Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog
On Friday's The ReidOut, MSNBC host Joy Reid ridiculously claimed that there are currently fewer illegal border crossings on the southern border than there were during the Trump administration as she hosted a segment that repeatedly compared a second Donald Trump presidency to Nazi Germany.
As she led her show recounting that Trump is making immigration a central issue in the campaign, she declared:
And now we have Donald Trump, who has decided to make fearmongering about immigration the center of his entire campaign with fascistic rhetoric like promising the largest mass deportation operation in history and promising that it would be a bloody story; spreading racist lies about immigrants eating people's pets; and even talking about giving immigrants serial numbers Nazi style.
Ironically, on the same day she ignored a report that ICE estimates there are over 400,000 illegal aliens living in the U.S. who have avoided being deported despite being convicted of crimes, with over 14,000 murder convictions, Reid tried to downplay crimes committed by illegal aliens:
And just to remind you as we talk about this, border crossings are actually down to the lowest levels in four years. Violent crimes also way down across the country. And everything you hear on right-wing media to suggest otherwise is a lie. There is no migrant crime wave. Immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the U.S.
Before bringing on her guests, Reid invoked Adolf Hitler to conclude her opening commentary:
Recent polling has shown a majority of voters say they trust Trump more when it comes to dealing with the border -- a man who doesn't know the difference between political asylum and an insane asylum, and whose plans to deport every immigrant or anyone that looks like an immigrant would send our economy into a freefall because fear, whether real or irrational, can be an effective political tactic. The question now for America is: Have we gotten to the point where we would destroy our own economy and walk willingly into a Hitlerian dictatorship because of the fear Donald Trump and his MAGA cronies are perpetuating solely for their own political benefit?
Responding to a clip of a voter arguing in favor of how Trump handled illegal immigration when he was in office, Reid wrongly claimed that illegal border crossings are lower now than when Trump was President:
The only things that we saw in terms of immigration -- as you talked about with Stephen Miller, were taking babies out of the hands of their moms at the border and separating them and sending them off in two different directions and losing track of them. You saw a lot of cruelty -- you saw a lot of talk about s-hole countries. He didn't build a wall, and border crossings are lower now than they were then. What are people seeing? What reality are they living in?
In July 2024, the number of apprehensions documented by CBP was 104,101, and in August it was 107, 503. By contrast, the last year Trump was in office -- which includes part of FY21 -- the number of apprehensions per month never reached 80,000. And out of the entire 48 months that Trump was in office, the number of apprehensions only exceeded 100,000 four times.
She and her anti-Trump Republican guest, Olive Troye, went on to predict concentration camps of illegal aliens if Trump is elected, the MSNBC host concluding: "Well, I'll tell you what it will look like. It will look like concentration camps in Germany in the 1930s because that's what you call it when you put somebody in a camp with means to separate them from society. It's called a concentration camp."
Transcript follows:
MSNBC's The ReidOut
September 27, 2024
7:01 p.m. Eastern
JOY REID: And we begin tonight with just 39 days to go until Election Day with early and absentee voting already under way in some states. And while Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are barnstorming the country talking about what they call an opportunity economy and making things more affordable for Americans -- including housing, food and starting a business -- Donald Trump has forced another issue into the center of the campaign with a lot of help from right-wing media, including Fox -- his running mate's admitted lies, the internet and social media and conspiracy theories cooked up by literal white supremacists. That issue of course is immigration. Donald Trump knows he can't win the election based on the crappy job he did as President or his frankly crazy ideas for another administration like spiking the cost of everything we buy through tariffs. So instead he's going with fear of immigrants.
(...)
And now we have Donald Trump, who has decided to make fearmongering about immigration the center of his entire campaign with fascistic rhetoric like promising the largest mass deportation operation in history and promising that it would be a bloody story; spreading racist lies about immigrants eating people's pets; and even talking about giving immigrants serial numbers Nazi style.
(...)
