MSNBC’s Ari Melber made a member of Donald Trump’s campaign staff look foolish on Thursday when he went on TV to defend the president’s inhumane and fact-free immigration policies.
When Mark Lotter, the Director of Strategic Communications for Trump’s reelection campaign, suggested that undocumented immigrants are crossing the southern border at an alarming rate, Melber showed him the receipts.
“I’ll put up on the screen the overall migration,” the MSNBC host said. “You don’t need to be a statistician to look at this on the screen and see that the current recent era both under this administration and the most recent one is far lower than of recent times in American history.”
Video:
The back-and-forth:
MELBER: If you want to go broader and talk about all migration, we could do that. We have the receipts here. I’ll put up on the screen the overall migration. There are undocumented people trying to come into the country. But when you say it’s really bad, we can look over the decades. This is overall border crossings, since 1980. You don’t need to be a statistician to look at this on the screen and see that the current recent era both under this administration and the most recent one is far lower than of recent times in American history. Do you acknowledge that fact and is it a problem that Donald Trump doesn’t seem to get it?
LOTTER: Well, no, I think what you’re doing is you’re — it’s not the same situation now that it was in the 1980s.
MELBER: No, sir, it’s not. It’s much lower migration.
LOTTE: Well, let’s have an intellectually honest conversation about this.
MELBER: Let’s.
LOTTER: Those numbers at that time were primarily in most cases three-quarters or more were single men from Mexico seeking to come here for economic reasons. The laws were written to address that fact. If someone comes across from Mexico, they can be immediately sent back across the border. What we have now is that two-thirds of the people who are coming across are not from Mexico. They’re from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, the northern triangle.
MELBER: But far fewer people.
LOTTER: They’re family units and our laws are not written to send them back.
MELBER: That’s a humanitarian crisis that a lot of people say has been compounded by family separations and other measures. But sir, it’s fewer people. I can put it back up on the screen. You said different population types, different family groupings. You do acknowledge it’s fewer people and the president seems to claim the opposite.
Donald Trump has convinced his base – a loud minority of the country – that immigration is the most important issue of the day. He has made it the centerpiece of his political career and his presidency.
But as Ari Melber pointed out on Thursday, it’s entirely built on a lie.
Not only is the number of unauthorized immigrants historically low, as the MSNBC host pointed out, but there is no connection between undocumented immigration and crime, and Mexico has not – and will not – pay for Trump’s wall on the southern border.
Not even Donald Trump’s own communications director could square the circle of lies that this president’s immigration policies are built on.
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