Ohio Senator and Republican vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance, in an interview on Sunday morning, blasted ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz’s criticism of Donald Trump’s comments on immigration, days after the former president had claimed that Aurora, Colo., has been “invaded and conquered” by illegal immigrants.
Trump’s claim that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has taken over apartment complexes was labeled “grossly exaggerated” by Aurora’s mayor, Raddatz pointed out.
“Well, Martha, you just said the mayor said they were exaggerated. That means that there’s gotta be some element of truth here,” Vance said. “Of course, President Trump was actually in Aurora, Colorado, talking to people on the ground, and what we’re hearing is people are terrified by what has happened with some of these Venezuelan gangs —”
Raddatz interrupted the candidate.
“Senator Vance, I’m going to stop you because I know exactly what happened. I’m going to stop you. The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes, and the mayor said, ‘Our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns.’ A handful of problems,” Raddatz said.
“Only, Martha? Do you hear yourself?” Vance responded. “Only a handful of apartment complexes were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem, not Kamala Harris’s open border? Americans are so fed up with what’s going on, and they have every right to be,” Vance responded. “I really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting because you seem to be more focused with nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.”
Aurora officials confirmed in September that ten Tren de Aragua gang members were identified in a criminal investigation as suspects involved in felony menacing, assault, motor-vehicle theft, and numerous shootings at apartment complexes. A property manager who oversaw the buildings said that the gang had “taken over” the complexes, according to the Denver Post.
During a campaign stop in Colorado this week, Trump proposed “Operation Aurora,” which he said would use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove from the country illegal immigrants who have gang ties. The candidate also advocated that the death penalty be used against illegal immigrants who kill an American citizen or law-enforcement officer. Like his comments about the immigrant population in Springfield, Ohio, in which Trump said that Haitian immigrants were eating residents’ pets, the former president’s recent rhetoric about illegal immigrants in Colorado has been criticized heavily by media.
“We will send elite squads of ICE, Border Patrol, and federal law-enforcement officers to arrest and deport every last illegal-alien gang member until there is not a single one left in this country,” Trump said in Colorado.