And just to remind you as we talk about this, border crossings are actually down to the lowest levels in four years. Violent crimes also way down across the country. And everything you hear on right-wing media to suggest otherwise is a lie. There is no migrant crime wave. Immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the U.S. They also don't eat pets.
(...)
Recent polling has shown a majority of voters say they trust Trump more when it comes to dealing with the border -- a man who doesn't know the difference between political asylum and an insane asylum, and whose plans to deport every immigrant or anyone that looks like an immigrant would send our economy into a freefall because fear, whether real or irrational, can be an effective political tactic. The question now for America is: Have we gotten to the point where we would destroy our own economy and walk willingly into a Hitlerian dictatorship because of the fear Donald Trump and his MAGA cronies are perpetuating solely for their own political benefit?
(...)
It's hard, I think, for people who probably watch this show and watch MSNBC to understand how voters look at Donald Trump, and they look at the failures, and they also look at the successes. Let me show you. Illegal border crossings fell in July -- they're at the lowest level they are in four years. That's just a fact. And so the reality that people are seeing on Fox -- this idea that immigrants are running through the country murdering people -- it's just not true.
(...)
ALEX WAGNER: Do you feel like Donald Trump's going to be better on that issue?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Based on what we've seen in his first four years, I do believe that he will be better on that. Yeah.
WAGNER: Do you -- are you leaning towards Trump right now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, ma'am.
(...)
REID: Olivia, "Based on what we've seen in his first four years, I do believe he will be better on that." Based on what? The only things that we saw in terms of immigration -- as you talked about with Stephen Miller, were taking babies out of the hands of their moms at the border and separating them and sending them off in two different directions and losing track of them. You saw a lot of cruelty -- you saw a lot of talk about s-hole countries. He didn't build a wall, and border crossings are lower now than they were then. What are people seeing? What reality are they living in?
OLIVIA TROYE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF 97 PERCENT: Well, therein lies the problem, Joy. I think it's just because the fearmongering and all of these narratives, they work when the right-wing media machine is coming together and pushing that, and that's all they're seeing. And so this is a product of disinformation that they're continuing to push devoid of policy or facts.
(...)
What he says is resonating in communities. Now, the problem with that is that, "What does Donald Trump's immigration proposal actually look like in the future?" It's going to look like encampments. What is it going to look like when they're, like, putting people in encampments on the borders or in these cities where they're shipping them around? What's it going to look like when they're targeting just anyone who looks potentially like a minority in general and taking these kids out of schools and corralling them?
(...)
REID: Well, I'll tell you what it will look like. It will look like concentration camps in Germany in the 1930s because that's what you call it when you put somebody in a camp with means to separate them from society. It's called a concentration camp.
On Thursday's CNN This Morning, host Kasie Hunt devoted a segment to promoting the liberal view that there needs to be climate regulations to keep hurricanes and other natural disasters from getting worse in the future.
Reacting to Wednesday night's CNN presidential candidate forum with Vice President Kamala Harris, Hunt recounted:
So, in this election season, we shouldn't forget that the communities in the Southeast United States are still picking up the pieces after two hurricanes ravaged the region in just two weeks. And, as temperatures rise across the globe from climate change, the number of extreme natural disasters is also increasing.
She then brought aboard meteorologist Derek Van Dam, who began:
Yeah, you hit it -- said it perfectly there. So what we used to consider extreme weather is now actually the new normal, and it's going to continue this way until we curb these trapping greenhouse gases. Now, in last night's town hall, there was this void on the topic of climate and the environment, but there was this one moment.
After a clip of Vice President Harris declaring that she has changed her view on banning fracking, Van Dam warned viewers about the future as he continued: "Mitigating greenhouse gases -- that is the key. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret. If we don't, it is extremely expensive. Take last year, for example. We had a record number of billion dollar plus disasters. And if we go towards this year, we're still rewriting the history books..."
