Trump revives ‘The Snake’ reading at North Carolina rally

President TrumpDonald John TrumpPoll: Trump leads Biden by 7 points in Iowa Biden campaign cancels event in Texas after pro-Trump cars surrounded its bus Obama shooting three pointer while campaigning for Biden goes viral MORE revived his use of a late left-wing activist’s song called «The Snake» during a rally in North Carolina on Sunday while warning supporters his opponent would undo his immigration policies.

Trump recited the song’s lyrics at his Hickory, N.C., rally.  Trump once regularly recited «The Snake» at his rallies to warn about what he saw as the ills of immigration but the president hasn’t used it since February. He said Sunday that supporters had asked him to reprise it.

Trump reads the xenophobic «The Snake» poem for the first time during a rally this election cycle pic.twitter.com/3CNBDioG1a

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 2, 2020

The piece, originally released in 1963 by singer-songwriter and activist Oscar Brown, is based on an Aesop’s fable called «The Farmer and the Viper» and is meant to teach how kindness can be exploited by malicious people.

Brown’s daughters told CNN in 2017 that they had sent cease-and-desist orders to the Trump campaign urging the president to stop using the lyrics, claiming that he was misconstruing the song’s meaning.

«Oscar Brown Jr.’s words are being stolen to promote his hate message and intolerance,» Africa Brown told CNN’s Don LemonDon Carlton LemonDon Lemon: ‘Had to get rid of’ friends who support Trump Schwarzenegger: California GOP has gone ‘off the rails’ with unofficial ballot boxes CNN’s Lemon, MSNBC’s Maddow rail against NBC for Trump town hall: ‘Embarrassing ratings ploy’ MORE.

“When I see him doing it, I know that he is stealing. He’s twisting Oscar’s meaning to serve his own campaign and climate of intolerance and hate, which is the opposite of what the original author, Oscar Brown Jr., intended,” added her sister, Maggie, on MSNBC.

“He’s perversely using ‘The Snake’ to demonize immigrants,” said Africa during that same MSNBC interview. “My father never had anything against immigrants.”