Media misrepresents quote to accuse Trump admin member of racism — the full video dismantles the smear
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli is being pilloried by many members of the mainstream media over comments being characterized as racist, but the video of his full comments dismantles the liberal smear.
Cuccinelli was defending his comments about the "New Colossus" poem on the Statue of Liberty that some mistakenly believe is the whole of U.S. immigration law when he explained the historical context of the poem.
"Well of course that poem was referring back to people coming from Europe where they had class based societies, where people were considered 'wretched' if they weren't in the right class," Cuccinelli said.
The quote was intentionally edited in order to make it appear as if he was saying that the poem only applied to people from Europe.
Then it was picked up by Democratic politicians like presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke to unfairly slam the Trump administration.
This administration finally admitted what we’ve known all along: They think the Statue of Liberty only applies to white people. https://t.co/kTLl50yCmw— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) August 14, 2019
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) also mocked Cuccinelli in accordance with the misleading narrative on CNN.
Some reporters were honest about the comments, such as Washington Post national political reporter Felicia Sonmez.
"Folks are tweeting out a snippet of Cuccinelli's CNN interview tonight, focusing on the part where he talked about immigrants in the past coming from Europe," Sonmez tweeted.
"But it appears the main point he's trying to make (while it's a bit hard to follow) is about class," she added.
In a second tweet, she adds, "the Statue of Liberty was originally created to celebrate freed slaves, not to welcome new immigrants."
