Trump Brags That He Came Up With Idea of Calling Large Migrant Groups ‘Caravans’

At his rally in Ohio on Saturday, ex-president Donald Trump said that he invented using the word “caravans” for the mass movement of migrants from one place to another.

Trump spoke more than once during his Youngstown remarks on the subject of immigration. He bragged that he actually did build the wall, said that the border was more secure than ever while he was in office, and less secure than ever under President Joe Biden.

In fact he said the United States has the “weakest border” in the world, adding that “no third-world country” would allow people across their border in the way the United States does.

“We’re going to pay a big price for a long period of time,” said Trump about the number of people crossing illegally into the United States.

He brought up the deportation of gangs and gang members, specifically mentioning MS-13 and detailing some of their heinous acts. “They’re animals,” he said, recalling a previous instance of using the term with regard to vicious gang members.

Trump said that during his administration they were flying criminals back to their countries of origin, but that those countries did not want gang members returned, naming Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. “They don’t like people with tattoos on their forehead,” he joked.

“They’re streetwise, they’re smart. They don’t want to have these people, they’re criminals, many of them are murderers, rapers,” he said. He told the crowd that when he decided to cut off money to those countries that wouldn’t take back planes with deportees they relented.

Trump reenacted those phone calls, playing both parts, and saying he told the foreign leaders he was going to withhold foreign aid because, “you won’t take these horrible convicts and other people that you released into our country illegally, and you put them in caravans.'”

He then said in an aside, “I came up with that term, by the way. That was my term, like fake news and lots of other terms we came up with. Crooked Hillary, we came up with Crooked Hillary, we came up with a lot of terms.”

He concluded the story by pointing at the media in the room. “Nobody wants to report it, because they’re fake news. They’re very dishonest people,” he said as the crowd booed the press. “Very dishonest people.”

Out of curiosity, a cursory search tonight turned up the phrase “caravan of immigrants” popping up in use in news reporting back in 2014. That’s not a fact check, we were just curious about the use of the term. Oh, also there’s the ancient Persians using the term and whatnot.

Watch the clip above, via C-SPAN.