Thursday night in an appearance on MSNBC, Donald Trump surrogate Marco Gutierrez warned of impending taco overlords if immigration continues unchecked.
Gutierrez, who was born in Mexico and is co-founder of Latinos for Trump, said to MSNBC, "My culture is a very dominant culture. It is imposing and it's causing problems."
Then he said the line that started a hashtag: "If you don't do something about it, you're going to have taco trucks [on] every corner."
Cue the memes.
He went on to say that Mexicans "have a lot of good things we're bringing to the United States, but we also have problems."
In an interview in late July with NPR's Asma Khalid at the Republican National Convention, Gutierrez said he was born and raised in Mexico, moved to the U.S. in 1991, and that his parents, who were farm workers, "came here as braceros. They worked in the fields. So, they got amnesty ... in 1986, through the Reagan amnesty."
Gutierrez's comments came the night after Trump gave a forceful speech outlining his immigration policy — including hiring 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents and tripling the number of "deportation officers."
Most of them pointed out that, for a lot of Americans, taco trucks aren't a bad thing at all. For many, taco trucks on every corner are the dream.
A Jill Biden parody account jokingly tweeted that her husband was up all night drafting a bill guaranteeing taco trucks on every corner.
Some joked that the taco trucks would be subsidized if Bernie Sanders ever became president.
As funny as the line is, and the reaction to it, it all points to a major problem for the Trump campaign. As MSNBC, the Huffington Post and others have reported, for months now, Trump surrogates have either offered remarks that directly contradict Donald Trump's message, or made gaffes that have become distractions for the campaign. Many have downplayed Trump's rhetoric on a border wall with Mexico, with one even calling it "virtual," and Trump's plan to deport 11 million immigrants "rhetorical," according to MSNBC. Another Trump surrogate, Huffington Post reported, suggested that Hillary Clinton should "be put in the firing line and shot for treason." And just this week, Trump surrogate Mark Burns tweeted a cartoon image of Hillary Clinton in blackface.
Trump's surrogate problems got so bad that last month, as The Hill reported, the Trump campaign sent out a memo asking them "to review and use the attached talking points in your daily messaging, including a release and/or statements you can put out in your social media immediately to support Mr. Trump and OUR message."
But, to be clear, filling American voters' heads with dreams of taco trucks on every corner isn't the worst thing a surrogate could do, so maybe Trump should just let all his surrogates be.
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