Obeidallah: 'Real Americans' Disagree with Trump Supporters on Immigration

June 28th, 2018 9:06 AM

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's Across America with Carol Costello on HLN, liberal comedian and CNN.com contributor Dean Obeidallah ranted against the views of conservatives on immigration, and suggested that those who support enforcing the law against illegal border crossings are not "real Americans," as he debated Amy Kremer of Women for Trump.

He further demonized Donald Trump supporters as people that "the bulk of Americans have nothing in common with those people," and hyped a study suggesting that 18 Americans -- out of a total of 14,000 homicides -- were killed by white supremacists in 2017.



During a discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of President Trump's travel ban, as well as the issue of separating illegal immigrants from their children during prosecutions, host Carol Costello commented on the polarization of liberals viewing the issue differently from conservatives, leading Obeidallah to argue:

It's not just liberals -- it's real Americans. Real Americans feel the way I do. Americans who embrace American values of compassion and caring view it the way I do. There was a more stunning poll, Carol. They asked Americans: 'Is it a high priority to reunite children and their mothers who have been separated under this policy?' Seventy-five percent of Democrats said yes.

Less than 25 percent of Republicans thought it was a high priority to reunited mothers and their daughters or their sons who had been taken by this government.

He further trashed Trump supporters as he added: "To me, that shows I have nothing in common with those people, and the bulk of Americans have nothing in common with those people who stand with that," and complained that "we're turning bigotry into policy."

A bit later, Obeidallah made his latest attempt to portray white Americans as a more likely source of terrorism as he hyped a misleading finding that, in 2017, there were 18 cases in which a white American with extremist views committed murder, in contrast with 10 cases involving Muslims.

The liberal commentator did not mention that most of those reported killed by white supremacists were, in fact, white themselves as some were killed in non-ideological crimes like domestic disputes. Additionally, Muslims only make up about one or two percent of the population in the U.S. while whites are about 70 percent of the population, which would still make the rate of extremism-related violence by whites a fraction of what it is for Islamic extremists. Obeidallah:

Last year, 34 Americans were killed by extremists on U.S. soil -- 18 by white supremacists, you know, the people Trump called 'very fine people' -- 10 of them by Islamic-related. Why has Donald Trump not talked about vetting white supremacists?

How come we're not talking about policies not to let guns into the hands of white supremacists? Today, 30 Americans will be killed by gun violence, including five to eight kids. Donald Trump will do nothing about that?