On Friday, CNN International (and by simulcast, PBS) host Christiane Amanpour interviewed Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister of Italy, whom she found repulsively Trump-like. For trying to limit immigration -- and even imply that it was preferable to admit more Christian migrants than Muslims -- he was apparently casting "the dark shadow of fascism" on Italy. She began:
AMANPOUR: Italy is beloved for its art and its lifestyle, its home of pasta, Puccini and St. Peters. But in the post-war roller coaster of rising and falling governments with more than 60 since World War II, the dark shadow of fascism lingered on, which brings me to my first guest, Matteo Salvini, Italy's interior minister and the deputy prime minister and he is also the driving force behind one of the most successful and even sinister far-right movements in Europe. While his party, The League, touts familiar slogans like, Make Italy Great Again, he, in fact, rose to power by fanning the flames of anti-migrant hate.
That's opposed to CNN, which could be described as fanning the flames of left-wing hate.
Amanpour described Salvini's party as "anti-immigration, anti-migrant since its inception" and complained that Salvini called migrants "invaders." Here's a look at how Amanpour picked at Salvini, who spoke through a translator:
AMANPOUR: I want you to explain to me why you say migrants are invaders and why you say mass migration amounts to ethnic cleansing of Italians. What exactly do you mean by that?
SALVINI (through translator): I mean, that there are whole neighborhoods in Italian but also European cities full of migrants. I worked as a European MP and there's entire neighborhoods in Brussels that are under the full control of migrants. There are entire neighborhoods in Marseilles, in Paris where the Sharia law is implemented. The same applies to the outskirts of Milan, Naples, Bologna, Turin and many other Italian cities. Often, there are more migrants than Italians in these countries. [translation error?]
When these are the numbers that we're faced with, it's difficult to integrate. Often you risk imposing laws or ways of living that do not meet eye to eye the ways we live. In some cultures, women are less important than men. I don't want my children to grow up with these wrong models. Let me repeat this. A controlled migration is added value for everyone, whilst an illegal migration, leads to chaos, leads to many Italians abandoning these neighborhoods.
Amanpour didn't take any mention of Sharia-law enclaves in Europe without a fight:
AMANPOUR: If I had the Belgian or the French government here, they would deny there was any Sharia law being practiced in their country. But what I do actually want to ask you is whether you -- whether perhaps you're thinking a little bit along the lines of the Hungarians.I had the opportunity to interview the Hungarian foreign minister a few months ago and it was very interesting because I asked him, "Is what you're saying that you would prefer to have, you know, White Christian migrants in your country?" And this is the answer he gave me.
PETER SZIJJARTO, HUNGARIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We have been a Christian country for a millennium and I don't really understand why is it bad news that we don't want to change that and I don't understand why is it bad or why is it unacceptable that we would like to stick to our history, to our culture, to our heritage, to our religion.
SALVINI (through translator): This is something that he also said in 2001 -- Giacomo, the archbishop of Bologna, so obviously it's not someone that is racist or nationalist or belongs to The League, wrote that it was better to have migration from countries which culturally speaking are closer to ours. I'm talking in terms of tradition, history, religion and for instance, some Eastern European countries or Latin American countries, as opposed to Islamic countries where they have very different characteristics.
In March, a CNN.com article complained that Salvini's forces were "co-opting" family values rhetoric and highlighted protesters at the World Congress of Families in Verona.
Earlier: Amanpour during a papal visit to America in 2015: "The top Republican candidates have decided to make a war on Moslems – you know, 1.5 billion members of another faith."
