After a couple days of road-testing scattered messages, major players in the GOP and conservative media have started to coalesce around a unified message to Afghans seeking refuge in the United States: Stay the hell out of my country.
As President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan has unfolded with the Taliban quickly retaking power and an exploding refugee and humanitarian crisis, immigration advocates and human-rights groups have blasted the Biden administration for its failures to adequately prepare for the evacuation and resettlement of thousands of Afghans and their families. The leader of the GOP, former President Donald Trump, mocked his successor (and was sure to fundraise off of the chaos), issuing a statement on Monday saying, “Can anyone even imagine taking out our Military before evacuating civilians and others who have been good to our Country and who should be allowed to seek refuge?” and dubiously alleged, “Under my Administration, all civilians and equipment would have been removed.”
Trump’s spokeswoman did not provide comment following inquiries on whether the ex-president meant to advocate for resettlement in the U.S., or in third-party countries. But four people close to the president, including two former senior administration officials who worked directly with Trump on immigration and refugee policies, cast doubt that the ex-president was inviting Afghans to the homeland.
“That is not the Donald Trump I know,” one ex-official remarked.
On Tuesday night, Hannity aired a new interview with Trump, during which the former president riffed for a bit on the topic, before shuffling onto the next subject. “We have the military here and we take the military out before we took our civilians out, and before we took the interpreters and other, we want to try to help with, by the way I am America First,” Trump rambled to Fox News host (and his longtime friend and adviser) Sean Hannity. “The Americans come out first, but also we will help people that help us. We have to be very careful with the vetting because there’s some rough people in there, but we will help those people.”
If the former president’s message was muddled, Trump’s most visible supporters were happy to sharpen the tone.
Fox News, a vanguard of the MAGA movement, set the tone of opposition to resettling Afghans fleeing the Taliban. Starting late Monday night, the network’s primetime lineup responded to the images of refugees huddled in the cargo bay of a C-17 with a collective “not here.”
Primetime host Tucker Carlson moaned that Afghans had “invaded” the country and that “millions” of refugees would swarm the U.S., “probably in your neighborhood,” while Laura Ingraham wondered whether America’s promises to Afghan employees and soldiers were really valid in the face of “thousands of potentially unvetted refugees” entering the country. Both Fox News stars have for years been informal advisers to Trump, including…