Vice President Mike Pence is trotted out only when Trump’s lies are piling up and need some kind of support from others in his administration, and the VP seems more than willing to play that role. On Tuesday’s CBS This Morning, Pence sat for an interview with Hallie Jackson and repeated all of Trump’s lies from the past week and throughout the government shutdown.
60,000 people are now attempting to come into our country illegally every month. That's more than 2,000 a day. The vast majority of those people now are families and unaccompanied children, and it simply is overwhelming the ability of our customs and border patrol to address it. pic.twitter.com/mPEPWl8KSO
— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) January 8, 2019
‘That’s more than 2,000 a day. But what’s unique about it, Hallie, and why The Washington Post has even called it a bona fide emergency, is because the vast majority of those people now are families and unaccompanied children and it’s simply overwhelming the ability of our Customs and Border Patrol to address it.’
The CBP, who actually records apprehensions at the southern border, shows that the true number is around 850 per day, not 2,000. What’s more, those apprehensions are at an 18-year low.
Of course, that wasn’t Pence’s only lie. The interview was full of them. For instance, his claims about the dangers of terrorism at the southern border have also been debunked.
The congress should do its job and come to the table. The fact is what we heard over the weekend is Democrats are not even willing to negotiate until @POTUS reopens the government. The American people deserve better than that. pic.twitter.com/Xbr1pA1gCH
— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) January 8, 2019
Pence also claimed that “special-interest aliens” are presenting a threat that requires a steel fence to protect Americans from harm.
‘Last year alone on the southern border, 3,000 special-interest aliens were apprehended trying to come into our country. Those are individuals whose travel patterns or backgrounds represent the need for additional screening and represent a potential security threat to the United States of America. There are two different categories, and they often get conflated.’
While the definition of a “special-interest terrorist” has changed over the years, it is most commonly used to refer to immigrants who come to the U.S. from countries that have produced terrorists before. According to the Cato Institute:
‘These definitions could apply to nearly every country in the world, as just about every major country has ‘produced’ or ‘exported’ at least one terrorist. With several exceptions, the lists have consisted primarily of countries with large Muslim populations. The designated countries have changed repeatedly over the years.’
If all countries apprehended travelers using that definition, American citizens would never be allowed to travel outside the country. After all, we’ve produced plenty of terrorists right here at home.
Last year, 17K individuals w/ criminal histories were apprehended at our southern border. Billions of dollars of narcotics flow through our southern border. 90% of all heroin that comes to the US that claims the lives of 300 Americans every week comes through our southern border. pic.twitter.com/hF7inwdJ0b
— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) January 8, 2019
Perhaps most egregious was Pence’s lie about the number of suspected terrorists, those whose names appear on a terrorist database. Pence claimed that more than 4,000 were apprehended at the southern border in the past year. The most updated data from the CBP discounts that.
‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered only six immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border whose names were in a federal database of known or suspected terrorists, contradicting earlier White House claims that nearly 4,000 suspected terrorists were stopped at the country’s southern border…By contrast, the CBP encountered 91 people at the U.S.-Canada border whose names were on the federal list, with 41 of them non-U.S. citizens or residents, NBC said.’
Is President Trump going to declare a national emergency in tonight’s prime-time address? @halliejackson asks @VP Mike Pence pic.twitter.com/4Tm9TOR2L4
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 8, 2019
When confronted with these facts and asked why anyone would trust President Trump after he has offered all of these lies to the American people and sent his own administration officials out to repeat them, Pence insisted that Americans don’t really care.
‘The American people aren’t as concerned about the political debate as they are concerned about what’s really happening.’
What’s “really happening” isn’t even close to what the president, vice president, chief of staff, or Department of Homeland Security are telling us.
Featured image screenshots via YouTube
H/T: RawStory
