Trump-Vance Intentionally Blurs The Line Between Illegal And Legal Immigrants

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

No One Is Safe

The Trump-Vance ticket’s unbridled racist attacks on Haitian immigrants in Ohio – as a proxy for attacking immigrants and people of color everywhere – continue unabated deep into the second week of serving as a centerpiece of a campaign that was searching for a way to gain traction against Kamala Harris.

In a troubling sign of how the xenophobia at play here may be yoked to the powers of the federal government in a Trump II presidency, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH, ironically) insisted on continuing to call the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio “illegal aliens” even though they are legal immigrants.

When confronted by a questioner about the Haitians being in the country legally, Vance played to the crowd and, with stubborn grandiosity, stuck to his false claim denying them their legal status:

This is just shocking. Mr. Vance is blatantly calling a legal action illegal. I’ve studied my whole life how democracies break down. This is how it happens folks. I hope he really doesn’t believe this. Politicians say a lot of crazy things during elections. I fear he might. https://t.co/7VDfLWFXgi

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) September 18, 2024

As NPR noted, Vance’s remarks had the additional effect of calling into question whether a not insignificant portion of the immigrant community would lose their legal statuses if Trump wins. Combined with the specter of Trump’s threat of mass deportations if he wins, the rhetoric that the Republican campaign is staking the race on continues to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration in a way that puts immigrants of all statuses at risk.

In other developments:

• TPM’s Nicole Lafond: Ohio Republican Leaders Gently Beg Trump To Please Not Visit Springfield
• Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife have traveled to Haiti at least 25 times and helped found a school there named after their late daughter.
• Adam Serwer: The Real Reason Trump and Vance Are Spreading Lies About Haitians
• WSJ: How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True

By The Numbers: Pennsylvania

• WaPo poll: Harris leads Trump in Pennsylvania 48%-47% among both likely voters and registered voters.
• NYT/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll: Harris leads Trump 50%-46% among likely voters in Pennsylvania.
• NYT/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll: Harris and Trump are tied 47%-47% among likely voters nationwide

2024 Ephemera

• The national Teamsters union is declining to issue an endorsement in the presidential race for the first time in almost three decades.
• More than 100 former GOP national security officials and members of Congress endorsed Kamala Harris, calling Donald Trump “unfit to serve again as president.”
• The Guardian: “Emails obtained by the Guardian reveal a behind-the-scenes network of county election officials throughout Georgia coordinating on policy and messaging to both call the results of November’s election into question before a single vote is cast, and push rules and procedures favored by the election denial movement.”

‘Unwelcome and Unacceptable Malicious Activity’

AP: Iranian hackers tried but failed to interest Biden’s campaign in stolen Trump info, FBI says

TPM Exclusive

A trio of Democratic senators on the relevant committees – Judiciary and Intel – have told TPM they favor a Senate investigation into murky claims surfaced last month by the WaPo that Egypt allegedly funneled $10 million to Donald Trump to boost his 2016 campaign – an allegation that was being probed by federal investigators until they were reportedly stymied by the Trump DOJ.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have moved to unseal court documents related to the story.

Oh …

ProPublica: “Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the controversial jurist who tossed out the classified documents criminal case against Donald Trump in July, failed to disclose her attendance at a May 2023 banquet funded by a conservative law school.”

House GOP Is Doing House GOP Things

Punchbowl, with the punchy lede:

At the outset of September, House Republican leaders told us they were going to spend the weeks before the election dividing Democrats and uniting the GOP.

But in forcing a vote on a six-month CR with the SAVE Act — a move that failed badly on the House floor Wednesday night — Speaker Mike Johnson succeeded in spending a week dividing his party and lessening his already minuscule leverage with the Senate.

Sign Of The Times

A bipartisan group of four members of Congress are proposing a constitutional amendment to ensure continuity of government in the event of a mass casualty attack on the national legislature.

For The Record

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) issued an executive order banning “conversion therapy” for minors.

Riveting

The NYT has the best rundown of Israel’s staggering one-two punch against Hezbollah using exploding pagers Tuesday then exploding walkie-talkies Wednesday.

Ghosts Of Joe McCarthy

This may be the most outrageous conduct I’ve ever seen from a member of Congress in a committee hearing.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) has patented his country bumpkin schtick – and believe me when I tell you it’s pure schtick – but it wore thin a long time ago. His atrocious behavior Wednesday in relentlessly and falsely besmirching the leader of an Arab American group was neither home-spun nor folksy.

It was racist, inflammatory, intellectually dishonest, and put Maya Berry and Arab Americans everywhere at personal risk of physical harm by labeling them as terrorist sympathizers on the basis of their religion and ethnicity:

.@SenJohnKennedy: You support Hamas, do you not?@AAIUSA's Maya Berry: Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support…You asking the executive director of the Arab American Institute that question very much puts the focus on the issue of hate in our country? pic.twitter.com/h7WU3ePLOu

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 17, 2024

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