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Johnson Woolen Mills owner and CEO Stacy Manosh caused a stir this week when the Business Insider website on Tuesday published comments she made supporting President Trump’s earlier tweets regarding certain members of Congress.

Reached by phone on Friday, Manosh said Business Insider had mischaracterized her email to the reporter, Gina Heeb, and that Heeb and other journalists should have focused on the products and services presented at a White House event Monday, not on the presidential tweets that had provoked a storm of criticism.

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Heeb supplied Manosh’s original Tuesday email to VTDigger:

Good Morning Gina,

As a business insider I am wondering why you are not asking questions about business, companies, job growth, the economy, jobs, etc…Do you really care about business or just trying to find fault with the President?

As usual with all the fake news people, that is NOT what he said. He said, “if you are not happy here, you are free to leave”. There was not one person in the crowd that did not agree with him. When people come to this country LEGALLY, they should not bite the hand that is welcoming them. To say they support the enemies of this country that are killing Americans makes them an enemy to me. There is no place for anyone living in this country that feels this way. I would have added, “if you’re not happy here, you can leave and we’ll help you pack”.

Deplorably yours,

Stacy Manosh

Immigration and foreign workers are a critical economic issue – many would say the top issue – for private businesses and the associations that work for them. Several business leaders have testified in state legislatures, including Vermont’s, and in Congress that their businesses are suffering from a labor shortage and that lawmakers must do more to provide visas and other permits to the foreign workers who need them. Vermont’s unemployment rate is hovering at 2.1%, a low that economists and business leaders have said is suppressing economic growth.

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Business leaders in general tend to stay out of political discussions, but the Vermont business people who were reached Friday responded immediately to questions about the Business Insider story and how immigration affects the state’s economy.

“There isn’t a teddy bear made out of Shelburne, Vermont, that a new American doesn’t touch,” said Bill Shouldice, CEO of Vermont Teddy Bear, which produces 300,000 teddy bears each year. Shouldice has a staff of 125 full-time workers and almost 1,000 in the fall. He said he has nine positions open now. “It’s definitely a business issue.”

“Unless you trace your heritage back to Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, shut up,” said Tom Torti, the president of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. Torti added that expanding Vermont’s workforce is critical to the state’s future, and said he supports helping new arrivals find training and jobs. “We’re all from somewhere else; even those who claim to be from the Mayflower came from somewhere else.”

The Vermont Associated General Contractors testified in favor of H.533 this year, a workforce training bill that creates a task force on workforce development opportunities for refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers living in Vermont. AGC Government Relations Director Matt Musgrave estimated the group’s members have 2,000 to 3,000 unfilled jobs.

“We welcome new Americans,” said Musgrave on Friday. “We do not have a position that would exclude any new Americans of any kind.”

This year, U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, all of Vermont, introduced legislation that would shield farm workers from deportation and help them attain legal status and eventual citizenship.

Asked about the issues, Manosh, whose company employs 23 people to manufacture wool clothing in Johnson, said Business Insider had taken her remarks out of context and that she supports legal immigration. Manosh said the media mischaracterized the remarks Trump made at the business event.

“He said, and I was there, if people are unhappy with this country, if they are not happy here, if they don’t like it, they don’t like what we are doing, our flag, our Pledge of Allegiance, they are free to leave,” she said.

“He didn’t say ‘leave;’” Manosh said. “He said ‘you’re free, this is a free country.’”

Asked if foreigners who seek change or who protest U.S. policies should be told to leave, Manosh affirmed they should.

“God help you if you’re a conservative and you disagree; they burn you at the stake,” she said. “If you support the country, if you support the flag, if you like the flag, if you like God, they hate you.”

As for foreigners, “These people, they want to change the country, they come here from other places and want to change it to other places, we don’t want to live under Shia law, I’m sorry, we just don’t want to do that,” she said. “We like our flag, we like our country, we like our Pledge of Allegiance … have a little pride in the country.”

Manosh said she has been out of the office this week and doesn’t know if people have been calling Johnson Woolen Mills to discuss the comments that were published by Business Insider.

“If you want to incite people not to buy Johnson Woolen Mills products by saying I’m a racist, there will be one less business in Vermont,” she said. “Business is fragile; you can knock one out pretty fast.”

The Vermont Department of Labor released figures Friday showing that the state’s unemployment rate remains at the all-time low it hit last month of 2.1%. The department said at least 40% of the Vermont employers it has surveyed have at least one job vacancy.

Asked about the solution to the labor shortage, Manosh demurred.

“I have no idea; I am no genius when it comes to solving problems,” she said. “I’d love to have some foreign people here. I’m all for immigration. … I’m just for doing it legally. I had 11 relatives on the Mayflower, so our family came to this country from away, too, but we came, we learned English, we did whatever we needed to do.”

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