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Mark Krikorian
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Mark Krikorian
Author, The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal
Mark Krikorian is the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank. He is also the author of The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal.
This interview was conducted by FRONTLINEâs Michael Kirk on June 6, 2019. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Rejecting the Republican âAutopsyâ
Letâs start it up in â13, really 2013, â14, after the âautopsyâ is written.Whatâs going on with the sort of establishment Republicans in the post-Mitt Romney defeat?
The Republican establishment never really changed its thinking on the immigration issue.Itâs just that they grabbed the opportunity of Romneyâs defeat as a chance to try to reassert control over the immigration message, as it were, because Romney had strayed somewhat from the Jeb-ite, Bush-ite path.He wasnât really that hawkish on immigration.I mean, itâs easy to exaggerate, but clearly he understood that this was something that needed to be addressed.He may not have been theâyou know, the right messenger for that.Or, in addition, I donât know that he really understood the issue well enough and the arguments well enough to be a good vehicle for them.
Nonetheless, he had used immigration to some effect in the campaign.Then when he lost, especially considering that a lot of people figured he was going to winâit wasâit was actually surprising for people that he had lostâthat the establishment folks in the Republican Party said: âAha. See?You know, I told you so.âAnd they wentâthey wrote the autopsy, and they tried to, you know, push the agenda that had been stymied in 2005, â06 and â07, when Bush and [Sen. John] McCain and [Sen. Ted] Kennedy and the rest of them had all gotten together to try to do the same kind of thing: amnesty everybody, increase immigration and promise that it wouldnât happen again.
What did you think of thoseâof those efforts, of that effort?
I didnât think very much of it, because they werenât addressing the basic problem, political problem, which is thatâwhich is a trust gap.Nobody in the public actually believed that the political class would actually have a renewed commitment to enforcing the law.And what that would mean is we would just end up 10 years down the road with another 10 million illegal aliens we had to amnesty.In other words, thatâs always been the problem.Itâs never really amnesty in this group of illegal immigrants.The problem is always, are we going to now have another group that weâre going to have to amnesty down the road, because the promises of enforcement are again abandoned?
I mean, thatâsâreally the betrayal from the 1986 bargain still poisons immigration politics today, and itâs the reason the 2007 push collapsed.Itâsâthe reason that the Gang of Eight bill didnât get through the House of Representatives, is thatâis this basic lack of trust, because in 1986, weâd never done anything like this before, and the bargain, the grand bargain was weâre going to amnesty the people who are here and have been established, kind of clear the decks.Going forward, we promise weâre going to do better, and weâre not going to have this problem again.
It was a lie.And I donât mean it was a failure and, you know, things didnât work out.It was pretty clearly a lie from the beginning on the part of the pro-legalization people, because just a few years after that â86 deal was signed, something like three years, maybe three and a half years later, the National Council of La Raza came out with this report saying that the bargain needed to be undone; in other words, that theânow that everybody had been amnestied, the ban on hiring illegal immigrants in the future, which was the enforcement component of that bargain, had to be undone and had to be legal again, to hire illegal aliens.And Ted Kennedy and [Sen.] Orrin Hatch got together, with La Raza, to actually push that through. âŚ
This is the point Iâve been trying to make to these, even to the pro-amnesty people, is that weâve got to have stuff like E-Verify up and running, in place and functioning, before we can then talk about amnestying the people who are here.And their resistance to that is the reason this issue just stagnates and staggers from one year to the next.
Miller, Bannon, and Sessions
⌠Letâs say itâs â13, â14, â15, somewhere in there.One of the things weâre doing is weâre following the tracks of Steve Bannon, who weâve spent a lot of time with, Steve Miller and Jeff Sessions and the sort of Breitbart world they were in for a while and the effect of that on both the [House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor race and on and on and on, up through Trump.So letâs goâletâs go back to what their very first ideas were, which was they donât like the idea of the autopsy.They didnât like the idea of where it was coming.They didnât like the bill in Congress, and they did what they could to shut it down.Did you knowâyou know those guys around the time they were starting to get up and running?
