Trump's Birthright Citizenship Stunt Panders to Zealots Like Alleged Pittsburgh Shooter...

[DonViejo]

Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Stunt Panders to Zealots Like Alleged Pittsburgh Shooter Robert Bowers

Instead of turning down the rhetoric that inspired the deadliest anti-Semitic massacre in U.S. history, the president feeds the nativist fringe that inspired it.

Jay Michaelson
10.30.18 2:01 PM ET

Two days after 11 people were massacred by an anti-immigrant zealot, Donald Trump dialed up his anti-immigration rhetoric, proving that he has learned absolutely nothing from the deadliest anti-Semitic incident in American history.

The context was a pre-arranged interview on Monday with a reporter from Axios, in which Trump said he was “thinking about” an executive order to revoke “birthright citizenship,” the 150-year-old policy that any child born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen. It’s meant to stop undocumented and temporary immigrants from having American kids.

Like the lies about the “migrant caravan” (and even the term itself), and like sending troops to the border to protect us against a non-invasion that is not going to happen, the birthright citizenship issue is another example of Trump playing with fire on the question of immigration to fire up his base. Rather than tone down the rhetoric, Trump amps it up.

Contrary to most media coverage, the “proposal to end birthright citizenship” is not a proposal at all, let alone a draft memo or executive order, but merely continued deliberation on the part of White House staff.

It wasn’t not a scoop – it was a setup. As you can see in the video, Trump was noncommittal on the actual proposal – “It’s in the process,” he said – but concluded by complimenting Axios’ reporter Jonathan Swan on knowing about it.

“I didn’t think anybody knew about that but me. I thought I was the only one. Jonathan. I’m impressed.”

“Good guess,” Swan said, tapping at his head.

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