Annise Parker: Donald Trump Is ‘A Bully, a Braggart, a Liar’ and Needs a ‘Time Out’

Former Houston Mayor Also Calls for Increased Gun Control, Better Treatment of Mental Illness

In an interview on Sunday’s terror attack at a gay Orlando nightclub, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker blasted presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump for employing hateful rhetoric against minorities. 

In the wake of the shooting that left 49 people dead at Pulse Orlando, some have accused Republican lawmakers of inciting violence with anti-LGBT rhetoric. Although Trump hasn’t specifically targeted the LGBT community, Parker made the comments in response to a general question about the growing prevalence of hatred and intolerance in American political discourse. 

“Donald Trump is an embarrassment to this country,” Parker told KHOU-TV. “And his continuous dredging of racial stereotypes, and attacks on various communities, from women to Muslims to other minorities in this country, is an embarrassment. It’s a national embarrassment. If he were your child — he’s a bully, he’s a braggart, he’s a liar — you’d put him in permanent time out. I hope that’s what the American voters do.” 

Parker, who became the first openly LGBT person elected mayor of a major American city in 2009, left office due to term limits this year. She now teaches at Rice University, her alma mater, but has been mentioned as a possible presidential appointee if presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton defeats Trump. Parker has also said she’d like to run for statewide office in Texas as a Democrat. 

In the KHOU interview, Parker also called for increased gun control in the wake of Sunday’s massacre, criticizing politicians who offer prayers and condolences but don’t take real action. 

“I think it’s time for us as a community, as a nation, to do more than that,” Parker said. “I’m a gun owner, and I’m not attacking anyone’s right to have a gun, but there are certain guns that I think are designed solely for mass destruction, and they shouldn’t be in people’s hands.” 

And she said society needs to do a better job of identifying people with mental illness and intervening. 

“Certainly there are folks who hate those of us in the LGBT community for whatever reason, but I don’t think a madman needs a particular reason,” she said. “He may latch on to that as an excuse, but someone who could do this, there’s something wrong with that person to begin with.”

Parker also spoke at a vigil for the Orlando victims Sunday night in Houston, where she recalled the fear LGGT people faced when they gathered in public places during her early years of activism, in the 1980s.  

“Every time we had a public event, we had to face down fear,” Parker told mourners at the vigil, according to The Houston Chronicle. “Because every time we had a public event, there was a realistic possibility of some crazed individual coming forward trying to do damage to our community. But every time we faced down fear, we diminished the ability of any individual or any organization to truly strike at the heart of our community.”

 

Image by Lisandro Sanchez via Flickr and a CC license