FRESH AIR
TERRY GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. When Donald Trump announced his candidacy, my guest, [New Yorker staff writer] Evan Osnos, was reporting on extremist white rights groups. What he quickly discovered was that Trump’s anti-immigration message was resonating with these groups. In current issue of the New Yew Yorker Osnos writes, quote, “ever since the Tea Party’s peak in 2010 and its fade, citizens on the American far-right – patriot militias, border vigilantes, white supremacists – have searched for a standard-bearer, and now they’d found him. In the past, white nationalists, as they call themselves, had described Trump as a Jew lover, but the new tone of his campaign was a revelation,” unquote. Osnos’s article about Trump’s white nationalist support was recently published in The New Yorker, where he’s a staff writer covering politics and foreign affairs. Osnos was based in Beijing covering China for eight years. He returned to the U.S. two years ago. His book “Age Of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth And Faith In The New China” won the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction. Let’s start with a clip from Trump’s June 16 speech announcing his candidacy. These comments about Mexicans are an example of what sparked the approval of many white nationalists. MORE