Story highlights Judge Trump called a "Mexican" now oversees DACA case

Trump loves adversarial situations like this

Washington (CNN) One of the stranger and most inexplicable episodes of the strangest and most inexplicable presidential campaign in modern history came when then-candidate Donald Trump launched an attack against a federal judge named Gonzalo Curiel.

Curiel was tasked with ruling on a civil suit brought against Trump's for-profit university named -- natch -- Trump University. At a late May rally in San Diego, Trump -- apparently randomly -- brought the case up, calling Curiel a "very hostile judge" and then insinuating that Curiel had a conflict of interest because he was of Mexican heritage.

"What happens is the judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great. I think that's fine," Trump said at the rally

In an early June interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Trump went further.

"He's a Mexican," Trump said of Curiel. "We are building a wall between here and Mexico." Asked directly by Tapper why Trump was invoking Curiel's heritage in a case involving Trump University, the presidential candidate responded: "I think that's why he's doing it."

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