WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday rejected a barrage of criticism from his own party over his allegations of bias against a Hispanic judge, insisting his concerns were valid.

“All I want to do is figure out why I’m being treated unfairly by a judge. And a lot of people agree with it,” Trump said on Fox News.

Trump has been on the defensive since his comments last week about Mexican-American U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing fraud lawsuits against Trump University, the New York businessman’s defunct real estate school.

He has also been castigated by Democrats, including the party’s likely presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

“I don’t know what else you could call these attacks other than racist, other than prejudiced, other than bigoted,” Clinton said in an interview with MSNBC on Monday. “It’s just plain wrong, and certainly wrong coming from someone who is vying to become President of the United States.”

Trump told campaign supporters in a conference call they should stand by him in his attacks on the judge, Bloomberg Politics reported. It said during the call Trump distanced himself from a memo his campaign sent supporters on Sunday that urged them to avoid the issue.

Asked for comment, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said: “It was a very positive call to discuss overall messaging.”

Two Trump supporters, Tana Goertz and Scottie Nell Hughes, told CNN that former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer had said on the call that she wanted the campaign to go on the offence against expected Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Goertz said Trump told his supporters not to be afraid to “call out the media” when TV reporters suggest that Trump is racist.

Trump has suggested that Curiel’s heritage is influencing the judge’s opinion about the case because of Trump’s campaign rhetoric about illegal immigration. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 presidential election, has pledged to seal the U.S.-Mexico border with a wall, and has said Mexico is sending rapists and drug dealers to the United States.

Former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida, joined the chorus of criticism. In an interview with Orlando’s WFTV, Rubio called Trump’s comments wrong and said he had to stop.

“I ran for president and I warned this was going to happen,” Rubio said.

Trump has regularly stirred up controversy on the campaign trail and has frequently dismayed Republican establishment leaders. His view of an ethnically biased judiciary has drawn a fresh wave of criticism, including concern in his own party.

On Sunday he was asked if – by the same token – he believed a Muslim judge would be biased against him based on Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. “It’s possible. Yes,” Trump said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Republican leaders including House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell have distanced themselves from Trump’s comments, saying they are worried the tone of his presidential campaign could enrage Latinos, who are a growing U.S. voting bloc.

‘BIG TROUBLE’

“If this doesn’t change we’re in for big trouble,” Senator Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, said on MSNBC on Monday. “I hope to be able to support the nominee. I certainly can’t now,” said Flake, whose state has a large percentage of Hispanics.

A former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Ohio Governor John Kasich, called on Trump to apologise to Curiel, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrant parents.

“Attacking judges based on their race (and/or) religion is another tactic that divides our country,” Kasich wrote on Twitter. “More importantly, it is flat out wrong.”

It was unclear what, if any, effect the latest furore would have on Trump’s unorthodox candidacy. States with significant Hispanic populations including California, New Mexico and New Jersey hold nominating contests on Tuesday.

Trump fought back against his Republican critics on Monday, with especially sharp words for Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker.

Gingrich, mentioned as a possible running mate to Trump, on Sunday called Trump’s comments inexcusable.

“I was surprised at Newt,” Trump told the “Fox & Friends” program. “I thought it was inappropriate what he said.”

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Megan Cassella and Steve Holland in Washington, Angela Moon in New York; Editing by Howard Goller and Richard Pullin)

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DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) – Secret Service officers rushed on stage to protect U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump during a disturbance at a rally on Saturday, a day after rowdy protests shut down his event in Chicago.

Trump briefly ducked at the podium and four Secret Service members scrambled to surround him after a man charged the stage at Dayton International Airport in Ohio.

Officers then grabbed the man, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, before he was able to reach the stage and hauled him away.

“I was ready. I don’t know if I would have done well but I would have been out there fighting, folks,” Trump told a rally later in the day. He said the man “was looking to do harm.”

The incident further increased tension after Trump’s Chicago rally was scrapped amid chaotic scenes on Friday.

Trump’s Republican rivals hurled scorn at the New York billionaire, saying he helped create the nervous atmosphere that is now sweeping the race for the White House with his fiery rhetoric.

Trump blamed supporters of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders for the incidents in Chicago, where scuffles broke out between protesters and backers of the real estate magnate. He called the U.S. senator from Vermont “our communist friend.”

The scenes in Chicago followed a series of recent incidents of violence at Trump rallies, in which protesters and journalists have been punched, tackled and hustled out of venues, raising concerns about degrading security leading into the Nov. 8 election.

“All of a sudden a planned attack just came out of nowhere,” Trump said in Dayton, describing the events in Chicago. He called the protest leaders there “professional people”.

Sanders, a U.S. Senator from Vermont, hit back.

“As is the case virtually every day, Donald Trump is showing the American people that he is a pathological liar. Obviously, while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trump’s rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests.”

President Barack Obama told a fundraising event in Dallas  that political leaders “should be trying to bring us together and not turning us against one another.”

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton drew criticism for releasing an initial statement that did not mention Trump by name and tied violent campaign events to a shooting in a South Carolina black church last year that left 9 people dead.

While campaigning in St. Louis, Missouri, on Saturday, Clinton criticized Trump directly for “ugly, divisive rhetoric” that encourages aggression and violence.

CRUCIAL PRIMARIES

The months-long Republican race may be coming to a head at nominating contests on Tuesday where Trump is seeking victories that might give him an almost insurmountable lead for the nomination.

Primaries in Florida and Ohio will be particularly important since they are winner-take-all states, where all Republican delegates are given to the winner of the popular vote instead of being awarded proportionally.

It will be a make-or-break day for Republican candidates John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who both must win their home states to forge a credible path forward.

Trump has drawn fervent support as well as criticism for his calls to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.

His rallies often attract small groups of protesters, but Friday’s was the first at which there may have been as many protesters as supporters.

At an event in Kansas City on Saturday, Trump urged police to arrest people who disrupt his events.

“They’ll have to explain to Mom and Dad why they have a police record and why they can’t get a job. And you know what? I’m going to start pressing charges against all these people and then we won’t have a problem,” he said to cheers.

Outside the rally, police broke up confrontations between Trump supporters and protesters who shouted, “Shut it down!”

Police on horseback and riot gear briefly moved into a crowd of protesters and officers used what appeared to be pepper spray against demonstrators for a few seconds.

Rubio, who according to the New York Times slightly edged out Kasich on Saturday to win the Washington D.C. primary with 37 percent of the vote, bemoaned the state of the presidential race during an event in Florida, saying it had “become reality television.”

“Last night in Chicago, we saw images that make America look like a Third World country,” Rubio said, reminding supporters the stakes on Tuesday are high.

Kasich told journalists before a campaign event in Cincinnati, Ohio, that Trump had created a “toxic environment.”

Republican candidate U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called the Chicago incidents “sad.”

Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer said that the tension on display at Trump’s events are a proxy for what is going on in the electorate writ large.

“People have strong reactions to Donald Trump,” Geer said. “They are playing out in the voting booth and they are also playing out at these events.”

Geer said the Chicago cancellation would likely embolden Trump’s supporters – an idea floated by Trump in several television interviews.

Clinton picked up four delegates in the Northern Mariana Islands’ Democratic primary on Saturday, to Sanders’ two.

On the Republican side, Cruz won around two-thirds of the votes in Wyoming’s Republican nominating contest but because of the state’s unusual rules it is not clear how many Wyoming delegates will go his way at the Republican Convention in July.

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Idrees Ali and Amanda Becker in Washington.; Editing by Alistair Bell and Sandra Maler)

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