I mean, Bannon, I neverâI think I met him once.Not even thenâit was years later.But theâbut obviously, Stephen and Sen. Sessions we knew.And, I mean, the senator had been active in fighting the earlier amnesty push that McCain and Kennedy and the rest of them were trying to orchestrate.So yeah, I mean, we wereâyes, I knew them.
Can you give me a sense of who Sessions was at that time, to you guys, whatâ?How much value, what was he like, etc.?
On any political issue, youâre going to have a lot of congressmen who agree with you.But thereâs a difference between a congressman who agrees with you when a vote comes up and one that is actually a leader on the issue.And Sessions really was the only person at that time in the Senate who was a genuine leader on the immigration issue among the immigration hawks.In other words, there were other people in the Senate who wereâwho could be relied on to vote the right way when push came to shove.And, in fact, most Republican senators in 2013 voted against the Gang of Eight bill.
⌠Thereâs a difference between voting the right way and then moving onto the next thing on the one hand, and actually being a leader whoâs talking about it all the time.And Sessions was that person.There are, you knowâand thatâs true with any kind of issue.Whether itâs taxes or abortion or anything, thereâs always going to be a few people who are the squeaky wheels, who basically are the leaders that other people look to.Sessions was the only person like that, really, in the Senate.And I donât mean theâI mean, I mean noâI donât mean to denigrate [Chuck] Grassley, for instance, who was good and has been important and instrumental in the issue.But Sessions was the one talking about it all the time, and devoting staff to developing expertise, and constantly doing outreach to other offices.Anytime something happens, you know, send out letters, send out press releases, all of that stuff. âŚ
How valuable was Steve Miller in that effort?
I think he was very valuable.I mean, in a sense, you might have to talk to Sessions about that, because he had other staff people who were important and involved in that.And there were other staff people, Grassleyâs staff and others.But clearly, Miller was the most out-front person.He was communications director, so obviously heâs going to be out there publicly as well.But he was relentless in pointing out the flaws in the bill, you know, and taking the little cracks and, you know, sticking the screwdriver in and scraping away and trying to make it bigger and trying to make the differences sharper and trying to makeâtrying to bring into public view elements of the bill that frankly its sponsors didnât want to talk about.
For instance, the bill doubled immigration, doubled legal immigration, almost doubled guest-worker admissions.This is something that the sponsors of the bill never talked about.The compliant media never asked them about.They were not challenged about it in any way.And the immigration hawk organizations, whether itâs a think tank like mine or the activist groups like [NumbersUSA] and others, they could talk about it all they want, but only when one of the participants in that conflict, when one of the senators actually makes a big deal of it is it likely to get the kind of attention it needs.And thatâs one of the things that Sessions was doing and that Miller was, you know, instrumental in the communications part of it.
And the power of Breitbart just hammering away at it, hammering away?
Yeah.
Does that matter?
I think it does matter, because it matters a lot that Breitbart constantly was talking about it, because how do you break through the white noise of public life to ordinary voters?Nixon once said something to one of his assistants, that, you know, the 100th time you have made the same point, then youâre completely sick of hearing yourself say it, is the first time someone else is hearing that.
And thatâs why itâs essential that somebody was hammering away at those issues publicly.And there wasnât anybody other than Breitbart really doing it.Eventually other conservative media were attracted.National Review started going after it.I mean, it becameâthe bill really did become toxic among conservative media.But there had to be somebody all the time banging the drum on that.And, you know, itâsâremember who was the previous editor of The New York Times said, when there was some big story, they were going to flood the zone.That was his phrase: âFlood the zone.âWhat was his name? I forget the guyâs name.
Howell Raines said it.
Yeah, it was Raines who said that.Well, they flooded the zone.I mean, thereâs aâthatâsâthatâs an essential thing to do if youâre going to get movement, especially on an issue like immigration, where all of the organized interest groups are on one side.If you are, you know, fighting over, I donât know, carried interest, something, there is people with money who can buy time and buy attention on both sides of that debate.Or, you know, should youâshould the Army buy this fighter or that fighter, or whatever it is?Thereâs always moneyed interests on both sides, and money is necessary to get your voice heard.
