Univision late night news anchor Enrique Acevedo, the heir apparent to Univision senior news anchor Jorge Ramos, made a guest appearance on the Tucker Carlson Tonight show to denounce President Trump's 'animals' remark regarding the nefarious transnational gang known as MS-13.
In his exchange with Carlson, the Univision anchor characterized the President's remark as "part of a larger trend that started way before Donald Trump became President, a trend of criminalizing and dehumanizing all immigrants."
TUCKER CARLSON: Enrique Acevedo is an anchor for Univision. He joins us now. Enrique, you seem like a reasonable person. How did you wind up with the group in the media defending MS-13? Did you ever think you'd be there?
ENRIQUE ACEVEDO, UNIVISION ANCHOR: I don't think any human being is an animal, Tucker. But I'm not here to defend criminals. Not sure that anyone else -
CARLSON: Oh, yes, you are.
ACEVEDO: If you are for law and order, I don't think degrading anyone to less than human serves that purpose. You would expect the president of the United States to speak to our highest ideals and not just our worst instincts.
CARLSON: So, just to put this in some context, here are a couple recent headlines about MS-13. MS-13 gang stabbed a man 100 times, decapitated him and ripped out his heart, police say. MS-13 beat sex trafficked girl with a bat 28 times. MS-13 member in satanic shrine kidnapped, drugged and raped a 14-year-old Houston girl. I could go on. When you hear those people described as animals, you get offended. Why? Why would people who do that need to be defended by you? What about what Trump said sort of got you going?
ACEVEDO: I think we cannot pretend to look at this in a larger context. We cannot pretend that this is not part of a larger trend that started way before Donald Trump became president, a trend of criminalizing and dehumanizing all immigrants, not just the bad hombres. The question was about gang members who are operating inside the US. President Trump answered by -
CARLSON: Yes, MS-13.
ACEVEDO: (INAUDIBLE) those coming across the border animals.
CARLSON: No. Look, I'm not here to defend all of Trump's views, but in this very specific case, he was asked about MS-13. He has been talking about this for more than a year. And he said, they are animals. Now, you may not like the term. Maybe it's imprecise or whatever. But I find it so interesting that you rush to the defense of MS-13. Is there no one else you can defend? They're not other worthy people being attacked? You need to defend a street gang that worships Satan and beheads people? Do you wake up in the morning and ask yourself, how did I get here? I'm a decent person, why am I defending MS-13?
ACEVEDO: I'm not sure what you mean when you say that I defended MS-13. I actually started this interview by saying I'm not here to defend any criminals.
CARLSON: And then, you went on to defend them when you say that they were dehumanized.
ACEVEDO: I'm just saying that no human being is an animal.
“Animals” or “not Animals” have suddenly become something of the media’s own “Laurel” and “Yanny”, with everyone being compelled to weigh in on what they heard. Except that much of the media debate surrounding “animals” appears to be less about what was said than about what people want to hear and project into the President’s clear and specific statement about the sadistic character of MS-13 gang members.
President Trump, like many Americans living in proximity to MS-13’s reign of terror, is outraged - and has chosen to express that outrage in the strongest possible terms (terms that are not always meant to be taken literally), whereas the media predictably clutches its pearls.
Acevedo (who once said that people who did not believe in human-caused climate change are ineligible for public office and that ISIS jihadists are primarily driven by unemployment), for some strange reason, chose to take Carlson’s bait and go to bat for MS-13 while simultaneously denouncing their barbarism.
On the other hand it is nice to see a prominent figure from Univision, a network which has won multiple media awards from Planned Parenthood, stand up for the inherent dignity and value of the human lives of even the most abjectly depraved gang members, criminals whose primary claim to fame is for routinely committing some of the worst possible violent crime.
Below is the Carlson-Acevedo exchange in its entirety, as aired during the May 17, 2018 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight (click “Expand” for full transcript):
TUCKER CARLSON: Enrique Acevedo is an anchor for Univision. He joins us now. Enrique, you seem like a reasonable person. How did you wind up with the group in the media defending MS-13? Did you ever think you'd be there?
ENRIQUE ACEVEDO, UNIVISION ANCHOR: I don't think any human being is an animal, Tucker. But I'm not here to defend criminals. Not sure that anyone else -
CARLSON: Oh, yes, you are.
ACEVEDO: If you are for law and order, I don't think degrading anyone to less than human serves that purpose. You would expect the president of the United States to speak to our highest ideals and not just our worst instincts.
CARLSON: So, just to put this in some context, here are a couple recent headlines about MS-13. MS-13 gang stabbed a man 100 times, decapitated him and ripped out his heart, police say. MS-13 beat sex trafficked girl with a bat 28 times. MS-13 member in satanic shrine kidnapped, drugged and raped a 14-year-old Houston girl. I could go on.
When you hear those people described as animals, you get offended. Why? Why would people who do that need to be defended by you? What about what Trump said sort of got you going?
ACEVEDO: I think we cannot pretend to look at this in a larger context. We cannot pretend that this is not part of a larger trend that started way before Donald Trump became president, a trend of criminalizing and dehumanizing all immigrants, not just the bad hombres.
The question was about gang members who are operating inside the US. President Trump answered by -
CARLSON: Yes, MS-13.
ACEVEDO: (INAUDIBLE) those coming across the border animals.
CARLSON: No. Look, I'm not here to defend all of Trump's views, but in this very specific case, he was asked about MS-13. He has been talking about this for more than a year. And he said, they are animals.