He then presented a chart showing the dollar value of natural disaster damage increasing with each decade since the 1980s:
Look at the previous decades as well -- 2010 to 2019, nearly a trillion dollars from these natural disasters -- 2017 sticks out in my mind. I was in Houston for Hurricane Harvey. That was an incredible rain event that caused so much catastrophic flooding. And the reason is, is because of the heat that's baked into our atmosphere. Remember, when we warm our planet, we also warm the oceans, and so that allows for more water vapor in the atmosphere. And that allows for more frequent and more intense rainfall events like Harvey.
He soon added:
And also with our warming oceans, we see this rapid intensification occurring more frequently as well. There's been an uptick just in the past decades of these hurricanes going from tropical storm to major category 5 just like Milton did just a couple of weeks ago. And no state across the U.S., Kasie, is sheltered from these billion dollar disasters. It happens everywhere. Climate change is happening now.
Hunt wrapped up by lamenting the political pressures around the issue make it difficult to take action: "Yeah, another reminder last night that both the lack of discussion about this and also the way in which it's talked about shows you how the dynamics in our political system make it so ill-equipped to deal with this problem that you've just laid out."
It was not mentioned that part of the reason for the increase in dollar value of natural disaster damage is because more people have moved into vulnerable areas and built more. There has also been an observable pattern that hurricane activity sometimes increases for several years and, at other times, it diminishes. For example, between 2001 and 2010, there were 19 hurricanes that made landfall in the U.S., but, between 2006 and 2015, the number was only eight.
Transcript follows:
CNN This Morning
October 24, 2024
6:24 a.m. Eastern
KASIE HUNT: So, in this election season, we shouldn't forget that the communities in the Southeast United States are still picking up the pieces after two hurricanes ravaged the region in just two weeks. And, as temperatures rise across the globe from climate change, the number of extreme natural disasters is also increasing. Our meteorologist -- our weather man, Derek Van Dam, is here. Derek, good morning to you.
DEREK VAN DAM: Yeah, you hit it -- said it perfectly there. So what we used to consider extreme weather is now actually the new normal, and it's going to continue this way until we curb these trapping greenhouse gases. Now, in last night's town hall, there was this void on the topic of climate and the environment, but there was this one moment.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Finally, on fracking, you said you're clear -- you would not ban it as President.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: No, I would not ban it as President.
COOPER: And you're clear on that. Do you think it is bad for the environment?
HARRIS: I think that we have proven that we can invest in a clean-energy economy -- we can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, we can work on sustaining what we need to do to protect this beautiful Earth of ours, and not ban fracking.
VAN DAM: Mitigating greenhouse gases -- that is the key. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret. If we don't, it is extremely expensive. Take last year, for example. We had a record number of billion dollar plus disasters. And if we go towards this year, we're still rewriting the history books here, but we have this data that we've already accumulated over $15 billion from the disasters we've had, but this is only valid through August. Remember September and October? Yeah, Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. So those numbers are going to drastically rise.
Look at the previous decades as well -- 2010 to 2019, nearly a trillion dollars from these natural disasters -- 2017 sticks out in my mind. I was in Houston for Hurricane Harvey. That was an incredible rain event that caused so much catastrophic flooding. And the reason is, is because of the heat that's baked into our atmosphere. Remember, when we warm our planet, we also warm the oceans, and so that allows for more water vapor in the atmosphere. And that allows for more frequent and more intense rainfall events like Harvey. Just like Milton -- remember the flash flooding that happened.
And also with our warming oceans, we see this rapid intensification occurring more frequently as well. There's been an uptick just in the past decades of these hurricanes going from tropical storm to major category 5 just like Milton did just a couple of weeks ago. And no state across the U.S., Kasie, is sheltered from these billion dollar disasters. It happens everywhere. Climate change is happening now.
HUNT: Yeah, another reminder last night that both the lack of discussion about this and also the way in which it's talked about shows you how the dynamics in our political system make it so ill-equipped to deal with this problem that you've just laid out. Derek Van Dam for us this morning. Derek, so grateful to have you. Thank you.