Thereâs no moneyed interest on the side of tighter control and lower numbers.It literally does not exist.And so that makes something like Breitbartâs role in constantly banging the drum even more important than it would have been on any other issue.
You know whatâs interesting about this, as we look back on it, that [Rupert] Murdoch, [Roger] Ailes and Fox were on the Reince Priebus-autopsy side in these days.I mean, youâve gotâ
I mean, they werenât super cheerleaders, if I remember, but they were clearlyâthey were not at all leading against the bill.And some of them, obviously, were clearly for it.I mean, [Sean] Hannity was, you know, I mean, heâll kind of go whichever way theâyou know, the establishment wind sometimes blows, you know what I mean?And so he wasâand they were doing a good job withâby putting [Sen. Marco] Rubio out front.He wasâyou know, heâs a bright new face of tomorrowâs conservatism and all that sort of thing, and he pre-emptively tried to getâyou know, to get people, to co-opt people so they wouldnât be opposing the bill.
And so I think thatâs what you saw with Fox.In other words, Iâm notâitâs notâI donât think, you know, they got a memo and said, âOK, this is what weâre going to say.âBut they, I think, did buy into the autopsy fairy tale.And the conservative voices pushing the Gang of Eight bill did a good job of, I think, of co-opting them.
Defeating Eric Cantor
The way the story goes, the way Bannon tells the story, and I think the way Miller tells the story, or hopefully weâll talk to Sessions about it, they sort of decide, and maybe you, too, that Eric Cantor is a reasonable target to, as a demonstration project, if nothing else, to the Republican establishment that there is a base out there that is not playing the game the way they think the game should be played.
I mean, I wasnât in on any of that stuff, really.I mean, I think IâI talked to [David] Brat like during the campaign as far as, you know, going over immigration issues, and he had questions.And I mean, he knew a good deal about it.Butâso I wasnât involved in the politics of it.My sense is that it was a combination of things.Cantor was already somewhat vulnerable because he hadnât done a good job of keeping in touch, you know, with constituents.I mean, he had become kind of Washingtonâs representative to the district instead of the districtâs representative to Washington.And that happens. And Iâm not evenâIâm not slamming the guy.But the point is, that was already there.
And there was clearly a need toâyou know, to get a scalp.And his was the scalp that came up.And itâsâI talked to some staff people on our side, in other words, who were completely hawkish on immigration.And they were a little wistful, because Cantor wasnât the worst person you could imagine on the Republican Party on immigration.You know, he had actuallyâI mean, there were a lot worse people.
On the other hand, number one, heâs in leadership.Number two, he already had this vulnerability, completely unrelated to politics, that did overlap this idea that the Republican elite was disconnected from its own public on the immigration issue, because he sort of had become kind of the lobbyist congressman in a sense, and so he, you know, he paid the price for it.
And if youâif youâI mean, as we look at it, youâve got Breitbart, as you say, pounding away at it, and youâve gotâyouâve got Cantor as a target.And they go through, Bannon and others, they go to Laura Ingraham; they go to Mark Levin.They start the radio, the right-wing radio guys, whatever they are, whatever you want to call them, [Rush] Limbaugh.They all decide, âWeâre going to take this guy down.âAnd they do.
Yep. Yep.And that was clearly, you knowâI mean, I think there were two things, though, that killed the chances of getting that bill through.Obviously, Cantor was the dramatic single event.But also the border crisis really started getting attention then, the so-called unaccompanied minors, in big numbers.And I think those two thingsâbecause the unaccompanied-minors thing wasnât just an event that happened on one day; it was a process.But it was something that actually had been building since Obama announced that DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] decree, because really, as soon as he announced it, thatâs when the unaccompanied-minors thing started.People say: âNo, of course not.They wouldnât qualify for DACA.âItâs like, you know, obviously not.Thatâs not the point.The point is, the president had clearly sent a message: If youâre illegal and you come here as a child, eventually weâre going to give you a work permit and a Social Security number.That sparked that.
