Doubles down...

White House doubles down on Trump’s ‘animals’ comments

By MATTHEW NUSSBAUM and CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO

Amid ongoing criticism over President Donald Trump’s description of some undocumented immigrants as “animals,” the White House is doubling down on the phrase.

The press office blasted out a 488-word release Monday morning titled “What You Need To Know About the Violent Animals of MS-13” that described members of the predominantly Salvadoran gang as “animals” 10 times. “Too many innocent Americans have fallen victim to the unthinkable violence of MS-13’s animals,” the release said. “President Trump’s entire Administration is working tirelessly to bring these violent animals to justice.”

Trump sparked a furor last week after declaring in a meeting on immigration that some people being deported “aren’t people – they’re animals.” The comment came in response to a comment about MS-13, but it was unclear whether Trump was specifically referencing gang members or undocumented immigrants more broadly.

“It’s just something between the White House and the media,” said Rick Tyler, the former communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign and an administration critic. “And their base loves it. They love sticking it to the media.”

It is also not the first time the White House has gone all in on some of Trump’s more controversial comments. The White House briefly launched a commission last year to find evidence for Trump’s false claim that he actually won the popular vote in the 2016 election. And it has still not retracted Trump’s accusation on Twitter that Trump Tower was wiretapped on the orders of President Barack Obama.

The language in the press release was in line with Trump’s frequent characterization of undocumented immigrants as criminal or subhuman, starting with his June 2015 speech declaring his presidential candidacy.

“President Trump understands that a lot of his support came from how hard he was on immigration,” said a former administration official. “And they know immigration is important to the president and important to the base.”

Trump leapt into the controversy on Friday, giving the story additional life.

“Fake News Media had me calling Immigrants, or Illegal Immigrants, ‘Animals.’ Wrong! They were begrudgingly forced to withdraw their stories. I referred to MS 13 Gang Members as ‘Animals,’ a big difference - and so true. Fake News got it purposely wrong, as usual!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Monday’s release indicates the administration’s eagerness to keep the story in the headlines ahead of a planned roundtable on immigration later this week.

The email described crimes allegedly committed by MS-13 members in grisly detail.

“In Maryland, MS-13’s animals are accused of stabbing a man more than 100 times and then decapitating him, dismembering him, and ripping his heart out of his body,” the release reads at one point.

“The MS-13 animals used a bat and took turns beating her nearly 30 times in total,” it says at another.

The American Civil Liberties Union wrote on Twitter that Trump “is using the fear of MS-13 to justify policies which hurt all immigrants.”

Among other things, the document claimed that “nearly 40 percent of all murders in Suffolk County, New York between January 2016 and June 2017 were tied to MS-13.”

The Suffolk County Police Department did not immediately reply to a request for confirmation of the figure.

The blast email was sent to reporters by Kelly Sadler, the White House’s director of surrogate and coalitions outreach who was recently criticized for making a callous remark about Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s cancer diagnosis during an internal meeting.