Kimberly Guilfoyle delivered an impassioned speech, Monday, during the first night of the Republican National Convention. In the booming speech, Guilfoyle used her home state of California as a warning and referred to her mother’s “immigration.”
The American attorney, who is Donald Trump Jr’s girlfriend, cautioned voters in her prerecorded address. “If you want to see the socialist Biden-Harris future for our country,” Guilfoyle warned, “just take a look at California.”
She claimed Democrats ravaged the wealthy land of California and its “immaculate environment “into a disastrous place “of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets and blackouts in homes.”
Guilfoyle caused even more controversy with her mention of her Puerto Rican mother’s “immigration.” She said, “My mother Mercedes was a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. My father, also an immigrant, came to this nation in pursuit of the American dream.”
The Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917 granted Puerto Ricans US citizenship, though, meaning her mother was a U.S. citizen, not an immigrant. The comment upset many Puerto Ricans, including New York Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter in response to Guilfoyle’s story of her family’s immigration: “The woman the GOP picked as their “proud” Latina to tout “immigrant experience” didn’t seem to know that Puerto Rico is already part of the United States.” She continued saying, “It’s quite on message, bc it reflects their belief that Latinos aren’t real citizens, even when we are Native descendants.”
Her tweet was in reply to writer Andrea González-Ramírez’s tweet that reads, “‘Proud Latina’ Kimberly Guilfoyle should know that Puerto Ricans like her mother Mercedes have been U.S. citizens since 1917. Therefore, she was not an ‘immigrant.'”
Social Media Responses To Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Speech
While claims Guilfoyle made during her address sparked controversy, the most shocking part of the speech was the volume at which it was given. The thunderous speech was delivered in a silent room and made viewers feel extremely uneasy. Some even found the aggression of it all humorously hyperbolic.
Social media users quickly posted that they found speech unsettling, especially due to the lack of audience. Dramatic moments, when the shouts would be likely followed by cheers or claps, were instead accompanied by silence. Users wrote she “seems to think she has a live audience. It’s all crescendos to applause lines.” Similarly, another wrote, “Has…anyone told her nobody is there?” While another joked, “This is a SNL bit waiting to happen. Holy s–t”
Clips of the animated speech cover social media. Aaron Rupar, a writer for Vox, tweeted clips of the speech to point out Guilfoyle’s “***!!!!!!!!!SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!***”
Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech was one of a host of addresses on Monday, during the first night of the 2020 RNC. Themed “Land of Heroes”, Monday’s RNC events included the official renomination of Donald Trump by Republican delegates.