By 2014, it got big enough that it really burst into the news.I even sent a team down to South Texas, a reporter who works for me, a Pulitzer Prize winner, actually.He sent Duke Cunningham to jail.Jerry Kammer is his name.But getting a Pulitzer doesnât mean you keep your job in journalism anymore.So anyway, I sent him down with a cameraman and did a bunch of videos.He had lived in Mexico.He had been Arizona Republicâs Mexico correspondent for years, and so he speaks Spanish fluently.
So he was at the McAllen bus station in 2014.I donât remember exactly what date it was.It would have been before the election, because this stuff kind of built up, and thenâand then the election kind of exploded it.But he related talking to a Guatemalan woman, who, with a friend of hers, came up.You know, they each had a kid or two.And, you know, they did the bogus asylum claim, and they were just delivered to the bus station, waiting for their bus.He was talking them up, and the woman said: âWell, yeah, back in Guatemala, we were watching CNN, and they said that if you bring a kid with you, theyâll let you go.And then somebody on the other side of town did it, and you know, we heard that it worked for them, and so we figured, what the heck? Weâll do it.âIâm only saying this because that kind of set theâthat was almost the background rumble.And then Cantorâs defeat really sealed the deal that there was just no way the House was going to vote on that bill. âŚ
The Trump Campaign
... How do you feel about Trumpâs candidacy when you see it coming up and starting to become a potential reality?
I mean, I wrote about that a lot on National Review.So itâs not a secret I was a [Sen. Ted] Cruz guy myself, although, you know, upon reflection, I donât think Cruz could have won the election.I think Trump is the only guy who could have won that.But my take has always been, Trump is the symptom; heâs not the problem.You know, I wish Abraham Lincoln had been on the ballot, too, and I would have voted for Lincoln.But Lincoln wasnât on the ballot.
And what Trump did is essentially a kind of hostile takeover of a dysfunctional company called the Republican Party.They were not reflecting the real concerns of their voters, and so someone else came in and snapped their voters out from under them.And shame on all those other politicians running for officeâŚand shame on all those other guys running for president, and their predecessors, for having allowed that to happen.
⌠But as unappealing as a hostile takeover by, you know, aâby an outside fund is of a company, it usually happens for a reason, and it has to happen if the corporation is going to succeed.And in this sense, it had to happen if the Republican Party was going to succeed.So you know, as unappealing as Trump is, in a lot of waysâand Iâve said all kinds of rude things about the guy, and I donât take any of them backâhe, you know, he was necessary, and still is.
So hereâs theâhereâs theâhereâs the thing about immigration.This brings us to immigration and Trump, isâand Bannon and Miller and Sessions, who were all there at the center with him about immigration, they say they signed him up, or they signed up with him, however you want to think about it, because of immigration, and their recognition that, in the base, immigration was the number one issue.Talk to me a little bit about that: the base, immigration as the number one issue, and Trump and immigration.
The politics, postwar politics had been left versus right.This is true in Europe and here.You know, high taxes or lower taxes, all this kind of stuff.Especially once the Soviet Union disappeared and globalization became a thing, politics is no longer really a matter of right and left; itâs become a matter of up and down, basically a patriotic public versus a postnational elite.And that realignment, that reshuffling is exactly what weâre seeing in Europe, and itâs what we are seeing here.
Immigration is the issue thatâs most salient in thatâin that dispute over whether the nation or postnational priorities should take firstâyou know, should be a first concern.Trade obviously figures in there.But trade just doesnât resonate with as many people in the same way.I mean, obviously, if youâre an autoworker or something, importing Japanese cars, thatâthat kind of thing, Iâm not saying itâs nothing.And Iâm not even saying itâs not important.Iâm saying it doesnât resonate with people in the same way.Immigration does.
