CRIME/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “For more than a month, Iowans have been gripped by the mysterious and highly publicized disappearance of a local college student who left for a run in her rural Iowa community and never returned. Now the case is poised to explode across the midterm election map. On Tuesday [8-21-18], authorities charged a man who they said is an undocumented immigrant in the slaying of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts, and within hours the tragedy emerged as a polarizing wedge issue — just in time for the fall campaign homestretch. The White House followed up Wednesday [8-22-18] by releasing an emotional video of direct-to-camera stories from families of victims of violence committed by undocumented immigrants…On Wednesday evening, Trump released via Twitter a video of himself standing outside the White House, arguing that Tibbetts‘ death highlighted the need for tougher immigration enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as government funding for his 2016 campaign promise of a wall separating the two countries…Trump claimed Tibbetts’ death was ‘one instance of many,’ and warned of ‘tremendous crime trying to come through the borders’ from Mexico into the U.S. He also derided America‘s immigration laws as ‘strictly pathetic,’ calling them ‘the worst laws anywhere in the world.’“
–Natasha Korecki and Quint Forgey, “Trump’s new rallying cry: Mollie Tibbetts,” Politico, August 22, 2018