The Daily Caller posted audio of Sen. J.D. Vance (R.-Ohio) lecturing a reporter on Capitol Hill about the blatant bias in how they cover the border crisis. Their dominant narrative at the Associated Press is "Trump invokes Nazi-era ‘blood’ rhetoric against immigrants."
So Vance was asked: “What do you have to say to the former President’s comments over the weekend about immigrants and saying that they’re ‘poisoning the blood of America?'”
Vance began by noting Trump was talking about illegal immigrants, which is a concept that's suppressed by reporters. "He said illegal immigrants were poisoning the blood of the country, which is objectively and obviously true to anybody who looks at the statistics about fentanyl overdoses, and I think just one observation about the press as an organization: You guys seem far more upset about the guy who criticized the problem than you did about Joe Biden, who’s causing the problem.”
Bingo. AP acknowledges that Trump is using similar rhetoric to his 2015 campaign talk about how immigrants can bring crime, drugs,and disease....and they're freaking out just as hard about it now...and distracting away from Biden's miserable performance on border control.
LISTEN: Sen. J.D. Vance destroys an AP reporter who asks about Trump’s “poisoning the blood of our country” remarks.
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) December 19, 2023
Audio obtained by @DailyCaller: pic.twitter.com/a6WTO0WRb4
The reporter just wanted to go back to the Nazi comparisons, just like the Biden White House talking points: "Can we just go back to his comments though and sort of using language that we heard, you know, during World War II. I’m sure you’re a student of history. You’re well aware of what that kind of language represents in historical context."
Vance shot back: "You just framed your question implicitly assuming that Donald Trump is talking about Adolf Hitler. It’s absurd. It is absurd. Why do you think that Donald Trump’s language is targeted at the blood of the immigrants and not at the blood of the American citizens who are being poisoned by the fentanyl problem?”
“You think he was referring to fentanyl?” the reporter asked, like that was strange.
“I think this is ridiculous,” Vance said. “If you watch the speech in context and you look at what’s going on, it is obvious that he was talking about the very clear fact that the blood of Americans is being poisoned by a drug epidemic. To take that comment and then to immediately assume that he’s talking about immigrants as Adolf Hitler talked about Jews is preposterous!”
Vance lamented that the press doesn't "speak truth to power" on this issue. Instead, they're "trying to police the guy who's criticizing the problem."
“You guys need to wake up and actually do some journalism,” Vance continued. “Here’s the problem with that question and that framing: you are allegedly a journalist. You’re supposed to speak truth to power, and yet you’re trying to circumscribe and narrow the limits of debate on immigration in this country. What you’re doing is not speaking truth to power. You’re trying to police the guy who’s criticizing the problem so that Americans don’t pay attention to the guy who caused the problem. It’s an absurd question. It’s an absurd framing.”
Speaking of framing, AP reported Vance's critique deep in a story and then energetically sought to rebut him:
At a congressional hearing July 12, James Mandryck, a Customs and Border Protection deputy assistant commissioner, said 73% of fentanyl seizures at the border since the previous October were smuggling attempts carried out by U.S. citizens, with the rest being done by Mexican citizens.
Extremism experts say Trump’s rhetoric resembles the language that white supremacist shooters have used to justify mass killings.
Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, pointed to the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooter and the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooter, who he said used similar language in writings before their attacks.
“Call it what it is,” said Lewis. “This is fascism. This is white supremacy. This is dehumanizing language that would not be out of place in a white supremacist Signal or Telegram chat.”
