Manuel Balce Senator/AP
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Path to the Majority conference in Washington on June 22, 2024.
CNN
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Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said he had approached UFC president Dana White about the idea of creating an “immigrant fighters league,” again using dehumanizing language to describe people who cross into the United States illegally.
“I said, ‘Dana, I have an idea. What if we had a league of immigrant fighters and a league of regular fighters? And we’d have the champions of that league – the best fighters in the world – fight the immigrant champions. And the immigrant fighters might win, because they’re that tough,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee told a gathering of Christian conservatives in Washington.
Trump added, “He didn’t really like the idea, but the truth is, it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
The former president repeated similar comments at a campaign rally in Philadelphia later Saturday.
President Joe Biden’s campaign quickly denounced the comments on Saturday afternoon.
“It is only fitting that convicted felon Donald Trump threatened to round up Hispanics at a religious conference, bragged about taking away Americans’ freedoms, and promised to become even more radical if he regains power,” spokeswoman Sarafina Chitica said. “Trump’s incoherent and erratic rants showed voters, in his own words, that he is a threat to our freedoms and too dangerous to ever again approach the White House.”
The former president has frequently used dehumanizing and inflammatory rhetoric when describing immigrants, and made stoking fears about illegal immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border a central part of his reelection campaign. At a campaign rally in Ohio in March, he said some illegal immigrants were “not human,” and a few weeks later said he believed illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes “are not human, they’re animals.”
In an interview last year, Trump claimed illegal immigrants were “polluting the blood of our country” — a rhetoric commonly used by white supremacists and nativists. The Biden campaign drew a connection between that comment and Adolf Hitler, who wrote about “polluting the blood” or “blood poisoning” in “Mein Kampf.”
The former president has frequently claimed, without evidence, that other countries are sending “prisoners, murderers, drug dealers, mentally ill people and terrorists” to the US. At campaign rallies, he has highlighted violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants and slammed Biden’s handling of border security.
As president, Trump has taken steps to curb both illegal and legal immigration, targeting visa programs and attempting to limit refugee resettlement. He also imposed a temporary ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries while in office. During the 2024 campaign, Trump vowed to launch “the largest domestic deportation campaign in American history” to combat what he calls an “invasion of our country.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
