Matt Walsh denies that some citizens are actually “American” — starting with a Cuban American GOP congresswoman born in Miami

Written by Jason Campbell

Published

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh made the shocking claim that Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) is “not American” and should “go back to Cuba.” Salazar, in fact, was born in Miami and is an American citizen. Lashing out at Media Matters for pointing out this inconvenient fact, on Thursday Walsh reiterated his claim, arguing that citizenship does not equal American identity. 

Salazar has been under fire in right-wing media for co-sponsoring the “Dignity Act of 2025.” Walsh has already called Salazar “a traitor” for co-sponsoring this legislation. 

Working alongside the Trump administration, right-wing media have been on an escalating campaign to end birthright citizenship on the basis of a series of untrue myths. Walsh himself has called for an end to birthright citizenship and for deporting the American-born children of undocumented immigrants. 

Salazar is not the only citizen Walsh has attacked. Last week, he claimed that Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh “was born in America, but he’s not actually an American.” Walsh has also claimed that Puerto Rico, which is a territory of the United States, is “not American and it’ll never be.” 

Walsh is setting himself up as the judge and jury of national identity. Given that he believes “this country was in fact primarily built by white men," it’s not hard to figure out what he thinks constitutes an American.

From the July 24, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Matt Walsh Show

MATT WALSH (HOST): If there's any redeeming quality that these people have, it's that they're so stupid they can't help themselves. They're compelled to admit everything that they're planning. When leftists like Yvette Clarke and Maria Salazar tell you that illegal aliens are really Americans, this clip tells you why they're saying that. They want to build a coalition of voters that will benefit them politically. They understand very well that none of them are really Americans, just like I wouldn't be Japanese if I somehow parachuted into Tokyo tomorrow, filled out some documentation, and gained legal status. OK. That would make me a legal resident of the country, but it would be a grave error on behalf of Tokyo's government to allow that — one which would never actually happen in real life. But regardless, it wouldn't make me as Japanese as someone who's lived in the country their entire life, who speaks the language, respects the culture, has ancestral ties to the country and its history. And we all know that. We know that for every other country outside of the Western world, that is. 

And for most of this country's history, this wouldn't be a controversial point, but suddenly we're expected to believe that only a bigot, only a far-right white supremacist would dare to say that being an American actually means something. Only the most racist person imaginable would believe that Americans have a shared culture, a shared language, a shared loyalty. That's the message they're trying to send. They're trying to tell us that we're racist for wanting America, wanting this country to have any identity at all. Every other country on earth is allowed to have an identity, allowed to have a shared culture, a shared language, a shared identity, but we're not, we're not allowed to have that. It's a basic desire and need for all civilized people who form countries. This is why you do it and everyone else is allowed to have it. We're not. How dare you even suggest such a thing? 

Well, at the risk of angering all these very low IQ and emotionally incontinent subversives, I'm not going to go along with it. No one should. “What is a woman" was once the big question of the day. It's a question that always had an obvious answer even if the left pretended otherwise. So perhaps we have a new question, one that's also pretty simple, even if the left claims to be totally vexed by it. And that question is simply, what is an American? Really? What is it? What does it mean to be an American? Ask your local representative that question. Ask every politician that question. Think about it yourself. In the next few years, that question, as it was when Teddy Roosevelt delivered the, that speech to the Knights of Columbus, will prove to be very important. It'll be the question that defines this country and whether it survives. We should all be able to answer it and to banish anyone who can't answer it, especially any politician as far away from this country as we possibly can.