Democratic presidential hopeful Julián Castro released a campaign advertisement blaming President Donald Trump for the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.
“As we saw in El Paso, Americans were killed because you stoked the fire of racists,” Castro said.
In the ad, Castro also pointed out instances in which Trump called countries “s***holes,” tweeted to American congresswomen to “go back” to where they came from, and referred to immigrants as rapists.
Castro continued, saying, “Innocent people were shot down because they look different from you. Because they look like me. They look like my family. Words have consequences.”
Castro ended the ad saying, “Ya basta,” which means “enough” in Spanish.
A message for @realdonaldtrump: pic.twitter.com/WFYRxm69hA
— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) August 13, 2019
According to Dallas News, Castro spent $2,775 to air this 30-second ad a few times on the Fox News Channel.
Castro’s team purchased the ad space to air his message on Wednesday in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump is vacationing. Castro seems desperate for the president’s attention, potentially to get Trump to react on Twitter to the his massive following.
Castro is polling at 0.8% and is in 11th place in the large Democratic primary field. He has yet to meet the criteria to appear on the debate stage in September. Only nine candidates have qualified to appear in the next debate, including former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Yang.
In order to qualify, Castro needs a total of 130,000 unique donors, with 400 unique donors per state in at least 20 different states. He also needs to be polling at 2% or higher in four qualifying polls. The deadline to meet this criteria is Aug. 28.
With the deadline just two weeks away, Castro seems to be exhausting every last effort to keep himself in this race.
