Macy’s to Trump: ‘You’re fired’

So, who isn’t firing Donald Trump?

Macy’s became the latest company to give the heave-ho to the businessman and Republican Party presidential candidate after his derogatory comments on immigrants.

“Macy’s is a company that stands for diversity and inclusion. We have no tolerance for discrimination in any form,” the company said Wednesday in announcing an end to an 11-year menswear line associated with Trump. Trump followed with a variant of a classic rocky relationship response: You didn’t break up with me; I broke up with you. 

So far, three co-hosts of Trump’s “Miss USA” beauty pageant have quit, broadcasters Univision and NBC News have canceled and the nation of Mexico says it won’t send a contestant to Trump’s “Miss Universe” pageant. NBC also dumped Trump’s “The Apprentice” series..

Late Monday, Mexican TV mogul Carlos Slim also severed ties with Trump. “Working with someone so closed-minded was not going to work,” Slim’s son-in-law, Arturo Elias, said, adding that Trump’s comments last week on Mexican immigants were racist.

Latino and immigration advocates have applauded the moves.

Last week Trump inflamed Latinos when he criticized Mexican immigrants during his Republican presidential campaign kickoff speech. They “have lots of problems,” he said. When they come to this country, they’re “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

Felix Sanchez of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts said there couldn’t be any tolerance for a public figure like Trump to get away with his comments. “This is really bigoted behavior on the part of an avowed presidential candidate on the Republican side for the presidency of the United States. And it’s just absolutely intolerable and I think we need to show courage, like Univision did.”

NBC earlier had said: “Donald Trump’s opinions do not represent those of NBC, and we do not agree with his positions on a number of issues, including his recent comments on immigration.”

Miss USA co-host Roselyn Sanchez also severed ties with the show. The star of the Lifetime series “Devious Maids” cited the Trump kickoff speech in which the pageant co-owner characterized immigrants from Mexico as “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

“As a Latina,” Roselyn Sanchez told the AP, “I felt a lump in my stomach.”

Trump, for his part, has threatened to sue Univision.

In an interview on Thursday, Trump said his remarks were directed against U.S. policymakers, not the Mexican people or government. But he also added that Univision’s decison to drop the Miss USA broadcast was a breach of contract and that he (Trump) would take legal action against the broadcaster.  Then on Friday, it got personal: Trump declared his resort in Miami off limits to anyone associated with Univision.  

Felix Sanchez said Univision’s decision to drop the Miss USA broadcast was bold and courageous. “I think you cannot service the Hispanic community and allow it to be mistreated. [Univision] had to take a step in support of their audience.” He said it’s also a victory for social media activism over what he terms the ho-hum reaction of the mainstream media. “This is really civil rights leadership in the digital age. I don’t think that there is a sufficient understanding outside of the Latino community as to how outrageous these remarks were. The media coverage of did not necessarily focus on the specific remarks. And it took over a week of social media activism at the grass roots level to boil this issue up to the top.”

Republican presidential candidates have a history of making negative comments about Latinos, says Sanchez. “Mitt Romney said that illegal immigrants that were here should self-deport and I think it’s that phrasing, that language, the use of illegal, the use of alien, the lexicon of certain politicians on the right.” Sanchez says it’s the gradual buildup of negative statements that made Trump’s comments intolerable. “And this is just sort of the tipping point of where someone announces for the highest office in the land and they have no problem doing it, spewing refuse about the Latino community.”