Welcome to Monday’s Washington Secrets, where we are still recovering from last week’s midterm convention. If a friend sent you this and you’d like to sign up, CLICK HERE. Today, we look at the race row breaking out in Texas, plus we have news on Don Jr.’s chin, and what happened when a New York fashion designer was hired by Melania Trump for her inauguration outfit.
Bo French, a little-known candidate for statewide office in Texas, posts disparaging comments with an image of apparently Asian American students celebrating in the stands at a University of Texas football game.
Republicans quickly weigh in. They condemn his comments, suggesting that this is what graduation at the university looked like, with its preponderance of South Asian faces, and that “the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
And then came the backlash to the backlash, as MAGAworld divided over immigration and what it looks like.
Take, for example, Jack Posobiec, the prominent conservative activist. He posted a message Sunday suggesting that people criticizing French were soft on immigration.
“Today we learned that many conservative officials and pundits are totally bought by the mass immigration cartel in Texas and across the American nation,” Posobiec said on X. “Clarity is good. Now we know who the undercover enemies are.”
It was only last week that Islam and Sharia emerged as enemy No. 1 for Texas Republicans at their midterm convention.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed what he called a “red-green alliance” between communists and Islamists intent on attacking Christianity, and Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) promised to ban Sharia in his state.
But by the weekend, French had identified a new enemy. His post, showing students in the stands of a Longhorns game, quickly drew millions of posts.
Abbott was among those to distance himself from the comments, saying the image actually showed how Texans could unite around sport.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who lost the primary to defend his seat in Texas, said the party was in danger of imploding.
“Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized?” he said. “This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad.”
Yet French did not emerge from a vacuum. His comments reflect the direction of parts of his party and the MAGA movement.
Where once Republicans courted Indian-American voters, the relationship has soured in parts of the state. Some of the same voices raising worries about Muslims in Texas have shifted their focus to Indian Americans and H1-B visas for skilled workers, particularly around Frisco. About 19% of the population there is Indian, according to the latest Census Bureau estimates.
“If you go to some of these areas, you feel like you’re in a foreign country, and that’s a problem,” Rep. Brandon Gill, a Republican who represents a district next to Frisco, told YouTuber Benny Johnson earlier this year. “America is for our people. We have a distinct heritage … and that’s something we as conservatives should seek to actually conserve.”
He was keeping his own counsel after French’s comments.
Unlike Kaylee Campbell, “whose claim to fame is hating Indians and Hindus on social media,” as the Times of India put it earlier this year.
She said the response to French was inconsistent with similar issues.
“The same Republicans calling you racist for pointing out the Indian issue are often the same people who spend the majority of their campaigns spreading anti-Islam rhetoric,” Campbell posted. “Foreign issues are foreign issues.”
“If you believe demographic replacement or conquest is a threat when the foreign population is Muslim, but suddenly call it ‘racist’ when the population is Indian, then the underlying principle isn’t consistent,” she added.
French is in the firing line, but he has his supporters in the MAGA movement, and immigration will be one of the key issues come November. This isn’t going away just yet.
You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly, who you can reach at [email protected] with your comments, story tips, and suggestions.
Don Jr.’s jawline
ProPublica has quite the scoop on Russian connections to Don Jr.’s wedding to Bettina Anderson (see “lunchtime reading” below). Secrets’ eye was caught by another line in the story: “The president’s son had undergone treatment to better define his jawline for the occasion.”
And sure enough, the piece links to an Instagram post from Pure Skin Palm Beach, a concierge medical spa (think botox, hormone-treatment, etc.), which details the treatments used by both bride and groom.
“At Pure Skin, we believe every detail matters because every detail will be photographed forever. It’s not just about your face—it’s your neck, décolleté, shoulders, hands, and even the back revealed by your wedding gown,” they gush.
Quite.
“It was also a pleasure getting to know Don and helping him prepare for the big day with customized @ultherapy treatments to naturally define his jawline,” the post continues.
The piece’s outrage centers on why a Russian oligarch paid for parts of the wedding. Don. Jr. is worth something like $300 million, according to Forbes, after all.
Secrets is intrigued by those jaw-defining treatments. Just how much did they save by allowing the spa to go public with all those details about the pre-wedding buffing and polishing?
Quote of the day
Adam Lippes designed Melania Trump’s sharp navy-and-white coat dress for her husband’s second inauguration. You can guess what came next. He told Britain’s Telegraph:
“I got death threats for designing it. People called me a gay Nazi. I had to have a security officer for a while.”
Never mind that he dressed Jill Biden 22 times and Melania just four times, he added, “but everyone seems to think now I’m some raging MAGA Republican.”
Lippes said he believed it was important that the first lady should wear clothing designed by an American, not a European, on the big day. He goes on to say that she has sent cards, notes, and gifts to his staff ever since, “really, more than any other first lady I’ve worked with.”
Lunchtime reading
Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas wedding was secretly bankrolled by Russian oligarch close to Putin: Lots of fascinating detail in this piece, which poses the big question: Just what does Umar Kremlev want in return?
“Pod Save America” is in the wilderness too: “What was once a mainstream, often milquetoast liberal media platform that was criticized for being too beholden to the ever-amorphous party ‘establishment’ now reflects the party’s existential woes.” Although this piece doesn’t explain their use of so much foul language.