Abby Phillip Stunned By GOP Lawmaker's Defense Of Trump's Vile Claim
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On Monday, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) tried to spin former President Donald Trump’s recent claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” — and CNN’s Abby Phillip wasn’t having it.
“I’ll start off by simply asking, is Trump right? That immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country?” Phillip asked Malliotakis.
“Well, I don’t think that’s what he was saying,” she replied. “When he said they are poisoning, I think he was talking about the Democratic policies. I think he was talking about the open border policy.”
Trump’s full comment to a rally in New Hampshire was:
They let — I think the real number is like 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done. They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America. Not just in the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country. From Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country. Nobody’s even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous. The terrorism is going to be.
Whether Trump was blaming policies or talking about the people coming to the United States, commentators have suggested the result of his language is the same: the dehumanizing of immigrants.
Watch Trump’s comments here:
Trump: They’re poisoning the blood of country.. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world not just in South America… but all over the world they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia pic.twitter.com/fv38EABo1a
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 16, 2023
Phillip pointed out to Malliotakis: “Congresswoman, you’re saying that’s what you think he’s saying but he was pretty clear. He was saying that the immigrants who are coming in, he says they’re poisoning the blood of the nation.”
Malliotakis argued Trump never explicitly said the word immigrants and doubled down on her claim it was actually about Democratic policies.
“He was talking about people, not policy,” Phillip said.
Malliotakis acknowledged “some are trying to make it seem like Trump is anti-immigrant,” but said he can’t possibly be because he’s married immigrants and hired them to work at his businesses.
Watch the exchange here:
