It was early last month when Donald Trump helped lead the charge against immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, heavily promoting baseless and racist conspiracy theories. Predictably, there were dangerous consequences — bomb threats, closed buildings, canceled events, terrified residents, death threats, etc. — both for the immigrants and the broader community.
The pushback, however, did not fall neatly along partisan lines: Many of those who told the public the truth were state and local officials from the former president’s own party, many of whom urged Trump to stop lying. (He did not, in fact, stop lying.)
Soon after, the public confronted eerily similar circumstances: The GOP candidate started lying about the governmental response to Hurricane Helene, peddling another round of easily discredited talking points and conspiracy theories. Much of the pushback came from state and local officials who, once again, were Republicans.
It was against this backdrop that Trump decided to shift his focus to Aurora, Colorado, where — you guessed it — the same thing happened. NBC News reported:
Former President Donald Trump painted a dark picture of Colorado’s third-largest city at a rally here Friday as he once again claimed it had been overtaken by a Venezuelan prison gang. But the city’s police chief told NBC News that Aurora is still “very safe.”
“It’s not overrun. Without question, Aurora is still a very safe city. It is still a wonderful community that is incredibly diverse,” chief Todd Chamberlain said.
And yet, this didn’t stop the former Republican president from holding a campaign rally in Aurora, where he characterized the community as having been “invaded and conquered“ by migrants who entered the country illegally.
As part of the same remarks, Trump told his followers that local gang members were given permission to shoot police officers. “Did you know the gang got the okay to kill your police?” he asked, despite the fact that this never happened.
Once again, it’s Republican officials trying to set the record straight. Indeed, as Politico reported, it’s the city’s GOP mayor — former five-term Republican Rep. Mike Coffman — who has “repeatedly tried to tamp down fears that his city has been taken over by migrant gangs.”
As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim added, Coffman also said that claims about Venezuelan gang activity are “grossly exaggerated and have unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety.”
“The city and state have not been ‘taken over’ or ‘invaded’ or ‘occupied’ by migrant gangs,” Coffman concluded.
He was, of course, directly contradicting his party’s 2024 nominee, who’s used identical words and phrases, none of which are true.
A few weeks ago, before Trump even announced his visit to the area, the mayor told NBC News, “I want the former president to come, because I want to show him this city. I want to show him that the narrative is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.”
It was a nice sentiment, which tragically missed the point. Trump concocted “the narrative,” without regard for its accuracy. He didn’t visit Aurora to learn the truth; he visited Aurora to advance his lie.
Will the GOP candidate keep lying, now that he’s been to Aurora? As folks in Ohio and North Carolina know all too well, the answer is obvious.
