Democrat 2020 contender Kamala Harris ran gang-centered ads early in her political career that are resurfacing as she runs for president even though she’s lambasted President Donald Trump for talk of MS-13 gangs.
Images have surfaced of flyers Harris mailed out in one of her bids for local elected office. The mailers display a shirtless man brandishing a gun and gang sign.
“Enough is enough!” Harris’ early political campaign flyer read. “Murder up 30%…skyrocketing rates of youth in jails…another generation lost to gang violence…who hears the cry for help? … A new voice for justice,” Harris’ flyer says.
An election flyer posted by the Intercept in February uses the same “Enough is enough” mantra while decrying the “cycle of jail, crime and gang violence.” Harris pledged to “put truly violent offenders in prison, and ensure the safety of witnesses who testify against gang violence.”
Harris battered President Donald Trump in January 2018 for invoking MS-13 in his State of the Union (SOTU) address. In comments to MSNBC she claimed the president equated the deadly MS-13 transnational criminal gang to illegal immigrant youth, “To equate [MS-13] with Dreamers and DACA was completely irresponsible. And it was scapegoating and fear-mongering.”
“And it was wrong because that is not what leaders are supposed to do,” Harris added in her attack on Trump. “We’re not supposed to convince the American public of policy because we make them afraid. And that is what this president apparently thinks he needs to do, and it is irresponsible.”
"To equate that with Dreamers and DACA was completely irresponsible. And it was scapegoating and fear-mongering. And it was wrong."@KamalaHarris responds to President Trump invoking MS-13 at #SOTU
Watch more: https://t.co/jAgT9haNH3 pic.twitter.com/DacLrkka4c
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 31, 2018
President Trump only used the term “dreamers” once in that State of the Union address to describe American citizens as “dreamers too.” Just before he said, “My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans — to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream.” He never used the term “DACA,” according to a transcript of the speech.
The president did, however, speak of MS-13 and two young girls members of the gang “brutally murdered.” The girls’ families were guests of the president at the SOTU that evening. He called on Congress to pass legislation that would “finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country.”
President Trump emphasized the compassion of the United States in that address in helping the “needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world.” He then said his “highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America’s children, America’s struggling workers, and America’s forgotten communities.”
Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook
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