Shortly before a federal judge stayed the deportations of hundreds of immigrants on Saturday evening, Donald Trump’s most loyal cable news defender was on CNN sharing some “alternative facts” about the discriminatory policy.
Jeffrey Lord began by contrasting President George W. Bush’s “negligence” before the September 11th attacks with the “profile in courage” that President Trump is supposedly presenting in his decision to ban refugees and immigrants trying to enter the United States from a handful of Muslim-majority countries.
But then, he went further. “If George W. Bush had instituted the measures that Donald Trump is instituting now, 9/11, A, would never have happened, according to the critic,” Lord said. “And, B, you would have had all these complaints from people exactly as you're complaining now, that they're being kept out of the United States and this is terrible.” He continued to say, “I can’t tell you how much I respect Donald Trump for doing this.”
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CNN host Poppy Harlow was quick to point out a fatal flaw with Lord’s assertion. “If that is the argument you're making, then why does this ban not include any of the four countries where the 9/11 hijackers came from?” she asked. “Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Lebanon and Egypt.”
In addition to Syria, the list of countries on Trump’s executive order are Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Other countries, where Trump has business ties, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, were conveniently left out.
“The other key part of all of this is, why is it that you cannot point to, nor can the Trump administration point to, a single terror attack carried out by a Syrian refugee in the United States?” Harlow asked Lord.
When Lord replied by saying “the world is a very small place” and cited terror attacks in France as evidence, Harlow noted that those attackers did not go through the same two-year vetting process that is in place for refugees coming into the U.S. “You cannot compare the two,” she said.
No matter how hard Trump and his loyal lapdogs try, they cannot justify action that so blatantly flies in the face of American values.
