Former and potentially future President Donald Trump has had a busy Tuesday, speaking in both key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin. While speaking in Michigan earlier in the day, and reaffirming his commitment to justice for 22-year-old Laken Riley, the nursing student who was murdered in Georgia, he referred to her accused killer, an illegal immigrant who had been arrested previously, as “an illegal alien animal.”
As has been a habit of Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, though, the Biden-Harris HQ X account used a rather selective portion of Trump’s remarks to claim he was speaking about all illegal immigrants in such a way.
If one were to rely on the 7-second clip shared by the the Biden-Harris HQ X clip, one would only hear the presumptive Republican nominee say “Democrats say ‘please don’t call them animals, they’re humans. I said ‘no, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals.'” If one were to watch the more full context, however, it is abundantly clear that Trump is referring specifically to criminal illegal immigrants.
This is so far, the only clip of the remarks that the account also tellingly posted in Spanish. Not only is it noteworthy how desperate the Biden reelection campaign is to put Trump’s remarks out of context to make him look bad, but also that the Biden campaign still avoids mention of Riley’s murder like the plague.
During Biden’s State of the Union address last month, Riley’s name only came up because Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called on the president to say it during his speech. Her name was not in his prepared remarks. Even then, Biden couldn’t even properly say her name, instead referring to the young woman as “Lincoln Riley.”
Biden also acknowledged that Riley’s accused killer was indeed “an illegal,” which sent his fellow Democrats and immigration groups into a panic. After confusing responses from campaign surrogates, the White House, and Biden himself the following day, the president then said he regretted using the term “illegal,” and that he should have said “undocumented.” Even more ridiculous is how the White House tried to spin it that the president did not apologize. Polling shows voters, including Democrats, are just fine with using the word “illegal” though to describe people who are, in fact, not legally supposed to be here. That same Biden-Harris HQ X account similarly shared out of context remarks when it comes to Trump’s rally in Dayton, Ohio last month, with the liberal mainstream media falling for it. The full context made it clear that Trump was warning about a “bloodbath” in the economic sense, especially as he was talking about the U.S. auto industry. The Biden campaign instead warned of the former president threatening violence if he was not reelected in November.
The X account made such a claim about a “bloodbath” in that context yet again, and was rewarded with the proper context from Community Notes.
Trump has also started using “bloodbath” term against Biden, specifically “#BidensBorderBloodbath” as the Team Trump X account has posted the names and stories of Americans murdered by illegal immigrants. This includes children and even toddlers, like 2-year-old Jeremy Poou Caceres.
Polls consistently show that Trump has an edge over Biden on the issue of immigration, which is a top issue for voters, and it’s not even close. He’s also leading Biden in Michigan and Wisconsin, particularly the former. According to RealClearPolling, Trump leads by +3.5 in Michigan and by +0.8 in Wisconsin. Trump also received the endorsement of the Police Officers Association of Michigan on Tuesday.
