On Thursday night’s episode of MSNBC’s The ReidOut, host Joy Reid was joined by political analyst Fernand Amandi, and together they attacked Republicans for their apparently hypocritical immigration policies, even going so far as to invoke Adolf Hitler.
Reid opened the segment with a criticism of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ decision to ship illegal immigrants to the elitist Martha’s Vineyard, when open-border-loving liberals immediately changed their tune to howl “humanitarian crisis.” She characterized the move as “a warning sign for what has become the right's increasingly hostile rhetoric toward a certain type of immigrant” and accused Republicans of “fear-mongering about immigration and about a so-called invasion [that] is actually belied by what’s happening on the ground.”
That false claim sounded terribly familiar. Almost like the time during Tuesday’s episode when she and Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal cackled about Republican “fear-mongering”. The same episode when Reid’s guest was audibly and disgustingly tickled by Fox News reporting on the rape of 13-year-old girl by an illegal immigrant in New York City.
Watch as Rep. Jaypal (D) and Joy Reid chuckle and call the r*pe of a 13-year-old girl by an illegal “fear-mongering.”
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 20, 2024
What part about the r*pe of a minor is “fear-mongering” and funny to you @PramilaJayapal @JoyAnnReid?? pic.twitter.com/Q2mDcwlI4d
After introducing Amandi, MSNBC’s host revealed what made her “so crazy” about the entire situation:
When you look at states like Florida, their economy would actually collapse without migrant workers. We’ve got a couple of things here. The number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. labor force. You can see it going up, up, up, up over the years from '95 to 2021. As our economy has gotten stronger and places like Florida have taken in $7.75 billion mainly from the agricultural field, why attack your workforce?
As Reid pointed out, Republicans were crazy for passing up on the perfect opportunity for cheap labor. Amandi agreed, declaring it was “absurd and crazy” but “you always obey the cult leader.”
He further bewailed the fact that illegal immigrants “pay billions every year into entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, not to mention every other program that they are not going to benefit one red cent from, but…the American public as a whole, American citizens, of course–will benefit tremendously from.”
Reid continued to outrageously compare the “demonization” of illegal immigrants to Italian and Irish immigrants. Perhaps they forgot that those immigrants entered the country legally and also weren’t going around raping children.
Yet, Amandi had choice words for the villainous Republicans and their policies, stating, “I can't explain the moral repugnance, the stark, raving hypocrisy, and really the lack of humanity, that that is displayed when you talk about that.” Furthermore, he took the opportunity to endear himself just a bit more to race-obsessed Reid, alleging that the entire issue centered on Republican racism and crowning the comparison with yet another Trump-Hitler parallel:
The other issue here I think we can't ignore is immigrants are code for race, and people of color that Republicans are uncomfortable with and don't like. It’s easier to demonize immigrants as a concept, and you hit on that not-so-subtle dog-whistle of who the immigrants are. If we had tens of millions of people coming from Sweden, and Finland, and Norway, I doubt there would be, on the Republican right, the type of outrage that we see. But you also have to acknowledge the fact that Trump is utilizing the same language, the same demonization, and the same use of immigrants, now, in 2024, that Hitler used for Jews in the 1930s.
Reid and Amandi eventually decided that it was all evidence of “psychological disturbance” but in the end, justice would triumph, the tables would turn, and Republicans would become the targets of “greater intolerance [and] greater persecution.”
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s The ReidOut
6/20/2024
07:54:15 PM EST
JOY REID: Florida man Ron DeSantis first started trying to stand out from a crowded GOP primary field by turning migrants into political props and shipping them, first to Martha's Vineyard, before expanding it to other Democratic cities across America. Looking back at that stunt, which came at the start of the presidential primaries, it is now clear that it served as a warning sign for what has become the right's increasingly hostile rhetoric toward a certain type of immigrant. The Republican fear-mongering about immigration and about a so-called invasion is actually belied by what’s happening on the ground.
Joining me is Fernand Amandi, Democratic pollster and strategist and MSNBC political analyst. Great to see you, Fernand. This is the thing that makes, I think, me so crazy is that when you look at states like Florida, their economy would actually collapse without migrant workers. We’ve got a couple of things here. The number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. labor force. You can see it going up, up, up, up over the years from '95 to 2021. As our economy has gotten stronger and places like Florida have taken in $7.75 billion mainly from the agricultural field, why attack your workforce?
