The Dirty Little Gun Secret Behind MAGA World’s Migrant Hysteria

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
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Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

For all of Donald Trump’s incessant fearmongering about migrants fueling crime in the United States, he has yet to ask one very important question: What is driving the violence that is making so many on the other side of the border desperate to flee in the first place?

That’s the question The New Abnormal team posed to Ieva Jusionyte, author of Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border, on this Sunday’s episode—and his answer might not sit well with team MAGA.

“It all begins with people who are American, people who are U.S. citizens, or at least permanent residents, because no one else is allowed to buy guns in the United States… who buy the guns and then pass them to the smugglers,” Jusionyte said, explaining that Mexico doesn’t really have its own firearms industry.

“So the United States is the number one arms dealer for Mexico, arming the cartels, arming the organized crime that is the cause of people fleeing the country and coming into the United States. Am I wrong?” co-host Danielle Moody asked.

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“You are correct,” Jusionyte said. “We do create a lot of problems… one reason we are not talking about that is because it is politically more expedient to talk about drugs or about migrants.’”

Plus! Co-hosts Moody and Andy Levy, and producer Jesse Cannon, discuss Newt Gingrich’s recent remarks praising Donald Trump’s abortion stance, saying the presidential hopeful is just “trying to save as many babies as possible.”

“They’re so committed to life. They vote against maternal care, parental leave, the child tax credit, and feeding children in this country,” Moody shot back. “Miss me with the bullshit, please.”

Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

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