Former Obama administration housing chief Julian Castro met with Nevada Democrats and leaders of the Latino community in Las Vegas on Tuesday, days ahead of his planned announcement of a 2020 run for the presidency.
Castro, the Democratic former mayor of San Antonio said that as a presidential candidate, he’s going to be talking about improving public education, equal treatment under the criminal justice system and addressing what he called the existential threat of climate change.Castro, who plans to announce his campaign in San Antonio on Saturday, told a group of Las Vegas high school students that two things at the top of his agenda if elected are to recommit the United States to the Paris climate accord and work to pass universal health care legislation.
The next president will also have to rebuild alliances with foreign countries that President Donald Trump has weakened, Castro said, and “spend at least the first two years of their administration trying to clean up the mess of an administration that has been quite corrupt and is just doing a terrible job of managing these federal agencies.”
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Renae Eze, in a prepared statement, called Castro’s visit “nothing more than a mandatory campaign rendezvous for an ego-driven politician that only cares about advancing his career, not Nevadans.” She said Castro would “deliver empty promises.”
Castro is expected to be among the youngest candidates in the field and the most prominent Latino. On Tuesday night, minutes after Trump wrapped up a prime-time address to the nation about his border wall, Castro told Clark County Democrats that the president “delivered his usual lies about immigration.”
“The president has been on a three-year mission to scare the American people on the issue of immigration,” Castro said. He added that America needs to secure its border with personnel and technology and needs to “harness the potential of immigrants in the country, starting with our DREAMers.”
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