CNN commentator Catherine Rampell became upset at the prospect of Republican Donald Trump winning next month’s election and beginning to deport those who entered the country illegally.
On CNN’s “News Night” broadcast Wednesday, senior political commentator Scott Jennings argued that Trump’s economic, trade and immigration agenda will help the American worker.
“He’s going to extend the tax cuts. He’s going to rein in the federal government and the overburdensome regulatory state, which he can now do because of the Supreme Court, and he’s going to take on these countries that screw American workers. That’s the plan.”
“That’s not the plan. It is not the plan,” Rampell insisted, trying to cut off Jennings.
He continued, “Oh, and by the way, he’s going to crack down on immigration, to the benefit of American workers.”
Rampell, who is also a columnist for The Washington Post, fired back: “He’s going to deport 20 million people. The people who pick your crops. The people who process your meat. The people who, you know, care for your grandmother. The people who serve all sorts of critical functions in this country.”
While it’s true illegal immigrants, as well as seasonal farm workers who enter the country legally, do pick U.S. crops, something tells me if a conservative commentator made the argument Rampell did, he or she would be labeled a xenophobic, narrow-minded bigot.
One responded to Rampell’s comments on social media platform X, writing, “‘The people who pick your crops’ was literally the argument for slavery.”
NEW: Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell gets triggered after CNN’s Scott Jennings and Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary shred her over the economy.
Rampell said illegals can’t be deported because they need to pick crops.
Rampell: “He’s gonna deport 20 million people! The⦠pic.twitter.com/Iel1T1ad8v
â Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 17, 2024
Do you watch CNN?
Rampell continued, asserting, “Yeah, [Trump’s] going to deport a lot of people and that’s going to worsen the economy.”
“He wants 10 percent global tariffs, which would worsen inflation. He wants to deport 20 million people, which would worsen inflation and reduce growth,” she said.
Venture capitalist and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary jumped in, responding to Rampell, “After all that, half of the American population wants that economy back. What do you say to that?”
“I say we should be talking about what the policies are,” Rampell replied.
During his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on various Chinese goods starting in 2018 (reaching as high as 25 percent) and inflation remained low, coming in at 2.4 percent that year and falling to 1.8 percent in 2019 and 1.2 percent in 2020.
The Republican presidential candidate has called for reciprocal trade, meaning if countries impose tariffs or other unfair trade practices on U.S. products, they will meet the same policy for their goods coming into the U.S.
His campaign website highlights fair trade agreements his administration negotiated, including USMCA with Mexico and Canada.
And a reality check for Rampell: Nobody, including Trump, thinks he’s going to deport 20 million people.
He addressed the issue during a Univision town hall in Miami on Wednesday night.
The former president was asked specifically regarding illegal immigrant farm workers, “If you deport these people, who would do that job and what price would we pay for food?”
When asked about hypothetically deporting farm workers, Trump makes clear that criminals are the priority, and emphasizes an orderly immigration system pic.twitter.com/MQkReTTSVv
â Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 17, 2024
“We had people coming in under my administration, and they were coming in legally. They were coming in through a system, that we had, which was great,” Trump responded.
“We have to have a lot of people come into our country. We just want them to come in legally through a system,” he continued. “Because they [the Biden administration] have released hundreds of thousands of people that are murders, drug dealers, terrorists. … Nobody knows who they are, where they come from and the people that are most against it are the Hispanic people.”
“The problem with this administration is they’ve totally lost control,” Trump contended. “We’re going to make it so people can come into our country legally.”
So Trump’s concern clearly is the criminal element, and they will be the priority for deportation. His running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, said precisely that during the vice presidential debate earlier this month.
Jennings dealt with the reality of the Trump agenda, which the nation has already experienced, and Rampell was off in some alarmist la-la land, often referred to as Trump Derangement Syndrome.
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