Sanders defends – During a Wednesday White House press briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended President Donald Trump’s response to a Manhattan terror attack by revisiting his claims about the Diversity Visa lottery. In the process, she faced scrutiny over Trump’s remarks and
When eight people were killed in a terror attack in Manhattan after 9/11. President Donald Trump quickly turned to immigration politics. singling out the Diversity Visa lottery program—an entry point he tied directly to the pathway used by the attack suspect. Sayfullo Saipov.. The move immediately set off a fight over whether Trump was responding to tragedy or using it to push immigration restrictions.
Saipov. the terror suspect in Tuesday’s attack. used the Diversity Visa lottery program to become a legal resident in the U.S.. in 2010.. Trump pointed to that program in a tweet on November 1. 2017. writing. “The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program. ’ a Chuck Schumer beauty.. I want merit based.”
On Wednesday. Sanders was tasked with defending the White House approach after Trump declined to “politicize a tragedy” following a Las Vegas concert shooting earlier in the month.. The press briefing required her to reconcile those competing stances—while also confronting a growing contradiction between the way Trump framed the problem publicly and what her statements implied about how immigration entries are handled.
Sanders argued that the White House wasn’t politicizing the New York City attack even after the tweet aimed at Sen.. Chuck Schumer.. She also maintained that Trump wasn’t politicizing the tragedy by tweet-attacking Schumer and sparking immigration debate.. But the brief moment of order in the White House briefing collided with a separate record of what Trump had already said—and a dispute over whether he was right.
Trump called the justice system ‘a laughingstock’ on camera, yet Sanders said it never happened. Social video from November 1, 2017 captured the disagreement, alongside a line from Sanders denying the statement attributed to Trump.
The argument then narrowed to the Diversity Visa program itself.. Sanders tried to justify Trump’s stance on eliminating the lottery by claiming there was “no vetting system” for the program.. In the briefing. she said. “The fact that we have a lottery system that randomly decides who gets the greatest opportunity in the world … And to give that away randomly. to have no vetting system. to have no way to determine who comes. why they’re here. and if they want to contribute to society is a problem. ” as she defended Trump’s call to end the Diversity Visa lottery.
The room pressed back on that point: an immigrant selected through the lottery program is vetted by the State Department. The tension sharpened because Sanders’ defense rested on an assertion she presented as accurate, while the challenge offered a different picture of what vetting exists.
Sanders also tried to clean up what she said Trump had—and hadn’t—done in his response to the attack. insisting the president “has not blamed Sen.. Schumer & doesn’t feel that the senator is responsible for the attack.” The pushback quickly returned to a related legal-history issue raised by Republican Sen.. Jeff Flake. who pointed to Schumer’s role in a Gang of Eight that attempted to do away with the visa application in question.. Flake wrote, “Actually, the Gang of 8, including @SenSchumer, did away with the Diversity Visa Program as part of broader reforms.. I know, I was there.”
The briefing also brought Sanders back to another controversy entirely, when she refused to re-litigate Civil War slavery.. When asked about the White House’s position, she said, “i’m not going to re-litigate Civil War.. disgusting and absurd to suggest anyone inside this building would support slavery.”
Even as questions shifted between terrorism. immigration policy. and past political debates. Sanders continued to resist direct engagement with press scrutiny.. In one exchange. when asked. “What are President Trump’s flaws?” by Peter Alexander. Sanders responded. “Probably that he has to deal with you guys on a daily basis.”
The sequence of claims and rebuttals built quickly: Trump tied the attack to the Diversity Visa lottery. Sanders defended ending the program by insisting there is “no vetting system. ” and then the briefing room challenged that claim by pointing to State Department vetting—while other disputes circled around whether Trump blamed Schumer and whether Sanders was accurately describing his earlier remarks.
For the White House, the challenge was immediate and personal: Sanders was left trying to put order around a political response that critics said was inconsistent and factually uneven, all while the policy debate she triggered carried the weight of eight deaths.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Donald Trump Manhattan terror attack Diversity Visa lottery Sayfullo Saipov Chuck Schumer Jeff Flake Gang of Eight State Department vetting immigration policy Las Vegas shooting Civil War slavery
Idk why they keep mentioning that lottery thing like it’s the whole reason for one attack.
So is the claim that the Diversity Visa is basically a terror pipeline? Because that sounds like the article is saying Trump blamed it, but also Sanders is trying to act like it’s not “politicizing.” It’s kinda impossible when your guy literally tweets it the day of.
Wait I thought diversity visas are just for people who already did everything right? Like paperwork and background checks and all that. But then they’re acting like one suspect using it means we should get rid of it… that’s not how logic works. Unless it is now??
Trump says don’t politicize tragedy, but then it’s tweet after tweet about Schumer and immigration. And then Sanders is out there trying to spin it like it’s not related. Also I saw this and immediately thought of the Las Vegas thing earlier and now it’s all mixed up in my head. Like either they’re using it for restrictions or they aren’t, can’t both be true.