Following presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s latest remarks attacking the federal judge presiding over two lawsuits pending against his now-defunct Trump University real estate seminar business, Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall highlighted the “unprecedented” personal attacks and “openly racist argument” Trump has launched against Judge Gonzalo Curiel over the last several months.

Trump has identified Curiel as a “Mexican” and “Hispanic” while criticizing his actions in the case, suggesting that Curiel is treating Trump unfairly and with hostility because of Curiel’s heritage and Trump’s position on immigration.

Marshall implored media to hold Trump accountable for the repeated, “dangerous” racialized remarks the candidate has made about Curiel, arguing that, “any reporter who gets a chance to ask Trump to justify his actions and doesn’t is not doing his or her job.”

From Marshall’s May 31 blog post:

It is unprecedented for a presidential candidate to personally attack and even threaten a federal judge. (To be fair, I'm not sure there's been a nominee being sued for fraud during the presidential campaign.) But here we have Trump making an openly racist argument against a federal judge, arguing that Curiel is pursuing a vendetta against him because Trump is, he says, “I'm very, very strong on the border.”

[...]

The press routinely goes into paroxysms - often rightly so - about innuendos or phrasings that might in some way be racist or suggest racial animus. Here we have it in the open, repeated and showing itself as basically Trump's first line of attack when he is in anyway threatened. That's infinitely more dangerous than most things that routinely focus all the media's attention. Any reporter who gets a chance to ask Trump to justify his actions and doesn't is not doing his or her job. Few cases show more vividly how dangerous a person Trump is.