On Thursday night’s All In, the media’s mangling of President Trump’s description of immigrant gang members as “animals” was buried under a flood of hyperbole about genocide from NPR Latino USA host and executive producer Maria Hinojosa. Somehow, Hinojosa cartooned Trump into saying every foreign-born person in America is an “animal” (including his wife), and then wildly compared his statement to the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis.
So much for NPR as your taxpayer-funded oasis of sanity. Hayes began the segment “if you heed the Republican Party suggestion and take a minute to watch the full context of Trump's comment yesterday which you should do, what you might discover is the President really likes to conflate all immigration issues and immigrants with violent criminality.”
CHRIS HAYES: To talk more about the President's dehumanizing rhetoric, I'm joined by Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak and Maria Hinojosa, anchor and executive producer of NPR's Latino USA. Maria, you were shaking your head during that clip. Your thoughts?
MARIA HINOJOSA, NPR: So, Chris, look, I'm going to remain calm, right, because we`re on national television. But seriously, as somebody who was not born in this country, and I refuse to allow this president to kind of define good immigrant, bad immigrant because the litmus test at this point is simply that people who were not born in this country are animals.
So I'll remain calm, but seriously our hair should be on fire! Because I was in Rwanda and so I spoke to journalists who spoke to me me about what happened there and how the Tutsis were referred to as cockroaches. So the terms that people use really have a connection. I mean, there`s such a clear connection to what the president is saying.
The NPR star tried to suggest against all contrary facts that there are no gang members among the illegal immigrants, and crime has nothing to do with immigrants:
So, first of all, there are no gang members that are coming here in droves to seek refuge, OK, these are women and children. Second of all, MS-13, dear Mr. Trump, is an American gang. You know about American gangs? Like we`ve had them? Have you watched the movie, you know, Gangs of New York? MS-13 is an American gang. So, we don`t have an immigration problem regarding MS-13, we have a criminal problem that has nothing to do with immigration.
Hinojosa really blew a gasket when Mackowiak used the term "illegal alien." It was like the Republican said mother-blanker:
MATT MACKOWIAK: I think you also have to recognize that this -- this criminal gang, MS-13, is a very serious threat particularly in New York and Virginia, throughout the northeast, yes in Los Angeles. They operate in 40 states. 10,000 members around the country.I'm not sitting here and saying every single one of their members is an illegal alien. I don't know the numbers....
HINOJOSA: Did you just say illegal alien -- did you just say illegal alien on national television?
MACKOWIAK: I said they're not, Maria. I said they're not.
HINOJOSA: Are you serious? I'm sorry. So you just labeled immigrants, aliens, and you're calling human beings illegals? I remind you illegals is not a noun. We are not illegals and it is not a noun.
Mackowiak didn't use "illegals" as a noun, but Hinojosa wanted to wash his mouth out with soap. None of Hinojosa's leftist theatrics are new. In 2016 on MSNBC, she also lectured Trump backer Steve Cortes about the word "illegals" and made Holocaust analogies.