FERNAND AMANDI: Because Donald Trump has asked them to because it's what you need to do to be a MAGA Republican today. And in the cult, you always obey the cult leader, no matter how absurd and crazy what the cult leader says.
Joy, just a couple of quick points here as well. In addition to economies collapsing, think about the fact that undocumented immigrants and many of the immigrant population that currently resides in the United States, they pay billions every year into entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, not to mention every other program that they are not going to benefit one red cent from, but that the American community–the American public as a whole, American citizens, of course–will benefit tremendously from.
Historically, as well, you also have to consider, Joy, real quick, we have never had a wave of immigrants in this country, in our history, that hasn't added and grown the country and made the country prosper, despite the demonization that has been consistent from the right and, a lot of times, every immigration wave that has happened.
REID: No, absolutely. You know, I’m reminded that Italian migrants were first brought to the south in places like Louisiana because blacks were leaving. When the Great Migration happened, they still needed plantation labor. The earliest laborers were Italians. They were the second most lynched people because they were all so hated. Columbus Day was the fix after 11 of them got lynched in New Orleans. They were hated, then they said, “Okay, now they’re okay.” They brought Irish in to work in the mines. Then they were hated, then they matriculated them in. There's always been this hate.
But it seems weird to me that it is the grandchildren, and sometimes the children of immigrants, who are the most hostile to fellow immigrants. People like DeSantis, people like Rubio. I don’t understand it. Does it ma–you explain it to me. We’re both children of immigrants.
AMANDI: Well, I mean, I can't explain the moral repugnance, the stark, raving hypocrisy, and really the lack of humanity, that that is displayed when you talk about that. I mean, someone like Marco Rubio, who would never, ever have had an opportunity to do anything in this country had the immigration laws that he is now advocating for been in place when his parents came as economic immigrants. His parents were not political exiles…
REID: That’s right.
AMANDI: …as he likes to claim over and over again. They came for economic reasons to the United States, as they should have, by the way, and which we are glad to have had them. But the fact that someone like Rubio and others, Ted Cruz…
REID: Byron Donalds…
AMANDI: …continue to make this case. Byron Donalds! I mean it’s–it’s absolutely…
REID: …from Jamaica!
AMANDI: …from Jamaica. It’s repugnant. Joy, the other issue here I think we can't ignore is immigrants are code for race, and people of color that Republicans are uncomfortable with and don't like. It’s easier to demonize immigrants as a concept, and you hit on that not-so-subtle dog-whistle of who the immigrants are. If we had tens of millions of people coming from Sweden, and Finland, and Norway, I doubt there would be, on the Republican right, the type of outrage that we see. But you also have to acknowledge the fact that Trump is utilizing the same language, the same demonization, and the same use of immigrants, now, in 2024, that Hitler used for Jews in the 1930s.
REID: Yeah.
AMANDI: Now, he hasn’t killed many of them, yet, but he’s already on the path to putting together camps, he’s called for these camps, he’s gonna put this in place, mass deportation forces, “Their poisoning the blood of the country.” It’s not just disturbing rhetoric, it is extremely dangerous rhetoric that cannot be tolerated in this country.
REID: Yeah, and that’s–it’s Byron Donalds’ mom who came here from Jamaica, not him, he’s from Brooklyn. But, I mean, the reality is, is that these people are parroting things that would have hurt their own families, to your–to your very important point, but Trump already has done it. He’s took away more than 1000 migrants' children, some who were breast-feeding. There are more than 1000 children who still don't have their parents because he seized control of them, took these kids and separated them from their moms and dads. This is the most cruel and inhumane policy ever. You can't imagine anything other than, you know, the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. It’s sick!
And he is coming back and–so again, what is causing some people who–that are themselves either immigrants or the daughters and sons of them, including–you get ‘em in Florida–that are going along with this?
AMANDI: You know, there is always a reactionary, almost self-loathing component of wanting to belong by a certain class of people. And they think that by maybe being against those like them that came, that they can be more accepted into the society at large.
REID: Yeah.
AMANDI: And we all know that’s just a recipe for greater intolerance…
REID: That’s right.
AMADNI: …greater persecution, because at the end of the day, they will be the targets eventually.
REID: That’s right.
AMANDI: It will eventually come back to those folks.
REID: Yeah.
AMANDI: So, you know, why it happens, I can't explain a psychological disturbance, but, you know, it is sad to see happen.
REID: Indeed. Fernand Amandi, thank you, my friend. Much appreciated.
(...)