So my point is, immigration was the tip of the spear of that conflict between nations and globalism, rather than just a free-floating thing that people just kind of attached themselves to.And like I said, weâre seeing that in England; weâre seeing that in France and Italy and Hungary and a lot of places.
And Trump saw that apparently, and took advantage of it.Itâs not because heâs playing four-dimensional chess or any of that stuff.Itâs because he does haveâhe does seem to have a pretty good gut instinct for what ordinary people are thinking about, because really, the guy is a blue-collar guy who just happens to have a lot of money, if you think about it.I mean, you know, thatâs where you get the gold faucets and all that kind of stuff.I mean, thatâs, you know, people who come from money donât often have gold-plated bathroom fixtures, you know what I mean?
Heâs like aâheâs aâyou know, I mean, his dad wasnât a truck driver, but heâs kind ofâbecause his dad had money, too.But he kind of has that aesthetic.But itâs not just an act, as far as I can tell. Itâs actually who he is.And so he does have a better gut sense of what ordinary folks think.But also, his gut reaction to things is more consistent with the gut reactions of regular people.In other words, Iâm not sure how much of it is Trump sitting in there and saying, âOK, now what is it thatâs important to people, and letâs craft a message thatâs going toââ Itâs more like heâs reading the paper, and heâs saying, âWhat the hell is going on with this?â just like the guy at the bar is watching CNN and saying, âWhat the hell is going on with this?âIn other words, his reactions are similar to those that a lot of ordinary people have.And thatâs, I think, one of his strengths, that he resonates with people, because he shares theirâtheir worldview in a lot of ways.
The Dreamers and DACA
⌠So when youâit just is a great setup for a territory weâre trying to understand.When you look at something like DACA in September, when Sessions steps up and maybe forces his hand, or maybe he asks Sessions to do it, but do you know about that?How does Sessionsâhow does that get started?
Yeah, I actually didnât know what happened.Iâd been banging that drum since inauguration.
So why did Sessions step out and say, âThis is it; I canât support it; weâve got toâweâve got to do something about DACAâ?
Because theyâd gone for what, eight months, after having said heâs going to end DACA on day one, they didnât.It was day 200.I mean, from my perspective, better late than never.But they wereâyou know, they werenât going to do it if they werenât pushed into it.That was my sense.
But what were they waiting for?
⌠Months go by.People like you are sitting out there, who were expecting something on Monday.Itâs now five, six, seven months.Are you raising a ruckus, kicking up some dust, reaching out to people and saying, âWhatâs going on?â
I mean, I was making something of a ruckus inâyou know, in print, I mean, because I kept banging away at it.But, you know, I hadâI mean, given the fact that I wasnât a bigâhad notâgiven the fact that I had not been a big Trump fan, itâs not as though I was picking up the phone or texting Stephen Miller.So like I said, I was doing my complaining in public, which maybe isnât the best way of doing things, but thatâs kind of the way I do it.
Let me ask you this, because you, Mark, you wereâyou said earlier that you thought Sessions was incredibly valuable as a leader in the Senate on the immigration issue.He then is attorney general of the United States of America.And even if he has recused himself in March, and even if maybe heâs on the outs personally with the president of the United States, he has an office; he has a staff, and MillerâMiller, too.And back and forth, theyâre very close.Do you have any indication that they were working on getting things ready, like DACA and other things, with attorneys general, and our U.S. attorneys and others from there?
I have no idea. I really donât.I mean, Iâm afraid toâI just donât know what was going on there.And quite honestly, you know, I would beâI have neverâI would love to find out how muchâyou know, how did Millerâs relationship with Sessions change once Sessions became Trumpâs punching bag.I donât know.But, you know, Sessions is gone, and Miller is still there.So my point is, once that whole recusal thing happened, and the president soured on Sessions, Iâm notâI mean, I donâtâI donât know for a fact howâhow well Miller and Sessions then continued to work together. âŚ
Well, thereâs a little bit of light that can shine on it because of the Sept. 5 announcement by Sessions that DACA is next.And it makes sense, if you think about it.Letâs say thereâs a grievance from Sessions.Letâs say thereâs a little bit of revenge moment here.Heâs at least trying to box the president in, or maybe heâs a friend of the presidentâs and he wants to help him fulfill a campaign promise.Something like that is going on.
