Donald Trump’s list of endorsers is a who’s who of extremists—and it’s a big red flag.

Not the company you’d want to keep.
From: HillaryClinton.com

 Donald Trump has run a campaign fueled by bigotry and bluster. Since he launched his presidential bid in June, the presumptive Republican nominee has called Mexican immigrants “criminals, drug dealers, [and] rapists,” proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States, and said women should be punished for seeking an abortion (I could go on). So it’s no surprise that his list of endorsements reads like a who’s who of extremism and hate.

In politics and in life, the company you keep says a lot about you. Meet seven of the public figures who are lining up behind Donald Trump.


 As sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Joe Arpaio oversees “Tent City,” a jail that inhumanely houses thousands of prisoners in Korean War–era surplus tents in the Arizona heat. He gained national notoriety as one of the most hard-line immigration opponents in the country and has been accused of racially profiling Latinos and retaliating against his critics. The U.S. Department of Justice eventually filed a lawsuit against Arpaio for unlawful discriminatory police conduct.


 The former Republican vice presidential candidate needs little introduction—but here’s what she said when she endorsed Trump:

“What the heck would the establishment know about conservatism? Tell me, is this conservative? GOP majorities handing over a blank check to fund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood and illegal immigration that competes for your jobs, and turning safety nets into hammocks, and all these new Democrat voters that are going to be coming on over the border as we keep the borders open, and bequeathing our children millions in new debt, and refusing to fight back for our solvency, and our sovereignty, even though that’s why we elected them and sent them as a majority to D.C. No! If they’re not willing to do that, then how are they to tell us that we’re not conservative enough in order to be able to make these changes in America that we know need to be.”

 Former Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed into law one of the strictest anti-immigration measures in the country, known as SB 1070. It required police officers to determine the immigration status of people they stopped and suspected of being in the country without proper documentation—a practice that invited judgment solely based on the color of someone’s skin. Parts of the law were struck down by the Supreme Court.


 Republican Kris Kobach serves as Kansas’s secretary of state—but his influence extends far beyond the state’s borders as one of the most influential anti-immigration elected officials in the country (noticing a trend?). He’s been called the legal mastermind behind Arizona’s anti-immigration law SB 1070, and he’s coached legislators in states like Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri to pass dozens of similar measures.


 Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late religious-right leader, is president of Liberty University in Virginia. He’s a vocal proponent of concealed carry—and had this to say to his students after the San Bernardino terrorist attack:

“It just blows my mind that the president of the United States [says] that the answer to circumstances like that is more gun control. If some of those people in that community center had what I have in my back pocket right now. ... Is it illegal to pull it out? I don’t know. I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them. I just wanted to take this opportunity to encourage all of you to get your permit. We offer a free course. Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.”

 Although David Duke, a white supremacist and former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, has yet to formally endorse Trump, he told listeners to his radio program that “voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage. … I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do.”


Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has long been a vocal opponent of comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Even so, she says she didn’t know much about Trump “until he won me over with that Mexican rapist speech. … He’s just always cared about America first.”