Trump quickly becomes focus of Grassley-Judge Senate race

CEDAR RAPIDS - Sen. Chuck Grassley promises to be his own candidate, but his Democratic challenger isn't wasting anytime in trying to tie him to Donald Trump.

'Chuck Grassley has lined himself up with Donald Trump,” Democratic nominee Patty Judge said Wednesday. 'He said he would campaign with him. He would support him. People in the Republican Party are starting to try to move away. Chuck Grassley is not doing that. That is at his peril.”

In particular, Judge, 72, said Trump 'belittling people and making bigoted statements like he has made in the last few days won't play in Iowa. It should not play in Iowa. We are better than that.”

Although Grassley has said he will support the Republican nominee, he sought to make clear Wednesday he will run his own campaign independent of Trump's.

'I don't have to say anything more what my relationship will be with Trump,” Grassley, 82, said when asked if he was ready to endorse the presumptive GOP nominee.

'When I agree with him I'll be with him, when I disagree him, I'm going to be against him,” he said. 'I'm going to represent the people of Iowa. I will be a very independent legislator.”

He also distanced himself from Trump's remarks about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presiding over the Trump University class action lawsuit. Trump called him a 'hater” and questioned whether he will get a fair hearing because of the judge's Mexican heritage.

'I wouldn't say what he said,” Grassley said in rejecting Trump's assessment of the judge. Grassley also noted he supported Curiel's confirmation to the federal bench.

When pressed by reporters on whether Trump's remarks were racist and undermined federal courts, Grassley said questions about judges and the judiciary are nothing new and not limited to any one political point of view.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, he said, has spoken about how ethnicity might affect judicial decision-making without her receiving the same condemnation as Trump.

'I think you don't have any more trouble with what Trump said than when Sotomayor said that - when she was found saying in speeches that, quote, ‘a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male,'” Grassley said. 'I don't hear any criticism of that sort of comment by a justice of the Supreme Court.”

Later, Grassley said he wasn't equating what Sotomayor said to Trump's remarks.

'You just can't equate the two,” Grassley told NBC News. 'I wasn't meaning to equate the two.”

It's worth remembering, Grassley said, that in the '230-year history of our country with all these objections to some presidents maybe appointed somebody who might not, quote, fit in, the Senate has always been a proper check, a Constitutional check. If it's worked for 230 years it's going to work for the future.”

Despite his assertions of independence, Judge said 'Chuck's willingness to tie himself to Trump is very troubling and I think people will agree with me on that.”