Donald Trump revived his racist smears of Haitians during a palsy chat with Sean Hannity last night – and “pro-immigration” Hannity was not just fine with it, he all but asked for it.
Before Hannity prodded Trump to attack immigrants, he lied, saying that Trump “found a way to build the 500 miles of wall” along the Mexican border. In fact, Trump only built 47 miles of new wall, the other 452 miles replaced existing structures.
Then, after insisting he’s “pro-immigration,” Hannity tossed a softball to Trump that was obviously designed to elicit an anti-immigrant response.
HANNITY: Now I'm for legal immigration, all for it, my grandparents came from Ireland. I think you know my family story. And, you know, they had no money in their pocket, they were broke, and my parents grew up very poor.
I'm pro-immigration. Is it wrong to ask for a security check to make sure you don't have radical associations in the middle of a pandemic? Should we not give preferential treatment to people that don't respect our law? Should they at least have a COVID test, a health check?
Is it wrong to say that if we're going to invite you into our country, we don't care where you come from, but you've got to be able to provide for yourself and you won't be a financial burden on the American people. That seems like -- like pretty fair conditions. Would you support that?
Notice how Hannity seemed to excuse his own (white) family’s penniless immigration but thinks today’s (Black and brown) immigrants should have to prove they “won’t be a financial burden?”
Trump seemed to have missed the financial part and went straight for the more overt racism:
TRUMP: Well, you have to support that. And for everybody else they have to go through it, but if they just happen to walk in, they don't have to do any of the things that were supposed to be done. And, you know, there's one other thing that nobody talks about, so we have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti. Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem.
AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem. So, hundreds of thousands of people are coming into our country. And if you look at the stats, if you look at the numbers, if you look at just -- take a look at what's happening in Haiti, a tremendous problem with AIDS. Many of those people will probably have AIDS and they're coming into our country. And we don't do anything about it. We let everybody come in. Sean, it's like a death wish. It's like a death wish for our country.
FACT CHECK: From Insider:
Contrary to [Trump's] assertions, the prevalence of HIV among Haitian adults aged 15 to 49 is around 1.9%, according to data from the United Nations. While that's higher than the global rate of 0.7%, reports say Haiti's HIV prevalence rate has declined significantly in recent decades.
Yet “pro-immigration” Hannity didn’t challenge a word from the mouth of his Bedtime BFF. It's not in the video below, but his response is in the Fox transcript.
HANNITY: Well, obviously, it seems that the Democrats, it's a top priority for them because they want to offer -- you know, it's very interesting, I pointed out that so many countries actually sell citizenship. You can buy - - if you want to spend $2.5 million, you can buy citizenship into places like Cyprus. You can buy citizenship.
Justin Baragona pointed out that Trump has a known history of ethnic smears against Haitians:
This is far from the first time that Trump has described Haiti and its residents in demeaning and ugly terms, all while resurrecting the AIDS panic to besmirch them. It was reported in Dec. 2017 that Trump ranted to his advisers about Haitian immigrants receiving visas, grumbling that they “all have AIDS.”
The following January, meanwhile, Trump reportedly asked lawmakers “why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here,” specifically pointing to Haiti. Instead, according to reports, the then-president suggested the United States admit more immigrants from places like Norway.
So when Hannity insists he’s “pro-immigration” it’s almost as if he only means white, European immigration.
You can watch it below, from the October 7, 2021 Hannity.
I wonder if Trump is becoming aware that the idea that migrants are carrying Covid-19 is credible only for the most credulous of the faithful. Next ailment to be dusted off will probably be Ebola: not a credible idea either as Ebola kills within a few days.
No-vaxxers should (but won’t) take note that the Ebola vaccine seems to be working rather well. The no-vax movement is a faith, a monument to wilful ignorance.