While I'm happy that CNN's Candy Crowley actually did something resembling doing her job during her interview with Texas Gov. Rick Perry on State of the Union this Sunday, a little follow up would have been nice here.
Perry repeated what PolitiFactTexas called a "pants on fire" claim that "more than 3,000 homicides were committed by "illegal aliens" over the past six years." Crowley did at least mention that the claim has been debunked by fact checkers, but I guess it's asking too much for Crowley to do even a tiny bit of follow up after Perry said he was sticking by the claim, or to just straight up tell him herself that he's lying.
CNN anchor clashes with Perry over border crime statistics:
CNN anchor Candy Crowley called out Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) Sunday for claiming that illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande have committed thousands of homicides.
Perry said his constituents in Texas are concerned about “the 90 percent-plus of individuals who don’t get talked about enough that are coming into the United States illegally and committing substantial crimes.”
He said that the 203,000 illegal immigrants who have come into Texas since 2008 and booked into Texas county jails have been responsible for over 3,000 homicides and almost 8,000 sexual assaults.
Crowley, the host of CNN's "State of the Union," called Perry’s claim “wildly off.”
“Governor, I have to point out that a number of fact- checkers have said that that 3,000-homicide figure is wildly off,” she said.
Crowley then asked Perry about the estimated $12 million to $13 million-per-month cost of deploying the National Guard to the border.
Perry, however, returned to the issue of crime and insisted his statistics were correct.
“I do stand by them, by the way, but what are the number of homicides that are acceptable to those individuals? How many sexual assaults do we have to have before the president of the United States and Washington, D.C., acts to keep our citizens safe?” he said.
Rick Perry cares about this border issue for one reason. He wants to raise his national profile for his 2016 presidential bid.
UPDATE: Also, too, what Digby said.
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