During a conversation between MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend, co-host Michael Steele, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts on Saturday, June 22, Townsend sounded off on Steele for using the term “illegal immigrant” in the debate when asking Roberts to clarify his position on such immigrants.
That incident happened when Steele began to ask, “What is the difference between an illegal immigrant, who, unfortunately, engages in that activity?” Before he could even finish with the question, Sanders-Townsend, a former aide of Sen. Bernie Sanders, interrupted and scolded him. She snapped, “I want to be clear; we don’t use the term illegal. They’re undocumented individuals.”
Roberts, who has helped push the Heritage Foundation away from its Conservative, Inc., Establishment Republican leanings and toward a sort of MAGA conservative, or even paleoconservative, direction in recent years, wasn’t having it with the former Sen. Sanders aide. He snidely and funnily remarked, “That’s sweet. They’re illegal aliens.”
Steele, in any case, took the scolding from Sanders-Townsend and said, correcting himself with the more politically correct language, “Undocumented individuals.” Continuing, Steele then accused Roberts of, when he pointed to murders committed by illegal immigrants, unfairly smearing all illegal immigrants. He said, “What you’re saying is because you have this instance of individuals behaving badly then that’s a reflection of every individual in that community.”
Joining in with the praising of illegal immigrants, or at least not accusing them of being more predisposed toward crime, Sanders-Townsend alleged that, really, they’re less likely to commit crimes than American citizens. She said, making that claim, “In Texas, undocumented immigrants were 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime.”
Roberts, again not having it, fired back, referring to the murder of Laken Riley at the hands of an illegal immigrant, “Tell that to the survivors of these people.” Continuing, he insisted, “Tell that to the survivors of the young lady killed in Georgia. What do you tell the parents of those people, those young girls who were killed?”
Sanders-Townsend again tried to attack him for pointing out those crimes, saying, “You are weaponizing a horrific murder to smear 11 million people.” Roberts fired back that, rather, the state has been weaponized against ordinary people by the leftist Biden Administration. He said, “That is a laughable assertion. What Joe Biden is doing is weaponizing the entire government against every American.”
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Also during the interview, Roberts described how a conservative presidential administration could handle mass deportations of illegal immigrants, saying, when asked how they could do so, “Well, first of all, we need to close the border. And secondly, we need to have the biggest mass deportation system ever in the history of America because it is unjust and illegal and evil that more than 10 million illegal aliens have come to this country. It’s imperative that we send those people back, invite them back to come through the legal system. We love immigrants and heritage, but we also love the rule of law.”
Watch Roberts argue with the leftists on MSNBC here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video