Trump's Long, Rambling Speech Cranked Up Anti-Migrant Rhetoric

Donald Trump’s 2024 RNC speech was long.

Like Fidel Castro long.

It was also full of falsehoods. (And if you need fact-checks, you can go here, here or especially here.)

His speech rambled. Like 78-year-old man ramble.

What started as a call for unity went down a path I am still trying to figure out. It was the “longest televised acceptance speech ever” in the history of American presidential politics, as POLITICO noted.

The long, rambling speech did little to “tone down” the rhetoric when it came to migrants, Latinos and Latin America. Here are snippets of what Trump said:

Today, our cities are flooded with illegal aliens. Americans are being squeezed out of the labor force and their jobs are taken. By the way, you know who’s taking the jobs, the jobs that are created? One hundred and seven percent of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens.

And you know who’s being hurt the most by millions of people pouring into our country? The Black population and the Hispanic population. Because they’re taking the jobs from our Black population, our Hispanic population. And they’re also taking them from unions. The unions are suffering because of it.

Brandon Judd. Border Patrol. ICE. ICE goes out. You have to see what ICE does with M.S. 13. You have, these, these are probably the worst gang and ICE goes in there. And I know a lot of people in these rows here. And they’re very tough people. But they don’t want to do this job. They’ll go into a pack of M.S. 13 killers. They’re the worst, probably the worst gangs in the world. We have thousands of them. I moved thousands and thousands out in my four years. We moved them out. And it was a pleasure, but ICE would go right into a pack of these killers. And you see fist flying, you see everything flying and they take them. They put them in a paddy wagon. They take them back and they get them out of our country. And the other countries weren’t accepting them back. And I called up and I said tell them that we’re not giving them economic aid any more. And the next day I got calls from all these countries that were terminated. Billions of dollars we spend on economic aid to countries that does us frankly no good. And the next day I was called by everybody, I couldn’t take all the calls.

“Sir, sir, what’s the problem?”

I said, “You won’t take your killers back that you sent in caravans into America. You won’t take them back.”

“Well sir, if you’d like us to, we would give very serious consideration to doing that.”

In 24 hours, they were being taken back. For years and years when I first came in, they said President Obama tried to get them to go back and they wouldn’t accept them. They’d put planes on the runway so you couldn’t land the plane. They’d close the roads so you couldn’t take the buses; they’d all have to turn back.

As soon as they said no more economic aid of any kind to any country that does that, they called back and they said, “Sir, it would be our great honor to take M.S. 13. We love them very much. We love them very much, sir. We’ll take them back.”

(Sidenote: these next two sections have several false claims, according to PoliticFact)

The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country. They are coming in from every corner of the earth, not just from South America, but from Africa, Asia, Middle East. They’re coming from everywhere. They’re coming at levels that we’ve never seen before. It is an invasion indeed, and this administration does absolutely nothing to stop them.

They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from jails. They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums. I, you know the press is always on because I say this. Has anyone seen “The Silence of the Lambs”? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’d love to have you for dinner. That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums. And terrorists at numbers that we’ve never seen before. Bad things are going to happen.

Meanwhile, our crime rate is going up, while crime statistics all over the world are going down. Because they’re taking their criminals and they’re putting them into our country. A certain country, and I happen to like the president of that country very much, but he’s been getting great publicity because he’s a wonderful shepherd of the country.

In Venezuela, Caracas, high crime, high crime. Caracas, Venezuela, really a dangerous place. But not anymore, because in Venezuela, crime is down 72 percent. In fact, if they would ever in this election, I hate to even say that, we will have our next Republican convention in Venezuela because it will be safe. Our cities, our cities will be so unsafe we won’t be able, we will not be able to have it there.

In El Salvador, murders are down 70 percent. Why are they down? Now, he would have you convinced that because he’s trained murderers to be wonderful people, no. They’re down because they’re sending their murderers to the United States of America. This is going to be very bad. And bad things are going to happen.

And you’re seeing all the time. That’s why, to keep our family safe, the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country. Even larger than that of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, from many years ago. You know, he was a moderate but he believed very strongly in borders. He had the largest deportation operation we’ve ever had.

Trump’s speech did include examples of crimes committed by migrants. Nobody is disputing that human beings are complicated people, bu just so you know, there is “no migrant crime surge.”

CHC’s BOLD PAC Organization Endorses Biden

On Friday morning, BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, issued the following endorsement statement for Joe Biden:

“President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have delivered for the Latino community and CHC BOLD PAC is proud to endorse them for re-election. From historic investments in our infrastructure system to expanding access to affordable health care, they have championed policies that lifted up our families and communities,” said BOLD PAC Chairwoman Linda Sánchez. “This administration has led with working families in mind and shown an unwavering commitment to Latinos. There is so much work left to do and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Another Trump presidency would be disastrous to the Latino community across the country. Make no mistake, Latinos nationwide will bear the brunt of the consequences of a second Trump presidency and BOLD PAC will remain laser-focused on doing what it takes to ensure that he remains a one-term president.

“It is clear that Latino voters will decide the margin of victory in competitive races up and down the ballot this cycle, from California and New Mexico to Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Nebraska. BOLD PAC’s mission centers on electing Latinos to Congress and mobilizing the Latino community across the country to win in battleground states and districts. We will continue to focus on ensuring that the Latino community understands the stakes in this election—our rights, our freedoms, and our very democracy are on the line. BOLD PAC is investing in targeted outreach and strategic campaigns so that Latino voters mobilize for Democrats up and down the ballot this cycle and power President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to victory. We look forward to mobilizing our community to support their re-election and to build on the accomplishments of the past four years. Pa’lante!”

Of course, the entire Biden story will dominate the next few days.

What We’re Reading Today

All Those Emmy Nominations for Latinas: Our friends at LatinaMediaCo published an excellent overview of all the Latinas who earned Emmy nominations this week. Special props to Liza Colón-Zayas of The Bear because her character is pretty amazing, and so is the show. (Story here)

Other Latino arts organizations took to social media to celebrate all the Latino and Latina nominees.

I am also super thrilled about Nava Mau’s Emmy nomination for her stellar work in Baby Reindeer. Melinna Bobadilla and I had a chance to interview Nava back in the day.

Happy weekend. The Latino Newsletter will be back on Monday.

Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder and interim publisher of The Latino Newsletter.