Jeb! Bush seems to think he can simultaneously rail against "anchor babies" and win over Latino voters. By
pointing the bigot-finger at Asians. Speaking to reporters in McAllen, Texas, Monday, Bush was asked "do you worry that using the term anchor baby could affect your ability to win the Hispanic vote?"
Absolutely not, Jeb! said, citing his Spanish fluency and "the fact that I'm immersed in the immigrant experience" before going on to a more ... unexpected defense of his use of "anchor baby."
What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed where there's organized efforts—and frankly it's more related to Asian people—coming into our country, having children, in that organized efforts, taking advantage of a noble concept, which is birthright citizenship. I support the 14th amendment. Nothing I've said should be viewed as derogatory toward immigrants at all.
Presumably this is a clumsy reference to
this story from last spring, but it's more fun to think it's a veiled shot at
Bobby Jindal. In any case, the immigrants that Republicans get really worked up about are not the ones who can pay $50,000 to "birth tourism" operators and stay in luxury apartments, but nice try at deflecting, Jeb!
He then went on with another deflection attempt, saying "I think we need to take a step back and chill out a little bit as it relates to the political correctness that somehow you have to be scolded every time you say something." Way to try to steal that Trump swagger, there. It's super convincing and not at all like a petulant former frontrunner trying to walk the line between establishment respectability and the level of entitled, aggressive bigotry that's the median for this particular Republican presidential primary.
