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Biden Tells Mexico That Some of the Rhetoric of ‘The Other Team’ Is ‘Dangerous’

Meanwhile, former Mexican president Vicente Fox directly responds to Trump's promise that Mexico will fund the wall he wants to build on the border: "I'm not going to pay for that fucking wall!"
Photo by Mario Guzmán/EPA

US Vice President Joe Biden has slammed the "attitudes toward Mexicans and Mexico generally" coming from some US presidential candidates.

"Some of the rhetoric coming from some of the presidential candidates on the other team is, I think, dangerous, damaging and incredibly ill-advised," Biden told Mexican officials during a visit to Mexico City this Thursday. "But here's what I'm here to tell you: they do not, they do not, they do not represent the view of the vast majority of the American people."

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Property mogul Donald Trump, who has built up a big early lead in the race to become Republican nominee, kicked off his campaign with a speech labeling Mexican migrants as drug runners and rapists.

During the campaign he has repeatedly vowed to build a wall to seal off the US from its southern neighbor, and to make Mexico pay for it.

The Mexican government has so far largely avoided responding to Trump's comments on the grounds that this would do more harm than good.

Last year President Enrique Peña Nieto told SDP Noticias that, while he considered them "lamentable," as well as "discriminatory," he was not going to say much more. "I do not want to join the political game of somebody who hasn't even yet become a candidate of a political party," Peña Nieto said.

Speaking next to Vice President Biden today, he vaguely referenced Trump's plan once again.

"There are those who envision building walls, but that's just isolating yourself, it leaves you alone," said the Mexican president.

Former President Vicente Fox was far less contained in an interview with Fusion broadcast today.

"I'm not going to pay for that fucking wall," Fox said, in English. "He can pay for it. He's got the money."

Fox's statement comes on the heels of harsh comments earlier this month made by his successor, and Peña Nieto's predecessor, former President Felipe Calderón.

"Mexican people, we are not going to pay any single cent for such a stupid wall!" he told MSNBC. "And it's going to be completely useless."

Related: 'Mr. Trump Will Not Be President': Obama Goes on the Offensive Against Republican Candidates

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