Trump defends describing MS-13 gang members as ‘animals’
Describing gang violence inflicted by MS-13 members in chilling and gruesome detail, President Donald Trump vowed Wednesday to make “radical” changes to U.S. aid practices by withholding government assistance from countries whose citizens enter the United States illegally.
“We’re going to work out something where every time somebody comes in from a certain country, we’re going to deduct a rather large amount of money from what we give them in aid — if we give them aid at all,” Trump said during a roundtable discussion on MS-13 on New York’s Long Island attended by federal and local officials.
“We’re looking at our whole aid structure and it’s going to be changed very radically. It’s already started,” he said.
White House officials did not immediately respond to questions about which countries the president was referencing or how far along a plan is — but it’s not the first time he’s made the suggestion.
Trump threatened in February to cut aid from and slap sanctions on countries that refuse to accept nationals the U.S. tries to deport.
“They’ll take ‘em back so fast your head would spin,” he said then.
During the roundtable, Trump and officials who support more stringent border laws, defended the president’s references to MS13 gang members as “animals” as they recounted a litany of hackings, decapitations, bludgeonings and other gruesome crimes that law enforcement authorities blame on the group.
“I called them animals the other day and I was met with rebuke,” Trump said, referencing Democratic criticism. “They said, ‘They’re people.’ They’re not people, these are animals and we have to be very, very tough.”
He singled out House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi, who was among those who lashed out at the comment, which some had interpreted as being directed at a broader swath of illegal immigrants than MS13 members. Pelosi had said that, “when the president of the United States says about undocumented immigrants, ‘These aren’t people. These are animals,’ you have to wonder, does he not believe in the spark of divinity, the dignity and worth of every person?”
Trump, however, accused Pelosi of defending MS-13 and suggested her party would suffer politically for its reaction.
“The other day was actually a great day when they were coming to the defense of MS-13 ... and that was the end of them because nobody, nobody understood it,” he said.
Trump’s “animal” remark,” made at a similar roundtable last week at the White House, came in response to a comment about MS-13. But it was reported by some news organizations without context, sparking a furious blowback that the White House quickly seized on and used to suggest that Democrats were defending members of a gang known for brutal violence.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., was among the attendees who defended Trump’s rhetoric Wednesday. “If you’re not willing to even identify the threat, you have no chance of eliminating it,” he said.
Robert Mickens, the father of Nisa Mickens, who was murdered in 2016 by MS-13 gang members on Long Island, also praised Trump for focusing on the issue and spoke of the pain of losing his daughter.
“For those who don’t know, who haven’t been through this, we have to go through every day. It’s an ongoing struggle,” he said. “It’s not easy for us, especially me, to wake up, look down the hallway, and not see my daughter laying in her bed or me waking her up for school in the morning.”