Yeah, presumably.Now Sessions, you know, is still loyal to the presidentâs agenda, and heâs notâlike he, for instance, is not going to be writing a kiss-and-tell book.Heâs not that kind of guy, you know what I mean?So that Iâm not sure revenge would have been an issue.Iâm thinking itâs more that he was trying to, you knowâitâs more that he was trying to move things along by declaring that his legal opinion as attorney general is that the DACA decree was unlawful.And so itâs like, OK, well, then what?How can you keep continuingâhow can you keep doing it if your attorney general has just said itâs unlawful?I would loveâI really donât know whether that came as a surprise to the White House or not.It might have, for all I know.But I donât know. I donât know.
⌠Were you happy that Sessions, Sessions the guy youâve talked about earlier in this interview, was the attorney general, independent of recusal, because heâs there on your issue?
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, he wasâI wasâI remember after the election, I asked him, I said, âSo, you know, do you wantâyouâre going to be DHS [Department of Homeland Security] secretary?âAnd he said, âNo, no,â he said. Attorney general is what I would, you know, like.âAnd thatâs actually more appropriate for him.He was attorney general of Alabama.I mean, thatâs the right job.DHS secretary is a very different kind of job from attorney general.But no, absolutely.I mean, he was the ideal person in that job.And I donât mean to denigrate [William] Barr.He seems to have done a pretty good job.But no, Sessions, from my perspectiveâbut he also, you know, does other things other than immigration.But yeah, absolutely, from our perspective.
What it meant was that he would make sure he had staff that were focusing on this issue all the time.Itâs a similar thing as in Congress.In other words, on any issue, you need a leader, whether itâs, you know, a lawmaker whoâs banging the drum on the issue, but even in an administrative department, if the guy at the top is focused on X issue, heâs going to have staff working on it; theyâre going to be checking with their subordinatesâOK, where did this go?How has it been moving?âwhere if itâs something thatâs not as high priority, you kind of can let the bureaucrats go at their own speed, and itâs not necessarily going to move change in the same way.So itâsâit was very important that Sessions was attorney general and that he brought in people, staffpeople, who shared his, you know, his goals on immigration.
OK. So letâs go back to DACA now, because weâre watching this president we talked about, whoâis he? Isnât he?Is he squishy? Is he not?Is he really there? Is he really not?It was stopped up on the first week.Now here we are, seven months later, and itâs going to happen. It has to happen.And Sessions, his attorney general, even though theyâre not best friends anymore, has made it happen.And suddenly, the television news, the other things are filled with ⌠âDreamers.â
Sure. Well, that was going to happen.I mean, just to go back to Trump, his take on the issue.Again, I think Trumpâs reaction to the DACA issue is consistent with a lot of regular peopleâs take on it, because DACA is popular for a reason.I mean, itâs an illegal act by Obama.But the idea that kids who grew up here, who were illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay is something that, I mean, Iâm for, too.You know what I mean?
So my point here is that Trumpâs gut reaction to that is similar to most peopleâs gut reaction.Itâs like, yeah, OK.Now, DACA and the DREAM Act that it grew from take that impulse and then try to push the envelope in a bunch of ways.The idea that someone who came here at 15 years old and spends five years here is now somehow psychologically and emotionally already an American and can never go back is laughable, whereas someone who came at 18 months old or five years old, spent his whole life here, went to school here and all that stuff, thereâs a stronger case to make for that.
⌠But my point is that inâyou know, if you are over the breakfast table, flipping through the newspaper with your orange juice, and you see hereâs some kid whoâs been here since he was 4 months old and doesnât know any Englishâdoesnât know any Spanish, and, you know, is doing well in school, and has his heart set on joining the Marine Corps so he can hunt down and kill Americaâs enemies when he gets out of school, itâs like yeah, yeah, of course we should let that guy stay, you know what I mean?And thatâs kind of Trumpâs reaction.
