Donald Trump, Fox News, and Republicans have been using the migrant caravan to scare base voters into turning out for the midterm elections. And while some outlets have been repeating their breathless claims, late night shows have seen through Trump’s lies. As Samantha Bee, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and others have pointed out — asylum seekers aren’t scary. They’re people walking thousands of miles through 90-degree heat to escape horrible conditions at home. Watch some of their clips below:
Samantha Bee, “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee”
“This is a genuine humanitarian crisis. What kind of lazy scaremongering is it to just claim that ISIS and MS-13 are hanging out? You might as well just claim that the Babadook is in the caravan too. By the way, the reason the caravan formed was not to sneak in ISIS members like children sneaking into a movie theater in a large trench coat. It was so they could protect each other from gangs and traffickers…and apparently, Fox News. As for MS-13, if our president is really worried about them, he’s not alone. The caravan is literally running away from them!”
Seth Meyers, “Late Night with Seth Meyers”
“There’s no proof for any of Trump’s lies about the caravan; he even admitted as much yesterday. These are some of the most vulnerable people in the world fleeing poverty and violence, trying to apply for asylum, which is both a U.S. and international right. Trump has been lying about the caravan to scare people, and you can tell he’s just been making this stuff up off the top of his head.
Trump obviously doesn’t care if people know he’s lying. All he wants to do is scare the shit out of as many people as he can, and it seems to be having an effect on his supporters. The New York Times spoke to a [75-year-old] Republican in northern Minnesota, who said she was afraid that migrant gangs could take over people’s summer lake homes in the state. So this lady thinks that poor Hondurans are going to walk the length of Mexico, somehow get past ICE and the Border Patrol, then walk another 1800 miles, to live on a lake in Minnesota in the winter. You know in the back of those MAGA hats, there’s a little thing where you can loosen them and restore the bloodflow.”
Stephen Colbert, “Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
“Trump has made up some caravan origin story fanfiction. Not everything Trump has said about this caravan is true, for instance, any of it.”
