On Wednesday, top Trump aide Stephen Miller told CNN reporter Jim Acosta that the Statue Of Liberty was not a symbol of the United States’ openness to immigration but instead a “much derided history lesson.”
The two men had a heated disagreement about it on live television. (That’s not unexpected of the Trump administration, but, still.)
Comedy video website Funny Or Die responded almost immediately with a parody of the events.
Splicing together the footage from C-SPAN with a single camera shot of ”90s actor Pauly Shore (best known as an MTV VJ from 1988-1994) shouting expletives and other nonsense.
Shore skewed Miller’s claim that Emma Lazarus’ poem was added later (which is true) and was never intended as a beacon for immigrants (which is weird considering the immigration center for the United States was less than 1,000 feet away in the harbor). In fact, Miller claimed that the “whole reason why we put the Statue of Liberty here is to show the rest of the world we got some beautiful babes.”
Pictured: Jim Acosta and Stephen Miller.
Emma Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” to raise funds for the construction of Lady Liberty’s pedestal, reads in full:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “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-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
If “The New Colossus” is not a beacon for immigrants, we have a serious communication problem amongst 19th century poets.
H/T: Daily Mail, Funny Or Die
