Former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka on Thursday claimed that the comments President Trump made in which he called Mexican immigrants “rapists” was “fake news.”
“This is also a man who launched a presidential campaign on the back of a racist birther conspiracy against the former president, who called Mexicans rapists,” Hill.TV co-host Krystal Ball said.
“That’s fake news, my dear. … He said that they don’t send their best and some of them are rapists and criminals,” Gorka said during the tense exchange.
When Ball continued to press him further on Trump’s comments, Gorka said: “Don’t do it, you’re doing fake news – Ladies and gentlemen, fake news.”
During his campaign announcement in 2015, Trump described Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and as “bringing crime” into the U.S.
The president recently appeared to double-down on these comments during a rally in Pennsylvania this month, saying his criticism on Mexican immigrants was “peanuts” compared to the truth.
“They said, ‘Did he say this? Did he say that?’ ” Trump told the crowd. “Guess what: What I said is peanuts compared to what turns out to be the truth. It’s peanuts.”
Gorka also defended Trump’s “birther” claims, saying “Donald Trump doesn’t have a racist molecule in his body.”
Trump repeatedly touted the idea that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, although at one point he acknowledged that “President Barack Obama was born in the United States — period.”
At the time, President Obama dismissed Trump’s claims, joking ”I was pretty confident about where I was born.”
— Tess Bonn
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