Now, you may not like the term. Maybe it's imprecise or whatever. But I find it so interesting that you rush to the defense of MS-13. Is there no one else you can defend? They're not other worthy people being attacked? You need to defend a street gang that worships Satan and beheads people? Do you wake up in the morning and ask yourself, how did I get here? I'm a decent person, why am I defending MS-13?
ACEVEDO: I'm not sure what you mean when you say that I defended MS-13. I actually started this interview by saying I'm not here to defend any criminals.
CARLSON: And then, you went on to defend them when you say that they were dehumanized.
ACEVEDO: I'm just saying that no human being is an animal.
CARLSON: OK. But he's not actually arguing - hold on.
ACEVEDO: It serves the purpose of chaos and lawlessness.
CARLSON: OK. We're all animals. OK, just as a biological question. Maybe the term is imprecise. Maybe you don't like it. But you are rushing to the defense - and it's not just you. It's John Harwood at "The New York Times". It's the media establishment and the Democratic Party.
It's unable to admit that there are immigrants who shouldn't be here. They are horrible. They kill people, especially the poor and the vulnerable. And MS-13 is the embodiment of that.
ACEVEDO: And I think we agree on that point. There are a lot of bad apples inside the immigrant community.
CARLSON: So, what did Trump do wrong?
ACEVEDO: That's why President Trump and Jeff Sessions should work with the Hispanic community to try to root those bad apples out of there.
CARLSON: Why the Hispanic community? Hold on. Slow down. What do you mean the Hispanic community?
ACEVEDO: And not just trying to recall federal funding from sanctuary cities, so they won't report crimes and they will be afraid of going to the police.
CARLSON: The Hispanic community doesn't have a monopoly on the concerns of all Americans of all colors and backgrounds, ethnicity about crime. It has nothing to do with Hispanic or black or white. It's Americans don't want animals like this in the country.
And again, I just ask you, why did it bother you when he said that? I just think it's kind of a weird response.
ACEVEDO: It bothers me because - I think you have to put things in context. And I'll do that for you. The context here has to do with a larger trend, with President Trump calling Mexican immigrants rapists and then calling some white nationalists very fine people.
The context here has to do with President Trump pardoning Arpaio and canceling DACA.
The context here has to do with a constant conflating of immigration and criminality. When have you heard someone in the Trump administration say something positive about immigrants?
CARLSON: Well, I don't know. It's not required by the Constitution. First of all - whatever. They're not required by the Constitution to complement immigrants. Sorry.
Second, you may not agree with all of his policies, but in this specific case, he is criticizing people who are evil and are killing, once again, the poor and the defenseless. And you have been driven so crazy by Trump that you can't even accept that as true.
If I attack Charles Manson as an animal, does that bother you?
ACEVEDO: Of course not. And you know what, I agree with President Trump.
CARLSON: What? Because he's not an immigrant or Hispanic or -?
ACEVEDO: But, guess what, last year, ICE arrests were up by 30 percent. And the larger percentage of that increase had to do with non-criminal immigrants.
So, if they want to get rid of the bad hombres instead of separating families, they should focus on that.
CARLSON: Well, how about we deport anybody - hold on -
ACEVEDO: And deporting out a number of people who have no criminal records.
CARLSON: Look, people who are here illegally should be deported. That's what the law says. If you don't like the law, change it in the Congress. If you're here illegally -
ACEVEDO: But you just said that they should focus on dangerous criminals.
CARLSON: Well, I don't know, I mean -
ACEVEDO: They should focus on dangerous criminals. So, let's focus resources, time and energy on those people and the bad hombres.
CARLSON: I'm sick of being bullied by foreigners about who we can deport and who we can't. Our law says if you are here illegally, we get to deport you. Period. I'm sure a lot of good people would get deported if we did that. I feel sad about it, but that's our law.
ACEVEDO: The law also says you're entitled to request asylum and we were also criticizing that last week when the caravan came to the border.
CARLSON: That's our law. And foreigners have no right to weigh in on our asylum laws because they are not voters or citizens. We get to decide.
Final question. Why does it not bother you when I called Charles Manson an animal, but it does bother you when Trump calls MS-13 animals?
ACEVEDO: It bothers me when any criminal commits such horrific acts of criminality and I see how people can be deeply affected by them. But I don't think that degrading someone to less than human serves the purpose of law and order.
President Trump seems to understand very well what speaks to the Trump base -
CARLSON: What do you mean Trump base?
ACEVEDO: But he's not the President of the Fox News audience. He's also the President of the Univision audience and he's not speaking to the societies and the concerns of Hispanics.
CARLSON: You speak for all Hispanics? Are you the appointed leader of Hispanics now? How did you get that job? Were you elected to it?
ACEVEDO: No, I'm not speaking for all Hispanics. I'm saying the President should speak to all Hispanics.
CARLSON: Let me ask you. Who do you think the victims of MS-13 violence are overwhelmingly? Are they Fox News -?
ACEVEDO: The overwhelming majority are Central American refugees who are fleeing that violence and trying to come into this country, but you are calling them people who are trying to take advantage of our legal system.
The vast majority of the MS-13 are not the salvatrucha. The victims are the people in Honduras and El Salvador.
CARLSON: And here.
ACEVEDO: Coming here.
CARLSON: By the way, let me just say. Last thing. I have to go. Please convince the Democrats to run in defense of MS-13. I think it's a fantastic campaign plan.
ACEVEDO: I think it would be a major mistake to defend any criminal.
CARLSON: But you do anyway. Thank you. Great to see you tonight. appreciate it.
ACEVEDO: Thank you. Thank you, Tucker.
