Sen. J.D. Vance accused This Week host Martha Raddatz of “nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said” when she called out his running mate’s lies about migrants in Aurora, Colorado.
“Trump said the city [of Aurora] had been invaded and conquered by Venezuelan gangs. The Republican mayor of the city said flatly, the city and state have not been taken over or invaded or occupied by migrant gangs,” Raddatz said. “So, do you support Donald Trump making those claims that the Republican mayor says were grossly exaggerated and have hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety? … He’s making these statements that the mayor is flat out disputing.”
“Well, Martha, you just said the mayor said they were exaggerated,” Vance said.
“Grossly exaggerated,” Raddatz corrected.
“That means there’s got to be some — that means there’s got to be some element of truth here,” Vance said, as if a tiny kernel of truth — that there have been some gang-related incidents — justifies Trump’s outrageous embellishment.
Raddatz again pointed to the mayor’s comments: “The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes, and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns. A handful of problems.”
“Martha, do you hear yourself?” Vance replied, incredulous. “Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem, and not Kamala Harris’s open border?”
Again, Vance is pushing a lie. The mayor did not say that any complexes “were taken over” by gang members.
Vance continued, “I really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting because you seem to be more focused with nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.”
In response, Raddatz concluded, “Let’s just end that with they did not invade or take over the city as Donald Trump said.”
Even Aurora’s police chief denied that an apartment building was taken over by a gang. “I’m not saying that there’s not gang members that don’t live in this community. But what we’re learning out here is that gang members have not taken over this [apartment] complex,” Aurora’s interim police chief, Heather Morris, said in a press conference.
Raddatz also pressed Vance on Trump’s lies about disaster aid and the Federal Emergency Management Authority’s response to Hurricane Helene. “During Hurricane Helene, as we heard, former president Trump suggested the federal government was not only sending FEMA aid meant for the hurricane to migrants, but going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas. Do you think that is true?” she asked.
Vance tried to blame FEMA’s alleged mismanagement — which even local officials deny is happening — on immigrants because, he claimed, “FEMA has done a lot of illegal immigration resettlement work.”
But Vance did not explicitly defend Trump’s false claim that aid was somehow diverted from disaster assistance to shelter immigrants. Here’s what Trump said: “The Harris-Biden administration says they don’t have any money [for hurricane relief]. … They spent it all on illegal migrants. … They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them.”
That is patently false. As the American Immigration Council pointed out in a recent fact sheet, “There is no truth to the claims that FEMA is using money intended for disasters for the Shelter and Services Program or for any migrant-related support. The Shelter and Services Program is a separate line item in the federal budget and does not draw from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.”
Vance also claimed that “We’ve got Republican congressmen who are on the ground who represented that area saying that they have to call the White House to get food and water to FEMA.”
At least one North Carolina congressman is pushing back on those kinds of claims. Rep. Chuck Edwards put out a press release debunking “the outrageous rumors that have been circulated online” about the hurricane and FEMA’s emergency response: “We have seen a level of support that is unmatched by most any other disaster nationwide… Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government… FEMA is NOT stopping trucks or vehicles with donations, confiscating or seizing supplies, or otherwise turning away donations… [and] FEMA has NOT diverted disaster response funding to the border or foreign aid,” Edwards wrote, although he did state that FEMA’s response “has had its shortfalls.”
“Please make sure you are fact checking what you read online with a reputable source,” Edwards concluded.
