Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) tried to gaslight CNN viewers on Monday night by claiming that when Donald Trump said migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country he was talking about Democratic policies.
“They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world,” Trump said at a rally in Durham, New Hampshire on Saturday night.
Trump has been widely condemned for his remarks and was accused of “parroting” Adolf Hitler by President Joe Biden’s campaign.
In an interview with CNN Monday night Malliotakis tried to defend Trump’s remarks but ended making herself look silly after suggesting that the former president actually meant Democratic polices were coming across the border and “poisoning the blood” of the United States.
“Is Trump right? That immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country?” CNN host Abby Phillip asked Malliotakis.
“Well I don’t think that’s what he was saying. When he said ‘they are poisoning,’ I think he was talking about the Democratic policies. I think he was talking about the open border policy,” Malliotakis responded. “You know what’s actually poisoning America is the amount of fentanyl that’s coming over the open border. And so this is a serious issue, and I think that’s what he’s talking about.”
Phillip pushed back saying Trump’s comments were “pretty clear” adding, “he was saying that the immigrants who are coming in, he says they’re poisoning the blood of the nation.”
Malliotakis argued that Trump never actually said the word “immigrant” and doubled down on her claim that he was talking about Democratic policies.
She then went on to say that Trump couldn’t possibly be anti-immigrant because “the reality is, he was married to immigrants, he’s hired immigrants.”
