Contentions Michele Bachmann’s Misleading Claims. Peter Wehner

Michele Bachmann​ gave what is a transparently misleading interview on “Fox & Friends.”
To set the context: Representative Bachmann has been critical of Newt Gingrich​’s statement, made at the most recent GOP debate, that while he favors deporting all recent unattached illegals, he doesn’t believe in deporting illegal immigrants who have been here for 25 years, have a family/community here, and have been law-abiding and tax-paying. They could get what the Krieble Foundation developed as a “red card” and be legal, but with no path to citizenship and no right to vote.



When asked what exactly she would do facing a similar scenario, Bachmann dodged the question (twice, actually). She was then shown a clip of her answer in a September GOP debate in which she was asked what she would do with the 11 million illegal immigrants in America. Two months ago she said, “That’s right. And again, it is sequential, and it depends upon where they live, how long they have been here, if they have a criminal record. All of those things have to be taken into place.”
When asked by the interview where the daylight is between Gingrich’s position and what she said in September, Bachmann scoffed, “There’s no commonality in those comments at all.” When pressed about what she meant, Bachmann said the question was about who should be deported first. “That’s what my understanding of the question was,” she said. Except that’s not what questioner Jose Diaz-Balart asked. Here’s the transcript of the debate, which includes this exchange:

DIAZ-BALART: Congresswoman, you said the fence — that you believe the fence is fundamental as an integral part of controlling the border. Let’s say that in 2012 or 2013, there’s a fence, the border is secure, gasoline is $2 a gallon. What do you do then with 11 million people, as the Speaker says, many of whom have U.S.-born children here? What do you do?
BACHMANN: Well, again, understand the context and the problem that we’re dealing with. In Mexico right now, we’re dealing with narco terrorists. This is a very serious problem. To not build a border or a fence on every part of that border would be, in effect, to yield United States sovereignty not only to our nation anymore, but to yield it to another nation. That we cannot do. One thing that the American people have said to me over and over again — and I was just last week down in Miami. I was visiting the Bay of Pigs Museum with Cuban-Americans. I was down at the Versailles Cafe. I met with a number of people, and it’s very interesting. The Hispanic-American community wants us to stop giving taxpayer-subsidized benefits to illegal aliens and benefits, and they want us to stop giving taxpayer-subsidized benefits to their children as well.
DIAZ-BALART: A quick 30-second rebuttal on the specific question. The fence is built, the border is under control. What do you do with 11.5 million people who are here without documents and with U.S.- born children?
BACHMANN: Well, that’s right. And again, it is sequential, and it depends upon where they live, how long they have been here, if they have a criminal record. All of those things have to be taken into place. But one thing that we do know, our immigration law worked beautifully back in the 1950s, up until the early 1960s, when people had to demonstrate that they had money in their pocket, they had no contagious diseases, they weren’t a felon. They had to agree to learn to speak the English language, they had to learn American history and the Constitution. And the one thing they had to promise is that they would not become a burden on the American taxpayer. That’s what we have to enforce.
DIAZ-BALART: Thank you.

As one can see, there was nothing about who should be deported first; the question was about what we should do with the 11 million or so illegal immigrants who are already in this country. Bachmann’s response was essentially the same as the one Newt Gingrich gave on Tuesday. Yet Bachmann, desperately in search of an issue to hurt Gingrich and help herself, now insists that Gingrich’s answer qualifies as amnesty.
When Bachmann made the (ludicrous) claim that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation, one could perhaps excuse her comments on the basis of ignorance. That explanation isn’t nearly as plausible this time around. Her rendition of the September debate looks to be both false and disingenuous. Bachmann isn’t going to win the GOP nomination. She shouldn’t lose her integrity as well.