Promoting his new book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America (Thomas Dunne Books) on the September 5 broadcast of KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show, MSNBC political analyst and former Republican and Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan claimed that with “Mexican consuls, and intellectuals, and writers, and journalists, and others . . . openly talking about 'La Reconquista' ... the re-annexation -- linguistically, culturally, socially and ethnically -- of the Southwest is an inevitability.” But as Media Matters for America has previously noted, the concept of reconquista is an idea promoted by “white supremacists and neo-Nazis” more than by Mexicans or Mexican-Americans.

Media Matters for America previously noted that “reconquista” is a term associated with El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the founding document of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, or MEChA), a group with affiliates at numerous college campuses and several high schools that states to work toward “improving the social and political situation of the Chicano/Latino community.” Media Matters for America also previously noted that, according to a March 30 article by Alex Koppelman, a columnist for Drexel University's biweekly online magazine, Dragonfire, the concepts of "Aztlan and reconquista these days aren't, for the most part, ideas held by Mexicans: they're ideas held by white supremacists and neo-Nazis. The myth of reconquista stems from a misreading of one of the founding documents of the Chicano movement, 'El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan.' " Koppelman also stated in his article, “A simple Google search shows that the people talking about Aztlan and reconquista are predominantly not Mexican (though there are some radical fringe groups) but white supremacists.”

During his interview with Boyles, Buchanan said:

[The Mexican government] have suddenly have realized that not only can they get rid of their social problems by pushing their poor and their unemployed North ... they also get tremendous leverage -- once these folks are naturalized and registered -- over the government of the United States of America. And they are talking -- you get Mexican consuls, and intellectuals, and writers, and journalists, and others are all now openly talking about “la reconquista,” and, frankly, when you get 60 percent of Mexicans, almost, believe the Southwest belongs to them and they're pouring in there at that magnitude, you're gonna find yourself in 2050, the Census Bureau says, you know, with a hundred and two million Hispanics concentrated in the Southwest.

Later in the broadcast with Boyles, Buchanan again referenced reconquista and the so-called Aztlan movement and claimed, “If David Duke had the kinds of numbers that are behind this sort of thing, The New York Times would have had a stroke.”

Buchanan's comments to Boyles echoed claims he made on the August 29 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Mike Rosen Show. Buchanan told Rosen that “when you go through the culture and you go through it -- language, culture, and all these other things which really hold a country together -- and you see how they are disintegrating, it's hard to see what holds America together by 2050.”

In addition to his dubious comments regarding reconquista and “re-annexation,” Buchanan on the September 5 broadcast also stated that “clearly the illegal aliens” were responsible for infestations of bedbugs “in 26 states.” But a fact sheet from the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences states that “widespread use of baits rather than insecticide sprays for ant and cockroach control is a factor that has been implicated” in the resurgence of bedbugs in the United States. According to the fact sheet:

In the past decade, bed bugs have begun making a comeback across the United States, although they are not considered to be a major pest. The widespread use of baits rather than insecticide sprays for ant and cockroach control is a factor that has been implicated in their return. Bed bugs are blood feeders that do not feed on ant and cockroach baits. International travel and commerce are thought to facilitate the spread of these insect hitchhikers, because eggs, young, and adult bed bugs are readily transported in luggage, clothing, bedding, and furniture. Bed bugs can infest airplanes, ships, trains, and buses. Bed bugs are most frequently found in dwellings with a high rate of occupant turnover, such as hotels, motels, hostels, dormitories, shelters, apartment complexes, tenements, and prisons. Such infestations usually are not a reflection of poor hygiene or bad housekeeping.

Buchanan also referred to a September 4 episode of CNN's The Situation Room, during which he debated National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia on the issue of immigration. During the debate, Murguia said, “I'm very concerned about the fact that he has said that he believes in the Sam Francis philosophy that only whites have the appropriate genetic endowments to keep America from collapse. And I want to know if he really believes that's true.”

