Soulless Rhetoric & Villainizing
2018
2018-01-11 Trump denounced countries like Haiti, El Salvador, and certain African nations as “shithole” countries during a meeting and complained that the US didn’t receive more immigrants from what he considered better countries like Norway.
https://x.com/VicenteFoxQue/status/951586161931235328
2018-12-15 Tucker Carlson said on his show that immigrants make our country “dirtier” and “poorer”.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/16/business/tucker-carlson-potomac-river
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46610642
2022
2022-04-05 In a JD Vance campaign commercial as an ‘America First Conservative’, he said, “Are YOU a racist? Do you hate Mexicans? The media calls us racist for wanting to build Trump’s wall. They censor us, but it doesn’t change the truth. Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with more illegal drugs, and more Democrat voters pouring into this country. This issue is personal. I nearly lost my mother to the poison coming across our border. No child should grow up an orphan.” [approved by JD Vance. Paid for by JD Vance for Senate Inc.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3qYJoSV0lI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2024
2024-06-22 During a Faith & Freedom conference in Washington D.C., Trump floated the idea of a “migrant UFC” fight.
2024-07-10 During a National Conservatism convention, JD Vance stated, “…look, the thing on immigration is that no one can avoid that it has made our societies poorer, less safe, less prosperous, and less advanced.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-debate-immigration-housing-prices-real-estate-federal-reserve
https://nationalconservatism.org/natcon-4-2024/presenters/sen-jd-vance/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXH1p8_jhc8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2024-09-17 During a campaign stop in Eau Claire, JD Vance was quoted by a local newspaper saying, ”…we’re bankrupting…a lot of hospitals by forcing [them to] provide care for people who don’t have the legal right to be in our country…”. Experts and economists both rejected Vance’s false and sensational claims.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-debate-immigration-housing-prices-real-estate-federal-reserve/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/02/vance-immigration-housing/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2024-10-02 In a transcript of the Walz-Vance debate, JD Vance stated, ”…illegal aliens competing with Americans for scarce homes is one of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country”. Experts and economists both rejected Vance’s false and sensational claims.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/full-vp-debate-transcript-walz-vance-2024/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-debate-immigration-housing-prices-real-estate-federal-reserve/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/02/vance-immigration-housing/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2025 February
2025-02-14 The White House posted a poem on X for Valentines Day: Roses are red - violets are blue - come here illegally - and we’ll deport you.
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1890441976417264027
2025-02-18 The White House released a video called “ASMR: Illegal alien deportation flight”.
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1891922058415603980?lang=en
2025 May
2025-05-01 Stephen Miller claimed that Biden imported a “terrorist army”, that the media covers up rape-torture-and-murder, and blamed due process for the killing of a woman.
2025 June
2025-06-30 Laura Loomer posted on X, “Alligator lives matter. The good news is, alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now”.
https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1939831588902109629?lang=en
2025 July
2025-07-01 Kristi Noem peddled a claim that an immigrant tried to eat their own arm during a deportation flight. Whether the immigrant did or didn’t try to injure themselves or the exact circumstance has not been known, but some fear these claims are more rhetoric to instill fear about immigrants.
2025 August
2025-08-26 Andy Ogles reposted on X from the right-wing satire Babylon Bee featuring a cannon with a man wearing a sombrero loaded into the barrel.
2025 September
2024-09-05 During a campaign rally in Phoenix Arizona, JD Vance said, “…There is a logic to what the Democrats are trying to do. It’s disgusting, but there’s a logic to it. They want illegal aliens to steal everybody’s job, and now they want illegal aliens to steal everybody’s vote.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2024-09-11 JD Vance doubled down on his perpetuating the nonsense that migrants were eating pets in Ohio. During a sit-down interview with Kaitlan Collins on CNN, he stated “When you have a lot of people saying ‘My pets are being abducted’ or ‘Geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us’, this is crazy stuff. And again, whether those exact rumors turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be – Kaitlan, this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in. Health care costs are up. Housing costs are up. Communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed in this small Ohio town. This is what Kamala Harris’s border policies have done. And I think it’s interesting, Kaitlan, that, that the media didn’t care about the carnage brought by these policies until we turned it into a meme about cats”. [see Thought Project section in the main menu under ‘Fallacies’]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2025-09-18 Kristi Noem released a highlight reel of an ICE raid set to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
2025 October
2025-10-02 Trump posted false claims on social media that Democrats want to give healthcare to illegal immigrants.
2025-10-05 Kash Patel posted false video evidence on his X account of the so-called ramming of DHS vehicles by Marimar Martinez, which later turned out to be video from another unrelated vehicular assault. This came to light after video evidence surfaced that DHS was lying about the events concerning Marimar Martinez, who they shot multiple times.
2025-10-14 Border patrol (ICE) posted a video about immigration arrests to the tune of a Michael Jackson song featuring antisemitic slurs. The post had since been taken down but copies were made and shared on X.
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/15/border-patrol-antisemitic-slur-michael-jackson-song
https://x.com/AFpost/status/1978305706018144460
2025-10-27 ICE agents used Halo (game) images in their recruitment tactics. One article reported that the administration traded Halo memes with the GameStop account.
https://mashable.com/article/ice-use-halo-for-social-media-recruitment
https://www.pcmag.com/news/trump-drops-a-halo-meme-gamestop-replies-with-bloated-jd-vance-as-cortana
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1982638578913206632
https://x.com/gamestop/status/1982654845166428607
2025-10-27 DHS posted a meme on X captioned “DESTROY THE FLOOD” join.ice.gov.
https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1982819431894901043
2025-10-29 During an interview on Pod Force One with Miranda Devine JD Vance stated, ”…it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers’.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/jd-vance-totally-acceptable-want-211843082.html
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/vance-seems-think-segregation-acceptable-193006549.html
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jd-vance-neighbors-same-language/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naCsB7WxMBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2025 November
2025-11-27 Trump wrote on social media, “hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for “prey” as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone”. He also made similar posts roughly a week prior. As part of this post, Trump made it a point to attack Governor Tim Walz, calling Minnesota a “hub of money laundering”. During an interview on CNN, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar stated “…this is what he does, and he tries to stoke division and make people hate each other”.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115625429081411360
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115590786862216464
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/30/walz-klobuchar-trump-attack-minnesota-00671132
2025 December
2025-12-02 During a press conference Trump referred to Somali immigrants as “garbage” and said they should be sent back home, stating “we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country”. One news outlet quoted the president as saying, “These are people who do nothing but complain…they complain, and from where they came from they got nothing…when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/02/trump-somali-immigrants-minnesota
2025-12-03 The Trump administration announced a task force specifically targeting Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5631530-trump-targets-minnesota-somali-community/
https://www.house.mn.gov/members/Profile/News/15535/41031
2025-12-04 The DOJ initiated Operation Metro Surge to target Somali immigrants in Minneapolis.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/live-updates/ice-somali-immigrants-minneapolis-st-paul/
2026 March
2026-03-18 Senator Markwayne Mullin – who was selected to replace Kristi Noem as DHS secretary – said he regretted calling Alex Pretti a “deranged individual” during a Senate hearing.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/markwayne-mullin-alex-pretti-deranged-individual-regrets/