President Donald Trump blamed the establishment media on Tuesday for criticizing his tough enforcement of immigration and asylum laws.
He reminded Americans during a speech at the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) 75th-anniversary celebration in Washington, DC, that people who legally applied for asylum at the ports of entry were not prosecuted.
“The fake news media back there doesn’t talk about that. They are fake,” Trump said, pointing at reporters in the room. “They are helping these smugglers and these traffickers like nobody would believe. They know it, they know exactly what they’re doing, and it should be stopped.”
The president suggested that the media was focusing on the border crisis and purposefully ignoring the congressional hearings about the Justice Department Inspector General report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton.
“They want to keep the cameras away from the hearings,” Trump said. “Because those hearings are not good for them. In fact, they’re a disaster for them. The whole thing is a scam.”
Trump said traffickers were using the current weak system of immigration laws to infiltrate the country, claiming that trafficking of women and children was currently the worst in history.
“They game the system. It’s so easy for them. They’re smart,” he said, and added, “These smugglers know these rules and regulations better than the people that drew them.”