Donald Trump defends 'poisoning the blood' comments on migrants at Iowa rally
doubled down on anti-immigrant “blood" purity remarks in front of several thousand supporters in New Hampshire. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country," Trump said in New Hampshire about the record numbers of immigrants coming to the U.S.
without immediate legal status. At Tuesday's rally, he reprised his comments from the weekend that migrants “pour into our country" and lamented what he said was a “border catastrophe." He made no mention of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to disqualify him from the state's ballot under the U.S.
Constitution's insurrection clause, though his campaign blasted out a fundraising email about it during his speech. The former president has long used inflammatory language about immigrants coming to the U.S., dating back to his campaign launch in 2015, when he said immigrants from Mexico are “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists." But Trump has espoused increasingly authoritarian messages in his third campaign, vowing to renew and add to his effort to bar citizens from certain Muslim-majority countries, and to expand “ ideological screening " for people immigrating to the U.S.
He said he would be a dictator on “day one" only, to close the border and increase drilling. In Waterloo Tuesday, Trump's supporters in the crowd said his border policies were effective and necessary, even if he doesn't always say the right thing.
“I don't know if he says the right words all of the time," said 63-year-old Marylee Geist, adding that just because “you're not fortunate enough to be born in this country," doesn't mean "you don't get to come here." “But it should all be done legally," she added. It's about the volume of border crossings and national security, said her
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