Iowa state senator quits GOP over Trump, wonders if he’ll target Jews

An Iowa state legislator who quit the Republican Party because of Donald Trump wonders if the candidate’s next target will be Jews.

David Johnson, a state senator, tells The Guardian on Tuesday that his breaking point was Trump’s racially tinged attacks on a judge of Mexican parentage presiding over a lawsuit alleging that a defunct Trump enterprise, Trump University, defrauded clients.

“I haven’t supported Mr. Trump at any point along the way but what I am calling his racist remarks and judicial jihad is the last straw,” says Johnson, who says he would now register as not having a party.

Johnson, who says his father was among the first soldiers to liberate Nazi prison camps at the end of World War II, says he also was offended by Trump’s call to keep Muslims out of the United States, and wonders whether Jews are next.

“I was raised without hearing any racial slur, any racial epithet. It’s something that if we’re going to exclude Muslims from traveling to the United States, who’s next?” he says. “Are we going to come down on Jews?”

— JTA