Sam Francis was an editorial writer for the conservative Washington Times until 1995, when the paper fired him for writing a column that stated, “neither 'slavery' nor 'racism' as an institution is a sin.” Francis later wrote a syndicated column for Creators Syndicate until his death in 2005. In his new book, Buchanan criticizes The Washington Times for firing Francis for claiming, in Buchanan's words, “Western civilization was superior and that only Europeans could have created it.”

Referring to Francis and the CNN debate on Boyles' show, Buchanan stated:

I was on with a lady last night and she said well you, you know, you quoted your friend Sam Francis, and I quoted a line from which Sam Francis had lost his job at The Washington Times. And she said well, you're quoting and this is just racist -- you know, she was from National Council for La Raza, which means “the race.” And I said, you know, listen lady, I mean, all -- this is, I mean, you get that kind of militant racism from these folks on, in the barrios, and it's not responded to, and if you condemn it, and you say, look, I want to secure the borders and I like the country I grew up in, you're a racist.

From the September 5 broadcast of KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:

BUCHANAN: And now, what's happened, this government, the Mexican government's been slow at the switch. But they have suddenly realized that not only can they get rid of their social problems by pushing their poor and their unemployed North, they get back remittances of 16 to 20 billion a year now, cash coming into Mexico. But they also get tremendous leverage -- once these folks are naturalized and registered -- over the government of the United States of America. And they are talking -- you get Mexican consuls, and intellectuals, and writers, and journalists, and others are all now openly talking about la reconquista and, frankly, when you get 60 percent of Mexicans almost believe the Southwest belongs to them and they're pouring in there at that magnitude, you're gonna find yourself in 2050, the Census Bureau says, with, you know, a hundred and two million Hispanics concentrated in the Southwest. And as the native-born Americans start moving over the mountains back from California as they're doing now -- I mean, I think the re-annexation -- linguistically, culturally, socially, and ethnically -- of the Southwest is an inevitability if Bush doesn't get control of the borders. He's gonna lose what James K. Polk won for the United States.

[...]

BOYLES: Can you think of any other issue -- domestic policy, or for that matter foreign policy, but let's take it as domestic -- there's nothing that illegal immigration doesn't smack into, destroy, take down, drain? Can you name an issue? I mean, education, criminal justice, health care?

BUCHANAN: Exactly. The environment -- take the environment --

BOYLES: Same thing. And also, you know, when I first read this, and I've talked to other people about -- now we, there was a piece on one of the local television stations on the return of, of all things, bedbugs.

BUCHANAN: Exactly.

BOYLES: And it comes up out of these flea-bag hotels, I'm sorry, and they find -- and I have talked to cops and they say, “Oh man, it's back and it's back big” -- and they say this is the return to bedbugs -- have invaded the United States for the first time in 50 years.

BUCHANAN: Exactly. Bedbugs were found in 26 different states. It is clearly the illegal aliens.

[...]

BUCHANAN: In the United States you've got the actual Aztlan movement of these militant Hispanics who are talking about the bronze continent and the bronze culture, and they are first cousins to what's going on in Bolivia, where the Aymara Indians there and the person of Evo Morales are claiming that the occupiers here are from Europe. Europeans came 500 years ago, and we have a superior claim to this land, and it is very racialist in character and, and, I mean, if David Duke had the kinds of numbers that are behind this sort of thing, I mean,The New York Times would have had a stroke.

BOYLES: What do you do --

BUCHANAN: And uh, they -- all these guys come out and use this kind of rhetoric and language and you get the state chairman of the Democratic Party who says, you know, Prop. 118 was the last gasp of white America in California --

BOYLES: Yeah, and I hear that and, yet, when we speak about this and you get called a racist. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, which of us is the racist?

BUCHANAN: Exactly. I was on with a lady last night and she said, well you, you know, you quoted your friend Sam Francis, and I quoted a line from which Sam Francis had lost his job at The Washington Times. And she said, well, your quoting this is just racist -- you know, she was from National Council for La Raza, which means “the race.” And I said, you know, listen lady, I mean, all -- this is, I mean, you get that kind of militant racism from these folks on, in the barrios, and it's not responded to, and if you condemn it, and you say, look, I want to secure the borders and I like the country I grew up in, you're a racist.