WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton suggested Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro will be on her shortlist for vice presidential picks on Thursday.
“I’m going to really look hard at him for everything, because that’s how good he is,” she said when asked if she’d consider Castro as a potential running mate during an interview with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Castro’s hometown of San Antonio.
Castro, a fast-rising star in Democratic politics, is officially endorsing Clinton on Thursday, though he’s long been acting as a campaign surrogate. Hispanic Democrats have been pushing hard for her to consider him for months. And strategically it makes sense: Clinton is leaning hard into courting Hispanic voters as she looks to use them as a bulwark in her primary and a key voting bloc in the general election.
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Clinton has long done well with Hispanic voters — she dominated then-candidate Obama among Latinos in their 2008 primary — and she’s been assiduously courting Hispanic support since the start of her campaign, making immigration reform a top priority and repeatedly criticizing Donald Trump and the other GOP candidates for controversial rhetoric they’ve used about immigrants.
Clinton said she was glad Tuesday’s debate let Democrats show America a contrast with the “prejudice and paranoia” of the GOP candidates, and touted her support for immigration reform in front of a friendly crowd of Hispanic businessmen and elected officials.
“Immigration is good for America. Immigration built our country. Immigration has provided a pathway to opportunity,” she said.
But the Democratic front-runner faced tough questions about her recent decision to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal popular in Texas that she’d previously heaped praise on. She made the decision after taking great heat from unions to oppose it, and many are accusing her of flip-flopping on the issue.
“I did say that I hoped this deal would be the gold standard,” Clinton said, arguing that now that the details “have been made public” she thinks the deal falls short because it doesn’t have currency manipulation enforcements and because she thinks it’s too easy on pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Clinton is misquoting her previous comment. In a 2012 Australia speech, she said the deal “sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field.”
Clinton was effusive in her praise for Castro — and his twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas).
“I think really highly of him and I am thrilled to have his endorsement today. Both he and his brother, the congressman, are among the best young leaders in America,” she said.
Castro will officially endorse Clinton at an afternoon rally in San Antonio, where he was once mayor.
“I believe that she has a very strong vision for the future of the country, that she understands the right investments that we need to make in opportunity and how to ensure that America prospers in this 21st century,” he said in touting her campaign on MSNBC Thursday. “She has, throughout her entire career, been supportive of Hispanic community, she also has led efforts to make the right kind of investments so that aspiring communities like the Latino community are able to get a good education, to afford college and then be able to enter the middle class by working hard.”
