“Animals” isn’t a strong enough word to describe illegal immigrant gang members who have brutally raped and murdered their victims, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday during the daily press briefing.
Liberals and illegal immigrant apologists were outraged when President Donald Trump panned MS-13 gang members as “animals” during a White House roundtable discussion Wednesday with California officials opposed to their state’s sanctuary policies.
After Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said she was frustrated with how the state law hamstrings her county’s ability to crack down on MS-13 gang members and other illegal immigrant criminals, Trump replied, “These aren’t people. These are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a rate that’s never happened before.”
Mainstream media members and Democrats erupted in typical fashion after Trump made his comments and twisted them, claiming Trump was referring to all illegal immigrants as “animals.” But Sanders set the record straight after CBS News’ Steven Portnoy broached the topic during Thursday’s press briefing.
“I just want to ask you because so many people in the country have been talking about it in the last 24 hours — what did the president mean when he said some immigrants are not people, they’re animals?” Portnoy asked Sanders.
Sanders rebuked Portnoy for skewing the president’s comments and leaving out the proper context.
“The president was very clearly referring to MS-13 gang members who enter the country illegally and whose deportations are hamstrung by our laws,” she said. “This is one of the most vicious and deadly gangs, that operates by the motto of ‘Rape, Control, Kill.'”
“If the media and liberals want to defend MS-13, they’re more than welcome to,” Sanders continued. “Frankly, I don’t think the term that the president used was strong enough. MS-13 has done heinous acts.”
The press secretary noted that “it took an animal” to “stab a man 100 times and decapitate him and rip his heart out,” referring to the crime committed by MS-13 member Miguel Angel Lopez-Abrego in Maryland in November 2017.
“It took an animal to beat a woman they were sex trafficking with a bat 28 times, indenting part of her body,” Sanders said, pointing to another Maryland case from January 2018 involving Ivan Alexis Peña-Rodriguez, Yervin Josue Romero-Rivera and Miguel Angel Áyala-Rivera.
“And it took an animal to kidnap, drug and rape a 14-year-old Houston girl,” she noted, referring to a March 2017 case involving Miguel Angel Alvarez-Flores and Diego Alexander Hernandez-Rivera.
Related: Left Freaks Out as Trump Calls Bloody MS-13 Gangbangers ‘Animals’
“Frankly, I think that the term ‘animal’ doesn’t go far enough,” Sanders concluded. “And I think that the president should continue to use his platform and everything he can do under the law to stop these types of horrible, horrible, disgusting people.”
Trump also set the record straight and ripped reporters when he was asked about his “animals” comment Thursday.
“You know I’m referring to the MS-13 gangs that are coming in, and I was talking about the MS-13,” Trump said. “And if you look a little bit further on in the tape you’ll see that. So I’m actually surprised that you’re asking this question ’cause most people got it right.”
“I refer to them as animals and, guess what, I always will,” Trump added.
PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.
(photo credit, article image: MS13 Graffiti, Superimposed, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Walking the Tracks)
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