As former Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis appeared as a guest on Friday's Wolf show, CNN host Wolf Blitzer cued up the Massachusetts liberal to slam the current Republican presidential candidate field.
Blitzer began by bolstering Dukakis as "running a pretty clean campaign" in 1988, and suggested that playing clean was the reason he lost, before inviting him to trash Republicans:
I remember covering your campaign in 1988. You always insisted on running a pretty clean campaign, a strategy some say may have cost you the race. What do you make of the campaigns being run right now by the Republicans -- candidates specifically like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz?
After the Massachusetts Democrat complained that Republicans were having a "food fight," Blitzer followed up by inviting him to slam Donald Trump for pushing to build a wall along the border with Mexico, and to place more restrictions on Muslim immigration:
You're the son of Greek immigrants, so what do you think of Donald Trump's comments on immigration, on at least temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States, building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and having Mexico pay for it.
The far-left Dukakis, who when he was Massachusetts governor in the 1980s included convicted murderers serving life prison sentences in a furlough program that let them get out of prison for the weekend, accused Trump of being "nuts," and asserted that he should be "ashamed of himself" over the immigration issue. Dukakis:
I think he's nuts. Look, he's the grandson of German immigrants, and he ought to be ashamed of himself. I'm very proud of my background, as I'm sure you are and others of us are who are a lot closer to the immigration and the immigrant experience, Wolf, than other people. This is a guy who's the grandson of somebody who came over from Germany, and I don't know what he's talking about. For one thing, it's preposterous.
For one thing, we're not going to spend billions on a wall. That's ridiculous. And for another, net illegal immigration into the United States today is zero. It's zero. So I don't know what he's talking about. It's very divisive. It's not the kind of America I believe in, and I don't think it's the kind of America most Americans believe in. And I hope at some point he's going to start addressing real issues that face this country.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, March 18, Wolf show on CNN:
WOLF BLITZER: I remember covering your campaign in 1988. You always insisted on running a pretty clean campaign, a strategy some say may have cost you the race. What do you make of the campaigns being run right now by the Republicans -- candidates specifically like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz?
FORMER GOVERNOR MICHAEL DUKAKIS (D-MA): Well, it's a food fight. I mean, if these guys are running for the presidency, you can't prove it to me. I don't hear anything about the real issues that face this country. Each of them has his own particular approach to things, but if they're serious candidates for the presidency, you can't prove it by me.
BLITZER: You're the son of Greek immigrants, so what do you think of Donald Trump's comments on immigration, on at least temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States, building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and having Mexico pay for it.
DUKAKIS: I think he's nuts. Look, he's the grandson of German immigrants, and he ought to be ashamed of himself. I'm very proud of my background, as I'm sure you are and others of us are who are a lot closer to the immigration and the immigrant experience, Wolf, than other people. This is a guy who's the grandson of somebody who came over from Germany, and I don't know what he's talking about.
For one thing, it's preposterous. For one thing, we're not going to spend billions on a wall. That's ridiculous. And for another, net illegal immigration into the United States today is zero. It's zero. So I don't know what he's talking about. It's very divisive. It's not the kind of America I believe in, and I don't think it's the kind of America most Americans believe in. And I hope at some point he's going to start addressing real issues that face this country.
