Donald Trump Jr. Compares Joaquin Castro's Trump Donors List to Dayton Shooter's 'Kill List'

Donald Trump Jr. compared a list of donors to his father's campaign tweeted by Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro to a kill list written by the Dayton shooter, calling it "craziness."

The president's eldest son was commenting on a tweet by Texas Rep. Castro's campaign, which highlighted 44 individuals who have donated the maximum possible to Trump 2020 this year, accusing them of fueling anti-Hispanic hate.

Castro's list, based on publicly available donor data, was criticized for targeting private citizens over their political beliefs, but he defended the tweet and said Republicans are to blame for their part in the hatred that led to Saturday's suspected anti-Hispanic terror attack in El Paso.

A day later, 24-year-old Connor Betts shot dead nine people at a bar in Dayton, Ohio, including his own sister. Police are investigating his motive. Conservatives are highlighting Betts' social media activity, which shows he was a leftist.

After the shooting, Associated Press reported that while at high school Betts was suspended for drawing up a "kill list" and a "rape list" of fellow students, and that he sparked fear among them.

Trump Jr. told Fox & Friends that Castro's list of Trump's donors "sort of screams like the Dayton, Ohio, shooter's list, right?"

He also appeared to confuse Joaquin Castro with his brother Julian Castro, a former HUD secretary, who is running for the Democratic Party's 2020 nomination.

"When a radical left-wing politician who's polling at around zero percent does this for either attention or a call to action, it's pretty scary," Trump Jr. said. "That was the same thing that the Dayton, Ohio, shooter did and people should be fed up of this nonsense."

When challenged by a Fox & Friends host that Castro was not necessarily inciting violence with his list, Trump Jr replied: "Perhaps not to reasonable people, but when the fringe crazies on both sides—and we saw that in the last week, right—you have fringe crazies on all sides. They see that, man, now you're going after ordinary citizens, people who just are taking part in a political process."

Castro did not respond immediately to Newsweek's request for comment.

The suspect El Paso shooter, Patrick Crusius, allegedly shot dead 22 people at a Walmart, many of whom were Hispanic. Crusius is thought to be behind a white nationalist manifesto posted online before the shooting.

It was anti-Hispanic and used the same "invasion" rhetoric as President Donald Trump when talking about undocumented migration over the southern border.

Following criticism for his tweet, Castro refused to back down and insisted he had done nothing wrong, writing on Twitter that President Trump "spends donor money on thousands of ads about Hispanics 'invading' America."

Castro added: "Donald Trump has put a target on the back of millions… How about I stop mentioning Trump's public campaign donors and he stops using their money for ads that fuel hate?"