Ricky Martin has issued a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump, whose views he has called “racist, absurd, and above all incoherent and ignorant”.
The Latin superstar took Trump to task in a piece written for the website of the US Spanish language TV station Univision, after one of its senior journalists, Jorge Ramos, was thrown out of a Trump press conference when he repeatedly tried to question the presidential candidate about his immigration policies.
Trump has taken a hard line on immigration, pledging to deport millions of undocumented workers and to get Mexico to pay for him to build a wall along its borders.
Billboard ran a translation of Martin’s piece, which was written in Spanish. The singer said:
The fact that an individual like Donald Trump, a candidate for the presidency of the United States for the Republican party, has the audacity to continue to gratuitously harass the Latin community makes my blood boil.
When did this character assume he could make comments that are racist, absurd, and above all incoherent and ignorant about us Latinos?
From the beginning his intention was transparent: basically tell barbarities and lies to remain relevant in the public opinion, for votes or simply to stay on the media’s radar.”
Martin said Latin people had to show Trump that they deserved to be respected. “Let’s not allow a political hopeful to plant his campaign in insult and humiliation,” he wrote. “Let’s demand respect for those first generations of Latinos who came to the United States and opened a path for us. We have fought for every right that we have today.”
Another musician, however, has been taking a more sanguine view of Trump. Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider, a former contestant on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice TV show, said the tycoon had asked permission to use Twister Sister’s song We’re Not Gonna Take It at the end of his rallies, and he had been happy to agree.
“Donald Trump is a good friend and a great guy, and I support him turning the political system on its head. The song We’re Not Gonna Take It is a song about rebellion, and there’s nothing more rebellious than what Donald Trump is doing right now,” Snider told TMZ (via Blabbermouth). “Although [Democratic presidential candidate] Bernie Sanders can use it as well; he’s turning things upside down too.”
Snider said it was possible Twisted Sister would perform the song at a Trump rally, if asked.
