Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance was left dumbfounded this weekend when ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz minimized the impact of Venezuelan gangs in Colorado.
An apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, became the center of national controversy in August after a viral video showed heavily armed men storming through the property. Locals complained that members of the violent Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua had taken control of the property.
City leaders, meanwhile, have denied that any part of Aurora has been take over. However, at least one person seen in the viral video at the apartment complex has reportedly admitted to being connected to Tren de Aragua. The city, indeed, has an ongoing problem with the gang.
'Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris' open border?!'
On Sunday, Raddatz demanded that Vance answer for Donald Trump's remarks about the situation.
Trump, according to Raddatz, claims Aurora has "been invaded and conquered by Venezuelan gangs." But, the ABC News host added, Aurora's mayor has denied Trump's assertion.
"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?" Raddatz asked Vance.
At first, Vance responded with kid gloves, hinting at his frustration with the question.
"Martha, you just said the mayor said they were exaggerated. That means there's got to be some element of truth here," he pointed out. "Of course, President Trump was actually in Aurora, Colorado, talking to people on the ground, and what we're hearing, of course, Martha, is that people are terrified by what has happened with some of these Venezuelan gangs."
But instead of listening to the issues Vance raised, Raddatz claimed that she knows the truth of what is happening on the ground in Aurora.
"Sen. Vance, I'm going to stop you, because I know exactly what happened. I’m going to stop you," Raddatz boasted. "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."
In response, Vance called out Raddatz for downplaying the problems in Aurora.
"Only?! Martha, do you hear yourself?!" Vance shot back. "Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris' open border?!
"Americans are so fed up with what's going on, and they have every right to be. And 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," he continued.
Raddatz, unfortunately, did not offer a substantive response to Vance. Instead, she simply doubled down.
"Let's just end that with they did not invade or take over the city as Donald Trump said," the host said.
"A few apartment complexes, no big deal," Vance snarked.
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Former President Donald Trump may have narrowly survived an assassination attempt, but the mainstream media hasn’t wasted any time blaming him for it.
“‘Donald Trump contributed to the environment,’ says George Stephanopoulos and this hideous Martha Raddatz,” Mark Levin comments, adding, “They will hang on every syllable that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth looking for anything they can hang on to.”
And that's exactly what they've done.
“As you point out ... President Trump and his supporters have contributed to this violent rhetoric as well,” Stephanopoulos said to his co-host the day after the assassination attempt.
“Trump in January warned of bedlam in the country if the criminal charges against him succeeded. And of course, in March he said, ‘Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,’” Raddatz added, leaving out the fact that Trump had been discussing the auto industry.
It's unsurprisingly the same thing the Democrats have done with January 6, despite Trump specifically telling his supporters to be peaceful.
“He specifically told them ‘yes,’ but protest peacefully — which they always cut out because it destroys their narrative,” Levin says, noting that the amount of times Trump has been called Hitler because of it is off the charts.
Trump had also offered 10,000 armed National Guardsmen to protect the Capitol building on January 6, but the offer was rejected by the Democrats.
“They keep trying to lie about that and punch holes in that because it gives the lie to their propaganda about January 6th and Donald Trump’s so-called role,” Levin says.
“And even when Biden gave that pathetic speech in which he didn’t apologize and took responsibility for nothing when he’s the leader of the pack, the examples that were given, he didn’t give examples about the violence in the streets the last ten months with the Islamists and the Marxists,” he continues.
“The Democrat Party has a hugely violent past, from slavery and the confederacy forward. He’s the head of the Democrat Party. He could have tamped this down a long time ago,” he adds.
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ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz received an awkward 10-second silence when she recently asked one young liberal voter why she is excited to vote for President Joe Biden in 2024.
After Biden announced his re-election campaign last week, Raddatz traveled to Pennsylvania — Biden's home state, which was critical to his election victory in 2020 — to gauge voter sentiment about Biden's re-election campaign. And what Raddatz discovered is not good for Biden.
Temple University student Elaina Symes, for example, cast her 2020 ballot for Biden. But when asked if she is enthusiastic to support him again, Symes admitted, "Not particularly."
But even more telling was Symes' response when Raddatz asked her what she likes about Biden. It took Symes 10 seconds to come up with an answer. Finally, she said she is only excited about Biden's candidacy for one reason: "That he's not Trump."
Biden’s age at forefront of voter concerns in Pennsylvania l This Week www.youtube.com
According to Raddatz, younger voters repeatedly expressed "disappointment and frustration" about Biden's campaign. They said he is too old, not progressive enough, and has not really accomplished anything as president. Thus, as Raddatz explained, there is an "enthusiasm gap" for Biden's campaign.
"I feel so uninspired and disconnected from the work that he's been advancing that it's not something I'm really excited about," voter Soneyet Muhammad, who voted for Biden in 2020, told Raddatz.
The reactions are perhaps not surprising given what polls have been showing for months.
A new NBC News poll, for example, showed last week that an overwhelming 70% of Americans — including 51% of Democratic voters — don't want Biden to run for re-election. Donald Trump fared only slightly better in that poll; 60% of respondents said they didn't want him to run again, either.
Another poll released by CNN last month showed similar results. It found that 67% of American voters do not believe Biden deserves re-election.
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On “The Rubin Report” this week, BlazeTV host Dave Rubin shared a video clip of ABC News’ Martha Raddatz attempting to convince Americans that Republican rhetoric from the likes of former President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is to blame for the ever-worsening crisis at the southern border — not the Biden administration's policies.
"You talk about the border wall. You talk about open borders. I don't think I've ever heard President Biden say, 'We have an open border, come on over.' But the people I have heard said it are you, or former President Trump, or Ron DeSantis," Raddatz said to Abbott on ABC's "This Week."
"That message reverberates in Mexico and beyond. So they do get the message that it is an open border, and smugglers use all those kinds of statements," she added.
"It was known from the time that Joe Biden got elected — that Joe Biden supported open borders," Abbott replied. "It is known by the cartels that have sophisticated information, whether the Biden administration is going to enforce the immigration laws or not. It's known across the world, but most importantly known among the cartels."
Raddatz wasn't quite ready to give up. "And how do you play into that? What can you do better?" she asked.
"We have every level of government doing everything we can to prevent people from coming into the country illegally, or repelling them, or arresting them and putting them behind bars," Abbott stated.
"Do you see what [Raddatz] just did there?" Dave asked after playing the clip. "She's saying to Greg Abbott, who has all these Texas border towns, she's saying because you guys say that Biden has an open border, that's why people are coming. Not because of Biden's actions. So she's trying to blame the people who are calling out the problem, for the problem itself."
He added, "She completely flips the reality ... it's not Biden who says 'open borders.' It's you guys — who are not in charge of the border. It's you, Greg Abbott. It's you, Ron DeSantis. It's you, Donald Trump. And that's what the migrants hear ... and that's why they're coming. It's such an extraordinarily subtle, pernicious distortion of the truth. Gross, disgusting, but this is what they do to all Republicans."
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In pretty much every national news interview with J.D. Vance within the past two weeks, Donald Trump’s running mate has revealed himself to be nothing short of a stud. He did it at the debate, deftly fact-checking the two nags chosen to “moderate.” He did it in an interview Saturday with The New York Times, […]
"Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris' open border?"
Vance highlighted all the things that went wrong with the 2020 election without taking the Democrats' bait.
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