New York Post financial correspondent Lydia Moynihan was pressed hard Saturday morning on CNN after claiming certain cultures are “not compatible” with the United States, which led host Abby Phillip to ask her, “Which ones?”
“Culturally, there are things that we do not want in America,” Moynihan said on “Table For Five.” “Female genital mutilation happens in Somalia. We don’t want that here. So I think it’s OK to say, ‘Look, there are cultural things that we don’t want to bring into America.’”
Moynihan’s commentary comes after remarks President Donald Trump made earlier this week in Pennsylvania, in which the president bragged about his immigration crackdown on people “from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, and many other countries. He later admitted he had called those places “shithole countries.”
“We had a meeting, and I said, ‘Why is it we only take people from shithole countries?’ Right? ‘Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden?’” Trump said. “But we always take people from Somalia. Places that are a disaster. Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”
Phillip told her guest she believes Trump knows there are no longer penalties for his remarks and that “it’s OK now in the Republican Party, to say, ‘We only want to let white people come into this country. We only want immigrants from European countries.’”
“This is not a race issue. This is a cultural issue,” Moynihan replied, before Phillip noted that the Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees admitted annually to the United States, and that most of those accepted will be white South Africans.
“Well, I think it’s important to have a conversation about [how] America is not a charity,” Moynihan said. “We have the opportunity and the ability to select who we want to come in and who we think is going to contribute economically and culturally.”
She then talked about the number of Somali households in Minnesota that receive government assistance, and also brought up a series of fraud schemes mainly involving defendants of Somali descent.
“I think we should absolutely select the best of the best of the best. It should be an individual choice, but I think we can also acknowledge there are certain cultures that are not compatible with America,” Moynihan continued.
“Which ones?” Phillip pressed. “What are the cultures?”
Moynihan cited a U.K case in which two teen asylum seekers from Afghanistan were convicted of rape, adding that she was talking about cultures that “are OK” with rape and female genital mutilation.
At the end of the segment, sports journalist Bomani Jones returned to the administration’s asylum agenda.
“I just want to know what’s compatible about white South Africans and not the rest of them, right?” he asked. “If the argument is cultural compatibility, what would make white South Africans culturally compatible and Black ones not?”
“I have not seen that specific memo,” Moynihan said.
