Former president Donald Trump expanded his portrayal of migrants as violent with a suggestion that they could be pitted in fights for entertainment.<\/p>\n
During a speech to Christian conservatives on Saturday afternoon, and again at a rally in Philadelphia that evening, Trump claimed that he told his friend Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, that he should start a spinoff competition featuring migrants, as part of his riff on restricting immigration.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid anyone ever hear of Dana White?\u201d Trump asked during his speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition\u2019s \u201cRoad to Majority\u201d conference in Washington. \u201c \u2026 I said, \u2018Dana, I have an idea. Why don\u2019t you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of fighters, and then you have the champion of your league \u2014 these are the greatest fighters in the world \u2014 fight the champion of the migrants.\u2019 I think the migrant guy might win, that\u2019s how tough they are. He didn\u2019t like that idea too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a post-fight news conference in Saudi Arabia later Saturday, White confirmed that Trump made the comments but said they were \u201ca joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw everybody going crazy online. But yeah, he did say it,\u201d White told reporters.<\/p>\n
The remarks are part of Trump\u2019s broader pattern of using dehumanizing language when discussing immigrants, which during this election cycle has included broadly portraying migrants as violent criminals and saying that they are \u201cpoisoning the blood of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump spoke for nearly an hour and a half at the conference hosted by the evangelical group started by longtime conservative strategist Ralph Reed. He referenced issues championed by the group such as imposing government restrictions on abortion. But the themes of his speech more closely resembled those of his campaign rallies, including immigration and election denialism.<\/p>\n
In his speech, the former president continued to claim that undocumented immigrants are violent criminals coming from \u201cprisons and mental institutions.\u201d He also recounted the slaying of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley in February, who police believe was killed by Jose Ibarra \u2014 a man who immigration authorities say crossed the U.S. border illegally in 2022. Ibarra has been in custody since the day after Riley\u2019s body was discovered and pleaded not guilty in May.<\/p>\n
Trump reiterated his promise to \u201cbegin the largest deportation operation in American history,\u201d should he return to the White House. He also warned that undocumented immigrants are \u201cjust getting comfortable,\u201d but that \u201cthey\u2019re going to start hitting us very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
And in his speech at Temple University in Philadelphia, which was roughly the same duration, Trump acknowledged the presence of family members of Rachel Morin, a Maryland woman who was killed on a run last year. Trump called the man charged in the death, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, of El Salvador, an \u201canimal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of those arrested at the southern border do not have criminal convictions, according to federal data. Experts say most evidence indicates that having undocumented immigrants in the country does not lead to more crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cFitting that convicted felon Donald Trump spent his time at a religious conference threatening to round up Latinos, bragging about ripping away Americans\u2019 freedoms, and promising to be even more extreme if he regains power,\u201d Sarafina Chitika, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said in a statement after Trump\u2019s speech in Washington.<\/p>\n
Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign, dismissed concerns over the degrading comparisons of migrants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese elitists are the same people who stupidly think combat sports is human cockfighting, showing their ignorance to the sweet science of mixed martial arts,\u201d Cheung said in a statement.<\/p>\n
At a campaign stop at a cheesesteak restaurant in South Philly, Trump greeted fans and told reporters he had selected a running mate but hadn\u2019t told that person yet. Trump has often teased his vice-presidential decision, which he has said he will announce at the convention. In January he said he had already decided, which campaign aides walked back. The campaign has been vetting multiple candidates.<\/p>\n
Trump touched on the issue of abortion earlier in the day during the speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which advocates for abortion bans. He referenced the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. The second anniversary of that ruling is Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve gotten abortion out of the federal government and back to the states,\u201d he said, before falsely claiming that \u201cevery legal scholar\u201d along with \u201cjust about all the Democrats\u201d wanted to see Roe overturned. He referenced issues championed by the group like appointing conservative Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe. He also said he believes in exceptions for abortion \u201cfor the life of the mother, rape, and incest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to go with your heart\u201d on the issue, Trump said, \u201cbut you have to also remember you have to get elected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump at different points in the speech reminded the audience to cast ballots this November, saying: \u201cVote, Christians!\u201d He also continued to falsely claim that the 2020 election was \u201crigged.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I knew that there was not going to be corruption, if I knew \u2026 everything would be honorable and honest as it should be, I\u2019d stop campaigning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The former president also claimed the widely known evangelist Franklin Graham wrote him a letter advising him not to use foul language. \u201cI said to myself, \u2018He\u2019s wrong about that,\u2019\u201d Trump said, adding that although he\u2019s trying to pare back on cursing, \u201csometimes there\u2019s no [other] word to describe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump lamented what he claimed was political persecution against Christians by the Biden administration. He cited a Clinton-appointed federal judge\u2019s recent decision to sentence an antiabortion activist, whose lawyer says she\u2019s in declining health, to two years in prison. The activist, Paula \u201cPaulette\u201d Harlow, was among a group of individuals who have been charged with violating federal law by participating in a demonstration that blocked access to an abortion clinic. He also depicted himself as the victim of attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, we stood up to the communists, Marxists and fascists to defend religious liberty like no other president has ever done,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd I have the wounds all over my body. \u2026 I take a lot of wounds, I can tell you, more than, I suspect, any president ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnsdorf reported from Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump expanded his portrayal of migrants as violent with a suggestion that they could be pitted in fights for entertainment. During a speech to Christian conservatives on Saturday afternoon, and again at a rally in Philadelphia that evening, Trump claimed that he told his friend Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}