GOP presidential candidate, Donald Trump, demanded today that the statue of liberty be torn down and sent back to France, which gifted the statue to the U.S. He held a press conference on Liberty Island in New York Harbor where the statue is located.
Trump stated that the enormous statue was sent to the U.S. because of a proposal of Edouard de Labulaye, a French political thinker.
"He believed in the radical, seditious ideas of the 18th century enlightenment. He advocated revolution to establish democracy. If he were alive today he'd believe in the caliphate which Isis seeks to establish by overthrowing governments," stated Mr. Trump.
Trump then said, "We Americans must understand de Labulaye, if he came to America today, would not pass the "ideological purity test" I have proposed for immigrants."
When informed by a New York Times reporter that America was born of revolution to establish a republic and that the revolution against Britain was based on enlightenment principles of liberty, equality, fraternity and the idea that the people should have ultimate sovereignty over the government, Trump attacked the reporter for being "just another Political Correctness stooge."
Pointing to the Statue of liberty Trump said, "Get that ugly woman out of here. I want her deported!"
He then read from a piece of paper that he took out of his coat pocket.
"The plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty reads: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!' These lines are from the poem 'The New Colossus,' written by Emma Lazarus."
"Who is this loser Emma Lazarus?" Trump demanded to know. "She should be investigated to see where she got these subversive ideas. That's exactly what we don't want, the wretched refuse from Mexico and Muslim countries coming to our amazing, fantastic America where we love our freedom."
