Washington, DC — Last night, during a speech in Pennsylvania billed as an address on affordability, President Trump instead went off script and delivered an extended nativist screed. As the Associated Press characterized, “Trump’s speech on combating inflation turns to grievances about immigrants from ‘filthy’ countries.“
According to Joanna Kuebler, America’s Voice Director of Programs:
“Ugly, unprecedented and un-American. This describes the increasingly vulgar, vitriolic and violent language spewed by President Trump toward all immigrants without regard to their status. We simply cannot become numb to the leader of our nation engaging in such disgusting, vile and dangerous language. This type of ugly speech is unprecedented and history is taking note. We cannot let this moment pass without pushing back to the sheer inhumanity and danger posed by this kind of rhetoric.
At a time when he should be focused on Americans’ cost of living and healthcare, Trump’s virulent anti-immigrant obsession and dangerous fixation on Rep. Ilhan Omar and Somali-Americans is sadly revealing. He is not only abdicating the traditional role of the American president to bring together the American people, but is doing what he always does when things aren’t going his way – unchecked rage spiraling out of control, and lashing out at immigrants in an ugly, unprecedented and un-American way.”
Reporting in the Boston Globe, “‘Rapists,’ ‘animals,’ ‘garbage’: Trump’s public degradation of immigrants is veering into frightening territory, historians say,” emphasizes the harms of Trump’s escalating dangerous rhetoric, noting:
- “Trump last week called Somali immigrants “garbage” that he didn’t want in the country, including Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali American. His comments, immediately derided by Democrats and immigrant advocates as racist, also coincided with his administration deploying federal agents to Omar’s home state, reportedly to sweep up Somalis who are subject to deportation.”
- Thomas Whalen, a Boston University professor and presidential historian noted, “This is a whole new ball game…this extremist rhetoric, because all authoritarian types want scapegoats. People of color are so vulnerable, he can say, ‘This is why we have a bad economy, it’s them.’ That, to me, is concerning — and a little frightening.”
- Jennifer Hochschild, a Harvard University political science professor noted, “There were enough people in the room during his first term who he could plausibly expect not to approve of what he was saying, so there may have been a little bit of self-discipline as a consequence of that…Now you’ve got Vance and Noem saying the same stuff. There’s a very deep continuity here of real hatred,” she added of Trump, “but there’s an increasing willingness or an increasing capacity to make that explicit verbally.”
