Trump ditches tax speech for rant on illegal immigrants

DONALD Trump tossed aside a speech on tax reform yesterday in order to rant about illegal immigration instead.

The US President said his prepared speech was ‘ boring’ and instead defended calling illegal immigrants ‘rapists’ – saying women heading through Mexico towards the american border were being ‘raped at levels never seen before’.

Speaking in West Virginia, Mr Trump said: ‘This was going to be my remarks – it would have taken about two minutes, but what the hell – that would have been a little boring.’

Tossing a sheet of paper covered with text into the audience, he added: ‘Come on. We have to tell it like it is.’

The President had caused uproar in his 2016 campaign by denouncing illegal immigrants, saying: ‘They’re bringing drugs.

‘They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. and some, I assume, are good people.’

But he said use of the word ‘rapists’ had now been borne out by a new report. ‘Yesterday, it came out, this journey coming up, women are raped at levels nobody’s ever seen before,’ he said. His critics ‘don’t want to mention that’, he claimed.

The White House said the President had been referring to a newspaper report about the plight of migrants travelling from Honduras in a caravan heading for the US.

The la Times article did not accuse immigrants of rape but reported that ‘robberies, rapes and assaults – perpetrated by smugglers, cartel members and Mexican immigration agents – are common’.

Mr Trump said a major drawback of illegal immigration was that it was impossible to know the background of people crossing the border. They could be thugs, killers or murderers, he said.

Citing ultra-violent Central american gang MS-13, Mr Trump said US towns were ‘being taken over by thugs’ who ‘cut people up’ with knives because a bullet is ‘too quick’ for their victims. He reiterated his plans for a border wall and said the US military would build some of it.