GOP Rep says higher prices 'for guacamole' are easy price to pay to protect Americans from 'fentanyl poison'
Rep. Van Orden, R-Wis. argued that slightly more expensive imports from Mexico are an easy price to pay when American lives are what’s at stake.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis. argued that slightly more expensive imports from Mexico are an easy price to pay when American lives are on the line.
"If Donald Trump‘s mass deportation plans were to take effect, there are estimates from the USDA that show nearly half of all agricultural workers in this country are undocumented, including by at least one count, a majority of dairy workers," CNN host Boris Sanchez said. "How is the Trump Administration planning to mass deport those workers without disrupting the nation‘s supply of food?"
"Well, here‘s what‘s really been inflationary," Van Orden began. "The last four years of the radical, out of control Biden spending with this Inflation Reduction Act, that’s what has caused inflation."
The congressman then argued that imports like guacamole pale in importance compared to the health of American citizens.
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Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., argued that guacamole becoming more expensive is an acceptable price to pay when American lives are what’s at stake.
"If it means that I have to pay more for guacamole, but fentanyl poison does not come across the Canadian and Mexican border, and our mothers and sisters and brothers and daughters aren‘t poisoned to death by this chemical that‘s coming across the border, I‘m willing to pay more for guacamole, as is the rest of the United States of America," he said.
Van Orden then suggested that this position is a bipartisan one, protecting Americans of all kinds.
Former President Trump takes the stage during a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, on Aug. 23. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
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"We gotta understand that this is not a political statement. It‘s not a Republican or a Democrat issue, or independent or Libertarian, we‘re sick and tired of our children and our neighbors dying from fentanyl poisoning. There‘s not a single person. There‘s not a single person listening to this show right now that is farther than one degree separated from someone that has died from fentanyl poisoning and that‘s exactly what President Trump is getting to with these tariffs," he said.
President-elect Trump’s plans for tariffs and deporting illegal immigrants have come under criticism from the left, with them claiming that Americans will be paying more for many items.
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