Van Jones: ‘Nobody Was Talking About Immigration’ a Year Ago Until GOP Forced People to Notice

During CNN’s coverage of the U.S. House special election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District on Tuesday, CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Obama Adviser Van Jones stated that “nobody was talking about immigration this time last year” and people have started taking the issue seriously because Republicans “ginned up the issue of immigration,” and pushed for greater attention on the issue.

Jones said, “[T]here are two different kinds of disorder and dysfunction. I think the Republicans have been trying to look at the disorder and dysfunction at the street level and talk about crime and talk about immigration and tie the two together and talk about that. The problem is, in power, they look like the disorder and the dysfunction. What they’re doing in D.C. every day looks disordered and dysfunctional. And so, I think Democrats have got to start pointing that out. And because they ginned up the issue of immigration, Republicans took — nobody was talking about immigration this time last year. It was all abortion. Republicans successfully took that issue from the margin to the center, dropped the ball, and then lost an election on it. That’s where the Republican Party is.”

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