“The 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,’” Trump said at a campaign stop in Michigan.
The comment has drawn fierce criticism from the left and the media, and was even highlighted in social media posts from the Biden campaign team. My colleague Sistah Toldjah covered the out-of-context nature of the hits against Trump, as the left once again calls Trump out for "racism."
The Associated Press, of all places, gave the proper context while few others would.
In his remarks, Trump also again mentioned the killing of Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia, for which a Venezuelan man is charged. Riley’s family attended Trump’s rally in Georgia last month and met with him backstage.
Trump referred to the suspect in Riley’s death as an “illegal alien animal.”
“The 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,’” he said.
But, interestingly enough, even some outlets on the right appear critical of Trump's comments. Take, for example, Newsmax. The network, which is on the right and has been an overall defender of Trump, published a story with the headline "Trump Calls Migrants 'Animals' in Michigan Stop."
Conservative commentator Mark Davis even pointed out how Newsmax took that angle, saying "People have questions."
Here's the Newsmax (!) story containing the reference to #Trump remarks as "degrading rhetoric he has employed time and again on the campaign trail." People have questions. https://t.co/zUvxdJYcWJ
— Mark Davis (@MarkDavis) April 3, 2024
It's noteworthy that Newsmax would post that headline. Even more noteworthy is how they didn't write the story in-house. Instead, they used a wire story from Thomson/Reuters. There is no author byline on the story, but the bottom of the story on the Newsmax site does attribute the story to Reuters, and the language of the article does not match similar stories written on the site.
"Donald Trump is engaging in extreme rhetoric that promotes division, hate and violence in our country," Michael Tyler, Biden campaign communications director, told reporters on Tuesday ahead of Trump's speech.
"He encourages white nationalists and cheers on the disgusting behavior of the extreme far right," Tyler said.
Trump delivered his speech, titled "Biden's border bloodbath" in the city of Grand Rapids, where police said 25-year-old Ruby Garcia was murdered last month in her car by Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, who she was dating. Ortiz-Vite was in the country illegally, police said.
The murders of Garcia and Riley have allowed Trump's campaign to simultaneously play to fears among some Americans about violent crime and immigration.
While it's difficult to believe that Newsmax is suddenly taking a leftward lean, the use of such a story and such language does lead one to wonder if it's an editorial decision by the editors at Newsmax. Most outlets on the right that covered the remarks have taken a similar stance to the RedState piece linked above - pointing out the lack of context in the left's reaction to Trump's comments.
It would be different if it were, say, folks from the Bulwark or elsewhere who were hitting Trump over this. Those sites claiming to be Republican but opposing Trump (and Republicans in general) at every turn are expected to take his words out of context. But, Newsmax is a different question, and it leads one to wonder if there is wider concern about the comments in other parts of conservative media.
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