This afternoon at the White House, President Trump embarked on what might be the most racist speech he’s ever given.
In a simply breathtaking torrent of xenophobic conspiracy theories and outlandish falsehoods, the president promised to build enormous concentration camps in which to hold “millions” of people and threatened to shoot migrants at the border for throwing rocks — and that was only the tip of the iceberg.
The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale offered a small glimpse into the horrifying things the President was saying during his rambling, incoherent screed:
Trump baselessly claims that there "could be 20 million people" who are illegal immigrants in this country, saying other administrations were bad at "record-keeping." His own administration estimated in January that it is 12 million.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 1, 2018
Trump lies that he is already building the wall. He lies that he is getting a third $1.6 billion for next year for the wall. He has not gotten money for the wall. There are only two $1.6 billion sums for the non-wall projects.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 1, 2018
Trump lies that he did the exact same thing as Obama with separating children (no), but nobody complained about Obama doing it (no, people complained about what Obama did do), but people are "going crazy" when it's him.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 1, 2018
Trump says he has told US officers at the border that, if migrants throw rocks, "Consider it a rifle." He's saying, obviously, that he wants rock-throwers shot.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 1, 2018
His speech was such a despicable abomination that MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace decided that she could not, in good conscience, promote and publicize such disgusting lies.
Nicolle Wallace won't air Trump immigration remarks live, "Because he's used immigration in blatantly political ways and in an abundance of caution, we've decided to monitor those remarks, fact-check them and bring you the important news from them." https://t.co/vAXnf0OBrw pic.twitter.com/kxtB8UxOWx
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) November 1, 2018
It’s a show of journalistic responsibility that the mainstream media needs to learn extremely quickly before they end up repeating the same mistakes from 2016 all over again. No fact-check or “um, actually” segment has nearly as powerful an effect as blasting the president’s racist ramblings with wall-to-wall coverage in desperate pursuit of hate-watch ratings like certain other networks like CNN, who aired live all 27 minutes of Trump’s disgusting press conference.
cool how the news is breathlessly covering Trump's every word right before the midterms, exactly how they did in 2016 and then were shocked that he won
— i bless the rains down in castamere (@Chinchillazllla) October 31, 2018
Nothing the President said was true or had any redeeming value other than dehumanizing and fearmongering about innocent people who are simply fleeing US-sponsored poverty and violence in their home nations.
The consequences of his dangerous rhetoric made themselves clear this weekend when a white supremacist massacred 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue after becoming convinced that Jews like Trump’s favorite boogeyman George Soros were funding the “invading” caravan of migrants, a conspiracy theory that the President had been dancing around for the past few weeks and continued to do so after the attack.
Silencing Trump and keeping his lies from reaching the public has never been so important as the midterms approach. Kudos to Nicolle Wallace for taking a stand against Trump’s bigotry.
Original reporting by Sarah Reese Jones at POLITICUS.
