Did Trump get his border talking points from
Sicario: Day of the Soldado?
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-...ZyWOXVQgjHpZ2tT0uawxucPEhGY_d3lYNX_P0DxIjy10U
When making his case for a giant border wall, Donald Trump has turned to a variety of strange talking points. At a White House event earlier this month, for example, the president marveled at the quality of the vehicles used by human traffickers
“[T]hey have unbelievable vehicles. They make a lot of money. They have the best vehicles you can buy. They have stronger, bigger and faster vehicles than our police have and than ICE has, and the Border Patrol have.”
About a week later, Trump published a tweet intended to raise public anxieties about activities at the U.S./Mexico border.
“Border rancher: ‘We’ve found prayer rugs out here. It’s unreal.’ Washington Examiner People coming across the Southern Border from many countries, some of which would be a big surprise.”
Last week, the Republican turned to one of his go-to stories, which he’s peddled many times.
“Human traffickers – the victims are women and children. Maybe to a lesser extent, believe or not, children. Women are tied up. They’re bound. Duct tape put around their faces, around their mouths. In many cases, they can’t even breathe. They’re put in the backs of cars or vans or trucks.”
It’s tempting to dismiss all of this as just another round of nonsense from a president who too often has no idea what he’s saying, but in this case, these three Trump talking points have two things in common.
First, they’re demonstrably false. There’s
nothing especially amazing about smugglers’ vehicles; there’s
no evidence at all of prayer rugs being found in the dirt by the border (in fact, the whole idea is
kind of silly); and experts have marveled at
how bizarre Trump’s claims are about women tied up with tape.
Second, each of these appeared in a recent fictional movie.
No, seriously. As
Rachel noted on the show last night, there’s a movie called
Sicario:
Day of the Soldado, which was released last summer, and which included a woman being tied up with tape, smugglers driving vast vehicles, and officials finding prayer rugs in the dirt near the border.
