Lou Dobbs died Thursday at the age of 78. Dobbs spent two decades at CNN before becoming one of Fox News’s star presenters. Among other things, he repeatedly spewed false anti-immigrant and racist talking points. He helped spread the “birther” theory against President Obama. A die-hard Trump supporter, Dobbs was let go from Fox after the 2020 election in the wake of Trump’s election fraud scandal, after helping buoy Trump’s lies. Back in 2007, Lou Dobbs joined us on Democracy Now! This clip starts with Democracy Now!’s Juan González grilling Dobbs over his lies demonizing immigrants.
Juan González: “All that would be needed to do is to raise the economic level in Mexico, and the entire illegal immigration population problems would decline in this country. And not only that, but the country, if it had a higher immigration quota in connection with” —
Lou Dobbs: “Are you giving me instruction, or are you telling me what we agree upon?”
Juan González: “No, we don’t agree. We don’t agree, because you are demonizing illegal immigration as a separate issue.” …
Lou Dobbs: “How in the world can you use my name and 'anti-immigrant' in the same breath?”
Amy Goodman: “When we hear comments like” —
Lou Dobbs: “You hear” —
Amy Goodman: — “a third of the — from you — we’ve played them, so we can’t refute the videotape, Lou.”
Lou Dobbs: “Have you looked, Amy” —
Amy Goodman: “We can’t refute — a third of prisoners are” —
Lou Dobbs: “Yes. And we discussed that?”
Amy Goodman: — “are illegal immigrants” —
Lou Dobbs: “Have we discussed it?”
Amy Goodman: “No, a third of prisoners are illegal immigrants, not true. Seven thousand leprosy cases in the last three years because of illegal immigrants” —
Lou Dobbs: “Christine Romans misspoke.”
Amy Goodman: — “not true.”
Lou Dobbs: “We said that. And that’s as straightforward as we can put it.”
Amy Goodman: “And you made an announcement on your show” —
Lou Dobbs: “Absolutely.”
Amy Goodman: — “and you will say it here” —
Lou Dobbs: “Absolutely.”
Amy Goodman: — “that it is not true. Illegal immigrants are not responsible for 7,000 cases of leprosy over the last three years.”
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