JD Vance couldn’t muster up a defense of Donald Trump’s repeated mischaracterizations of migrant issues in Aurora, Colorado, on Sunday, so he resorted to a familiar one for a successful author: semantics.
This Week host Martha Raddatz questioned Vance about Trump’s Springfield, Ohio-esque assailment of the town and the subsequent pushback by its Republican mayor Mike Coffman. Trump had claimed the city was “conquered” by Venezuelan gangs, while Coffman said Trump’s descriptions “have been grossly exaggerated and have unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety.”
“He’s making these statements that the mayor is flat-out disputing,” Raddatz said, asking whether he supported the former president spewing the false rhetoric.
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But instead of answering the question, Vance tried to find a silver lining in the mayor’s words. “You just said the mayor said they were ‘exaggerated,’” Vance said. “That means there’s gotta be some element of truth here.”
Vance tried to claim Trump had heard on-the-ground concerns, but Raddatz wasn’t having it: “I’m going to stop you ‘cause I know exactly what happened,” she said.
She explained that police only found a “handful” of problems related to gangs at apartment complexes in Aurora, and city officials said they had been handled. Vance, again, tried to argue semantics and attacked Raddatz for latching onto the comments the former president of the United States made to a large group of people swayed by his words.
“You seem to be more focused with nit-picking 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,” Vance said.
But Raddatz would not put up with Vance’s side-stepping and attacks, opting to end the discussion. “Let’s just end that with a, ‘did not invade or take over the city,’ as Donald Trump said,” Raddatz said.
