weekend taught us anything, it’s that we need to stop seeing our neighbors as political enemies,” Scalise continued. “This kind of dangerous targeting isn’t how we heal our nation.”
Two back-to-back mass shootings were carried out over the weekend, occurring only hours apart from one another. On Saturday, a gunman open fired in an El Paso, Texas shopping center murdering more than 20 individuals and injuring over two dozen others. A second attacker took the lives of nine people and injured nearly 30 others after he gunned down people outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio early Sunday morning.
Scalise was notably the subject of a politically motivated assassination attempt after a left-wing activist opened fire while Republicans were practicing for the annual congressional baseball game in 2017. He was shot in the hip during the attack and was gravely injured.
Castro is the twin brother of Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro and is a chair of his brother’s campaign. Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, called on Julian Castro to condemn his brother’s post; however, the presidential hopeful has yet to publicly comment.
“How low have Dems sunk?” Murtaugh asked on Twitter.
“At the very least [Castro] is inviting harassment of these private citizens. At worst, he’s encouraging violence,” Murtaugh later said. “Will media concerned about ‘rhetoric’ care about this? He’s listing people and their employers. This is a target list.”
Interestingly, Castro accused Trump of “maliciously targeting and endangering the personal safety” of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in April after the president tweeted a video of a speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a notable pro-Palestinian organization with longstanding ties to Hamas. In the video that Trump tweeted, Omar described the 9/11 terrorist attacks as merely an event where “some people did something.” In the video, Omar’s words were overlaid with graphic images of the event.