In October, as we covered at the time, now Vice President-elect JD Vance appeared on ABC News' "This Week" where he put host Martha Raddatz in her place as she downplayed the takeover and mayhem caused at apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado by the Tren de Aragua gangs from Venezuela. Her words and those words of another Sunday news show host, Kristen Welker of NBC News' "Meet the Press," have come back to haunt the women, as the gang members have been busted in recent days. There were "dozens" arrested in Colorado and New York during a recent federal crackdown.
During that October 13 episode, Raddatz shut Vance down during their back and forth. "The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complex--apartment complexes and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns. A handful of problems," she tried to emphasize, all with a serious face.
"Only--Martha, do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem, and not Kamala Harris's open border Americans are so fed up with what's going on, and they have every right to be," Vance responded.
We are here RN. https://t.co/2sW60CFToe pic.twitter.com/VUNwAsvakt
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) October 13, 2024
Raddatz's remarks were foolish enough at the time, but now, months later, with President-elect Donald Trump about to take office, and the recent crackdowns on gang members, she's coming across as even more ridiculous.
Gang members are terrorizing residents not merely in Colorado, but in Utah as well, as Madeline covered last week. The New York Post also covered how the gang members have been busted, mentioning horrific details of how the gang members' victims were treated.
"More than a dozen gangbangers likely linked to the vicious Tren de Aragua syndicate are in custody for allegedly kidnapping and torturing victims in an infamous Colorado apartment complex, cops said," the report began. One of the victims was said to have been stabbed, sustaining a non-life threatening injury.
https://t.co/HEOnx12fk9 pic.twitter.com/avek5RRHBt
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 19, 2024
🚨 Police have arrested 14 PEOPLE in the apartment complex where reports of armed Venezuelan gang members taking over the building were WIDELY dismissed by the left.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 17, 2024
There were victims who were found having been threatened, bound, stabbed. pic.twitter.com/ieOOnrxZmQ
There's been even more recent arrests. As The New York Post covered last Friday, federal agents raided one of their gang houses in New York City. It was thanks to a GPS ankle-monitor that one of the suspects was wearing.
According to the report:
Federal agents nabbed a migrant Tren de Aragua gang crew holed up in a Bronx apartment — after tracking one of their ankle monitors to the hideout, sources told The Post.
The Dec. 5 raid at an apartment building on the edge of Crotona Park, conducted by a federal task force made up of Homeland Security Investigations and the NYPD, landed seven alleged gangbangers in handcuffs, including a troublesome 28-year-old Venezuelan national who was wearing a court-ordered monitoring device that led the feds to the crew.
...
Law enforcement officials said the gang has recruited inside tax-funded migrant shelters and runs violent theft and robbery crews while peddling drugs, guns and women in the five boroughs.
According to law enforcement sources, most of the gang members busted inside the Bronx apartment were sought on multiple warrants after crossing the US border with Mexico — then disappearing.
Earlier on Monday, Ward Clark at our sister site of RedState also covered how "dozens" of gang members have been arrested in Aurora and New York City, specifically Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Don Rosenberg, the president of Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC), whose son was killed by an illegal alien, provided a statement for Townhall about his reaction to Raddatz's remarks from October and how they're once more relevant.
"Raddatz, most in the media and all Democratic politicians, discount, justify, or ignore illegal alien crime," he said, going on to mention a lack of consequences for Raddatz and others. "Raddatz’s ignorant comment makes her a fool while the public suffers the consequences. Do they need to be the victims to realize that all illegal aliens must be deported?"
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), also in October, reacted to Raddatz's comments in an episode of "The Verdict." He too is once more speaking out about Raddatz's comments.
Cruz and his co-host, Ben Ferguson, recapped the exchange above between Raddatz and Vance, with Ferguson and Cruz also pointing to it as a matter of something that was one of those "conspiracy theories" that ends up becoming true, which they said "was not real... and then it becomes real."
Ferguson called out the White House and the media, in that "they said that it was not happening, that there were not gangs that had been taking over apartment complexes and running these criminal gangs out of them in Aurora, Colorado. They said this was a lie, that it wasn't true. Then they said, 'well, it's only happening in a couple of them, not that many, so it's not a big deal,'" he pointed out.
"They changed their story again, and now we were right all along, illegal alien invasion in Colorado, number one is real, and number two, you have 14 detained in Aurora, Colorado in a horrific home invasion that are likely illegal gang members. Police are now staying saying when individuals were not only taken but they were tortured," Ferguson also added, mentioning the latest news stories.
Cruz then called Raddatz out by name, in how she "dismissed this," as he also mentioned a headline from Fox News. "So the media tell told us, 'don't believe your lying eyes,'" as he mentioned how 14 suspects were arrested in what was, "without question, a gang incident." The senator mentioned that the chief of police in Colorado "stopped short of declaring which gang in particular was involved, because he could not be certain," though there was "a high assumption."
"We were told this wasn't true, and yet it is true," Cruz said, very matter of factly.
The media told us that illegal alien gangs taking over apartment buildings in Colorado was a conspiracy theory.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 18, 2024
We now know that it was true the entire time.
People voted for Trump because of the left's elitist contempt for the American people.https://t.co/PGPrKlOQNo pic.twitter.com/BGDursVK51
But again, it's not just Raddatz who is worth calling out. Welker interviewed Trump earlier this month in an interview that reflected particularly poorly on her, as Trump kept correcting her narratives. This includes on the Tren de Aragua takeover. `
"We’re getting the worst gang probably with MS-13 and the Venezuelan gangs are the worst in the world. They’re vicious, violent people. And you’ve seen what they’ve done in Colorado and other places," Trump reminded Welker. "They’re taking over, they’re literally taking over apartment complexes and doing it with impunity. They don’t care. They couldn’t--they just are--they’re in the real estate business, okay?"
In response, Welker went with almost the same shameful response as Raddatz did, which was to claim police have said that's not what's going on there, again downplaying the plight of actual victims, including the ones mentioned above who were reportedly tortured. As Trump reminded, he has footage on tape that he's played at his rallies.
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