Internet memes #thatMexicanthing after Pence accuses Kaine of misinterpreting Donald Trump

Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate marked just over a month before the presidential election, but both candidates spent much of the night sparring over Donald Trump’s very first comments in the presidential race criticizing Mexican immigrants.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia dared Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to defend his running mate’s controversial remarks throughout the night and repeatedly referenced the comments Trump had made about Mexicans when he first announced his candidacy.

"When Donald Trump says women should be punished or Mexicans are rapists and criminals or John McCain is not a hero, he is showing you who he is,” Kaine said during the debate.

Pence shot back, “You whipped out that Mexican thing again,” before trying to temper Trump’s remarks by saying the presidential candidate had also said “many of them are good people.”

Trump, in his June 2015 speech, had said, “Some, I assume, are good people” — after claiming that Mexico was “not sending the best… They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists.”

Several vice presidential debate viewers noticed Pence’s “that Mexican thing” remark, and turned it into a hashtag to criticize the Republican ticket:

Another viewer, Danilo Alfaro of Portland, made a different statement on the internet — registering the domain thatmexicanthing.com early Wednesday morning and redirecting it to Hillary Clinton’s campaign site, according to Wired.

Though some Twitter sleuths assumed the campaign had arranged the redirect, Alfaro told Wired that he had decided to pull the stunt on his own, but that one of Clinton’s staffers later contacted him to say thank you for the publicity.

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 5:15 AM with the headline "Internet memes #thatMexicanthing after Pence accuses Kaine of misinterpreting Donald Trump."