In some campaigns, there is a defining moment, a mic drop minute, when the candidate knows a point has been made and there is nothing more to add. Usually, the candidate makes the point. But sometimes, like a rare gift, the opposing side makes it for them.
Somewhere, somebody decided it was a good idea to blow the dust off former President Bill Clinton and parade him as part of the Kamala Harris campaign.
What could go wrong?
Clinton, who had gone to Georgia to stump for Harris, was trying to argue that Trump was to blame for the highly publicized death of nursing student Laken Riley. Clinton said her death was because Donald Trump told Republicans in Congress to vote against an immigration bill earlier this year.
While speaking, Clinton accused Trump of blocking the immigration bill because if it had passed, Republicans would have lost political ammunition. But Clinton’s timeline doesn’t match up. The illegal immigrant accused of killing Riley, Jose Antonio Ibarra, crossed the border in September 2022, was released into the U.S., and then was arrested in February. That was the same month the Senate voted on the border bill, so even if it had passed, it wouldn’t have changed what happened in the Riley case.
But Clinton wasn’t done. The former president said, in front of God and the press corps, “A young woman who had been killed by an immigrant. Yeah, well, if they’d all been properly vetted, that probably wouldn’t have happened.”
Border Czar Kamala Harris was chosen to lead efforts to handle the border crisis under President Biden. However, she has faced criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike due to the large number of migrants coming into the country during the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration. Some police departments say this increase in migrants has led to more crime.
The family of Rachel Morin, the Maryland mother of five murdered by an illegal immigrant, praised former President Bill Clinton for honestly saying that better border security might have saved Riley’s life.
Morin’s killer is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, was already wanted for the rape of a woman and her 9-year-old child in California before moving to Maryland, where Morin’s body was found beaten and hidden in a culvert.
The Morin family attorney, Randolph Rice, stated that border authorities turned him away three times before he finally managed to enter the U.S. on his fourth try. He added that Martinez-Hernandez’s violent criminal history from his home country was ignored.
Her mother visited Capitol Hill twice to urge Congress to set stricter vetting rules at the border.
In a moment steeped in irony, Rice noted, “The Morin family joins President Clinton in calling out the failures of the Biden-Harris administration to enforce immigration laws and protect American families.”
He added that while the administration is ignoring the risks of people crossing the border without proper vetting, President Clinton’s comments highlight that the current policies are not working for the American people.
Even Bill Clinton gets it. But he wasn’t done campaigning for Trump quite yet. He went on to embrace the Great Replacement Theory, an idea that most Republicans had never heard of until Democrats informed them that it’s a mistaken concept believed by a majority of conservatives.
According to Clinton, illegal immigration is necessary because American birth rates are dropping. He claimed that most people recognize that America has the “lowest birthrate we’ve had in well over 100 years.” According to Clinton, America is not “at replacement level,” meaning “we’ve got to have somebody come here if we want to keep growing the economy.”
Maybe if Democrats stopped aborting babies, the birthrate wouldn’t be such a crisis.
Even after these comments, Clinton had more wisdom to add. With American birth rates so slow, “we need immigrants” to “do work.”
Clinton’s viewpoint matches a broader feeling among Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). In 2022, Schumer said that migrants are essential for filling the job shortages caused by falling birth rates. He mentioned that the only way to ensure a bright future for America is to welcome and support immigrants.
However, Americans have a different idea of “ensuring a bright future for America.” According to a mid-September poll, over half of all Americans, including one out of every four Democrats, support the mass deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally.
In his victory speech, Trump should thank Clinton for his support.