Trump’s mass deportation policy would tank the economy, hurt Social Security
Plus, the GOP's candidate for Minnesota's Senate seat believes that 'the bad guys' won the Second World War.
The Guardian has acquired a recording of Donald Trump at an exclusive donor event in Colorado wherein the former president's speech is laced with profanity and disinformation about migrants.
At a closed-door August affair in Aspen, Trump told a crowd — who were required to donate between $25,000 to $500,000 to attend — that leaders of countries from South America and Africa were emptying their prisons and sending convicted felons to the Southern border of the United States.
“We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison’. ‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your fucking business what we did.’ You know why? Because they’re murderers,” Trump told a crowd that would collectively donate $12 million to his campaign.
“These are the toughest people. These people are coming in from Africa, from the Middle East. They’re coming in from all parts of Asia, the bad parts, the parts where they’re rough, and the only thing good is they make our criminals look extremely nice. They make our Hell’s Angels look like the nicest people on earth,” he continued.
The event was attended by a slate of ultra-affluent conservative insiders as well as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and U.S. Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO).
During the back end of his speech, Trump later claimed that a Republican victory in the presidential election was a matter of life and death for the country.
“Look, we gotta win and if we don’t win this country’s going to hell,” Trump said. “You know, there’s an expression, this could be the last election we ever have and it’s an expression that I really believe, and I believe that this could be the last election we ever have.”
Xenophobic rhetoric has always been a cornerstone of Donald Trump’s political efforts, but his most recent campaign has put mass deportations as the North Star of MAGA policy. The Trump-Vance ticket has claimed that everything from lackluster wages to the housing crisis falls on the supposed influx of undocumented immigrants to the United States.
Case in point, during this week’s vice presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) said if elected into office, a second Trump term would be inaugurated with a deportation of a million “illegal” immigrants who have criminal records.
And on the campaign trail, Trump has called for “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Assessments of the economic impact, to say nothing of the moral aspect of such an undertaking, would likely lead to a recession in the United States. If 7 million undocumented workers were deported, according to the Center for American Progress, the GDP of the country would sink rapidly and economic growth would decline by 6%. Other consequences would include a substantial uptick in inflation.
A study released today by the American Immigration Council (AIC) states that going about removing the 11 million people in the country without permanent legal status would be an enormous fiscal undertaking. Per the study, a ten-year plan to detain, legally assess and deport that many people would cost the federal government $315 billion — which the AIC stresses is a conservative estimate. For perspective, a single year of the Trump deportation agenda would double the annual budget of the National Institutes of Health and triple the amount the U.S. spends on child nutrition.
Additionally, this would leave massive holes in local, state and federal budgets because undocumented households contribute billions in municipal taxes and pay into programs like Medicare and Social Security.
“Every American taxpayer would shoulder the fiscal burden of mass deportations — exacerbated by the reduced tax base mass deportation would create — and every American would feel the effects of a devastated labor market,” according to the AIC paper.
This is to say nothing of the sociological cost. According to the study, Trump’s policies would impact the status of legal migrants, uproot families and destroy communities.
“The visibility of a massive deportation operation — whether one-time or constant — would likely change the way in which many Americans viewed their government and could threaten the social fabric by increasing vigilantism and hate crimes,” the study concludes.
Minnesota GOP Senate candidate: ‘The bad guys won in WWII’
By Zach Shaw
As the control of the Senate hangs in the balance, GOP candidates across the country are facing a similar problem: Troubling and bizarre past statements, both in-person and on social media, are coming back to haunt them. But in Minnesota, Royce White is an even more extreme case.
In a tweet from 2022 that has since resurfaced, White claims that “‘bad guys” won the second world war, saying, “The bad guys won in WWII. There were no ‘good guys’ in that war. The controlling interests had a jump ball. If you look closely, you see the link between liberalism and communism in the Allied forces.”
As is known to most, the Allied forces were fighting to defeat the Nazis and eliminate genocidal fascism that had taken hold of much of Europe and Asia, not advancing “controlling interests.” White also erroneously claimed that General George Patton was murdered; in reality, the general died in 1945 from complications from a car crash.
White also has a habit of alienating voters, including members of his own party. In one recent exchange, he called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “RINO Scum.” In another, he called National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines a “RINO & Neocon” and indicated he would “track [Republicans] down and weed [them] out if they aren’t extreme enough.”
In one specific interaction from Monday, White told a potential voter to “pull their skirt down” and that “nobody cares about your preferences,” to which the voter replied “f— you then! You just lost my families support.”
With polls showing White trailing significantly behind incumbent Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D), his campaign faces an uphill battle that is further complicated by his erratic past and incendiary statements. White’s bizarre social media posts, as well as his abrasive interactions with members of both parties, have raised repeated questions not just about his temperament but also his suitability for office.
Heartland Signal has been closely following the former NBA player’s political career since his shift into electoral politics — with some calling him the most “unhinged, tinfoil hat” candidate in recent memory. White has long been a supporter of right-wing “intellectuals” like Jordan Peterson, Alex Jones and Glenn Beck, with him previously hosting a TV show on Jones’ Infowars network.
For the GOP, this race is emblematic of a broader challenge: candidate quality. As Republicans struggle to field competitive candidates in key battleground states, it’s becoming clear that a lack of coherent messaging and a failure to resonate with a majority of suburban voters could be a major liability as they seek to regain control of the Senate. For now, White’s campaign appears unlikely to reverse its downward trajectory.