Jake Tapper took issue on Monday with Donald Trump’s recent speech in Colorado in which he lashed out at immigrants, saying that the children of non-immigrants “are in danger” from others who “are from a different planet.”
Trump, who was speaking in front of a printed backdrop that read “Deport Illegals Now,” added, “They can’t go to school with these people. These people are from a different planet.”
Tapper explained that yes, there have been reports of gang activity tied to a Venezuelan group in Aurora, Colorado, but insisted that Trump’s claims that city buildings and other regions of Colorado have been “taken over” by immigrants is “simply not true.” Tapper’s stance has also been supported by local authorities.
At another point in the video, Trump says, “We’re like an occupied country. We got people taking over parts of Colorado. We have people taking over other states. A lot of states don’t want to talk about it because they’re embarrassed. The governor’s embarrassed. The mayors are embarrassed. But it’s no different, really, than if we lost the war.”
Watch the segment from “The Lead” on CNN below:
“Not only is Mr. Trump disparaging all immigrants, some of whom have come over into this country legally with temporary protection, such as, for example, the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, whom he falsely accused of eating cats and dogs. Mr. Trump is also claiming that these migrants pose a direct threat to your family and to every family across the nation,” Tapper said.
The CNN anchor added “additional context” about Trump’s attitudes: As has already been reported, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley has called the former president “a total fascist” and the most dangerous person to this country.”
Milley is quoted in “War,” the new book by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward, which comes out Tuesday.
Tapper shared Webster’s definition of fascism, which is “a populist political philosophy movement or that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”
He asked viewers to be judge whether General Milley’s characterization “sounds like with what Mr. Trump is proposing out there on the stump, live, for everyone to hear.”
The Trump campaign’s response to Milley’s statements, meanwhile, were to say that he has “Trump derangement syndrome,” a term used to dismiss all claims made by critics of the former reality TV star, and to call Woodward a “washed-up fiction writer.”
Tapper pointed out that Woodward, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, is “one of the most respected journalists of our time in point of fact.”
Watch the CNN segment above.
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