Lara Trump may not have been born into her husband's infamous family, but she sure fits in well. Not only is she an overblown media personality who's teased aspirations for elected office, just like her father-in-law, but she seems to have fully embraced his repugnant xenophobia as well.
Speaking with Judge Jeanine Pirro this past weekend, Trump, herself a paid Fox News contributor, encouraged residents along the U.S. southern border to "arm up" and "get guns" in response to undocumented immigrants crossing into the country.
"Be ready," insisted Trump, who is married to former president Donald Trump's second son Eric. "And maybe they're going to have to start taking matters into their own hands."
Horrifying as Trump's "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" call for vigilantism is, it's worth placing it — and her — in context. For months, conservatives, and particularly those at Fox News, have been attempting to gin up hysteria over a so-called "border crisis" that is, they claim, solely the fault and responsibility of President Biden. Whereas proclamations of a border crisis during the Trump administration were largely used to justify the former president's horrendous and draconian immigration policies, those same allegations are now being used as a political cudgel against the Biden White House from people who don't actually have any sincere interest in helping the families crossing into the U.S. in search of a better life.
In this context, Lara Trump's comments — vile as they are — are simply a drop in the larger, longstanding bucket of Fox News incitement. Yes, they're more overtly violent than most of the network's anti-immigrant agitating, but they're not fundamentally different from what the MAGA-fied Fox News has been preaching for years.
However, despite being one of the less ostentatious Trumps, Lara is arguably one of the more dangerous members of the family. A gifted communicator, she has long been rumored as the most likely Trump to run for office, after her father-in-law, although she demurred on a North Carolina Senate bid this year. And with her perch as a Fox News contributor, she is in a position to regularly ingratiate herself with the network's massive viewership, just like her father-in-law did with his NBC show The Apprentice.
