Martin O’Malley Calls Trump An ‘Immigrant-Bashing Carnival Barker’ In Debate

AUSTIN-A family of mixed-immigration statuses welcomed Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley into their Austin home for lunch Thursday to discuss the personal impacts immigration policies have had on them.

Democratic presidential candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow during a democratic presidential candidate forum at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., Friday, November 6, 2015.

Kevin Cooney, an anchor for KCCI-TV in Des Moines, asked O’Malley, “Republicans say securing borders is a top priority”.

O’Malley responded, “We’ve actually been focusing on border security to the exclusion of talking about comprehensive immigration reform”.

“If more and more deportations were going to bring our Republican brothers and sisters to the table, it would have happened a long time ago”, he said.

Cue an interruption of loud laughter and cheers.

“The fact of the matter is, and let’s say it at our debate cause you’ll never hear this from that immigrant bashing carnival barker Donald Trump, the truth of the matter is…”, Martin said as his fellow candidate, Hillary Clinton, grinned and the audience cheered. “Fact-check me. Go ahead”. O’Malley has used similar language previously against Trump, but this got the biggest applause of the debate in its first hour, notes the Atlantic live blog.

He said Clinton has played a “sort of cynical game, where you say one thing to one crowd and use the term ‘illegal immigrants, ‘ and then turn around to another crowd and switch your messaging and talk about ‘new Americans.’ I always say ‘new Americans, ‘ O’Malley said”.