In an epic confrontation on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, August 16, Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the former president, obliterated reporter Jacqueline Sweet over a video she posted on the platform, In the clip, which came from 2021, JD Vance spoke about immigration and the crime that came with it, and the clip was edited in a somewhat misleading way, ending before Vance spoke about how the communities were able to integrate into America.
The background to the clip is that Sen. Vance was asked about the negatives that can come from large waves of immigration, such as what happened in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with large waves of poor immigrants from countries like Italy and Ireland pouring into America. Vance described the crime problem, also noting that those communities were able to assimilate.
In the interview in which mass immigration came up, Vance spoke about the crime aspect of that mass immigration and how it created problems America had not had much of before the immigration waves. He said, “I think it’s one of these things that’s evolved over time, right? So obviously you had this massive wave of Italian and primarily Italian, Irish, and German immigration, right?”
He continued, describing the crime that the massive waves of immigration brought, saying, “And that had its problems, right? It had its consequences. You had higher crime rates. You had these sort of ethnic enclaves developing. You had interethnic conflict in the country where you really hadn’t had that before.”
Continuing after describing those negatives, Vance went on to say that there were good things that happened and that the large slowdown of immigration. in the 1920s and on let those groups integrate into America and become responsible, new citizens who are part of the American fabric rather than alien groups.
He said, “And so there were downsides to it. Obviously, there were upsides, too. And one of the cool things that we did in the 1920s is we just sort of slowed down immigration a little bit, we let those, those sort of populations who had come to the country as new citizens, really incorporate themselves into the broader American fabric.”
Watch the clip here:
The clip of the interview that Sweet posted on X only showed Sen. Vance saying, regarding the mass immigration issue, “And that had had its problems, right? It had its consequences. You had higher crime rates. You had these sort of ethnic enclaves developing. You had interethnic conflict in the country where you really hadn’t had that.”
Donald Trump Jr. roasted Sweet for not showing the full clip of the interview in which Vance’s comments on mass immigration are presented in context. Doing so and calling out Sweet for blocking people who posted the full clip, he said, “Hey hack – Why are you blocking people for calling you out over dishonestly editing this clip?”
In another clip of Vance speaking about mass immigration, one which came from a speech rather than a podcast, he said, referencing the movie “Gangs of New York” that covers the interethnic conflict that happened as migrants flooded into America in the 19th century, “Has anybody seen the movie “Gangs of New York?.” That is what I’m talking about, with these ethnic enclaves in our country, it can lead to higher crime rates.”
Watch that here:
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