Patrick calls Pelosi a ‘slaveholder’ for her position on border crime
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is upping his partisan rhetoric on crime at the border, labeling U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “slaveholder” who is “almost treasonous” because of her positions on the issue.
“It’s almost treasonous what she’s doing — selling out this country,” Patrick said of Pelosi Wednesday night on the FOX News Channel. “I view her as nothing more than a slaveholder because she’s in charge of not helping these people, these poor young girls.”
Earlier in the interview, Patrick talked about how gangs and cartels are engaged in sex trafficking along the Mexican border, calling it a form of modern day slavery that forces immigrant women into prostitution.
“This is an example of absurdity bordering on nonsense,” said Pelosi spokesman Jorge Aguilar. “Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick knows and should act better. His comments, which are beneath the dignity of the office he holds, are just another reason why Texans are fleeing the Republican Party in droves.”
Patrick’s Wednesday comments were the continuation of a theme that he raised earlier Wednesday while talking to reporters in Austin.
“We talk about what happened in this nation in slavery, 150, 175 years ago,” he said, again referring to sex trafficking on the border. “What’s happening today, right today, and the Democrats won’t do anything about it.”
Last week, Patrick used an appearance with President Donald Trump in San Antonio to talk about the skeletal remains of women, children and the elderly who have died after crossing the border in remote stretches of Texas.
“Where are the people in Washington to stand up for these children, these women, these senior citizens?” Patrick told reporters in the Alamo Heights area of San Antonio. “Let them come see the bodies. Let them come see the skeletons.”
In the Fox News appearance, Patrick was responding to a CNN interview in which Pelosi faulted Trump for blaming immigrants for America’s problems.