CITIZENSHIP/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “New Jersey Republican Senate candidate Bob Hugin said Tuesday [10-30-18] he thought President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration had been ‘inflammatory’ and that the country should instead pursue ‘comprehensive, compassionate immigration reform.’ Hours after news broke that the president wants to unilaterally end birthright citizenship, Hugin sought to distance himself from Trump on the issue. The GOP candidate — a former pharmaceutical executive trying to unseat Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) — tweeted Tuesday morning that Trump ‘is wrong’ on the issue and that the United States is a ‘nation of immigrants made better by the diversity of its people.’ He doubled down in the afternoon, telling reporters at a campaign stop that he didn’t ‘believe anybody is well served by inflammatory comments, whether they be racist, anti-Semitic, offensive in any ways’…The remarks by a leading Republican Senate candidate, said to be just a few paces behind a 12-year Democratic incumbent, show how the president’s near-daily overtures to immigration hardliners could complicate his party’s efforts in more moderate states and congressional districts.”
–Ryan Hutchins, “Hugin calls Trump’s immigration rhetoric ‘inflammatory’,” Politico, October 30, 2018 6:25 pm