So my point is, the ambivalence that we saw in the administration is actually understandable.The problem is that Trump himself, I think, didnât think through how to take that instinctive gut reaction, butâbut mold it in such a way that the policy outcome would be something that you had promised.In other words, yes, these are terrific kids, or whatever it is that he said during the campaign when he met with some of them.But, you know, weâre going to stop renewals as of six months fromâyou know, in six months, weâre going to stop processing renewals to give Congress time to fix this, because we really want to fix it, and theyâre terrific kids and all this stuff.
The point is, thereâs a way to have reconciled his perfectly natural and widely shared gut sense that, you know, kids who grow up here should be allowed to stay with the things that heâd been saying during the campaign.Itâs just that it didnât happen.
You know, itâs so rare in American democracy thatâor especially if you cover, as we have, White Houses over the decades, to actually get a moment that we all get to watch, where this particularly ambivalent president is trying to do a deal.So he invites the cameras in.[Sen. Dianne] Feinstein is there. [Rep. Kevin] McCarthy is there.Theyâre all there.In the corner is Stephen Miller, like oh, my God, itâs thatâ
Well, even McCarthy started to freak out.
Exactly. Tell me what you thought when you watched that happen.
I mean, I wasnât pleased, but I canât say I was surprised, because, you know, Trump doesnât have any policy grounding.Itâs all kind of gut reaction.And you know, he wants toâwants to be popular in the room that heâs in, with the people that heâs sitting with, whenever it is, whoever is there.And so, you know, he is the kind of guy who, at least rhetorically, isâis going to be prone to just giving away the store, which is why even McCarthy, whoâs kind of a squish on all of these things, immediately piped up during that meetingâI remember that quite distinctly on TV, saying, âWell, Mr. President, I think what you mean isâŚââsomething like that.I forget exactly what happened.But even McCarthy had to rein him in.
Now, that having been said, he could say anything he wants in a meeting, and then everybody leaves, and then, you know, his staff says, âWell, you know, Mr. President, what that really means is, if we did thisâ,â and then they would just, you know, back away from it maybe.So itâs not like I was too worried about it, because you can give away the store at a meeting on TV and then just walk it back, which the president has done all kinds of times on all kinds of issues.
But this is one thatâs near and dear to your heart.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, I agree.But my point is, it didnât particularly surprise me.I mean, yes, it wasâit was disconcerting.And I did kind of have my head in my hands.But I've had that a lot in listening to the President⌠And that was just one more instance of that kind of thing.
⌠In fact, in the 48 hours from when he says to Dianne Feinstein, âGo write it up, and Iâllâyou know, weâll talk,â in that 48 hours, Fox, which has by now moved over and is harsh on this issue, beats him around the head and shoulders a little bit.Certainly, Miller is all over it.By the time [Sens. Dick] Durbin and Lindsey Graham call him in the morning, at 11:00, and say, âWe got it,â and he says, âCome on over, fellows,â what they walk into, of course, is [Sen. Tom] Cotton, [Sen. David] Purdue, Miller has built the room up, fed the statistics to the president, and heâs gone to school on this, I gather.
⌠I think it was a learning experience even for the other side, that just because the president agrees with you and nods your head and says, you know, sort of whispers sweet nothings into your ear at this meeting, does not meanâthereâs noâthereâs no kind of commitment.And you know, in a sense, that probably shouldnât have been surprising to them, but it wasâit was good that they learned that.Andâand this idea thatâI mean, thisâyou see this a lot.You used to see this a lot anyway, that, you know, Miller is sort of pulling the strings and the puppet master and that sort of, you know, Trump is this dummy thatâthat Miller is manipulating, itâs justâitâs laughable.It just strikes me as absurd.
And when people say [Jared] Kushner is doing the same thing, itâs absurd.
But why does thatâ?
Because a guy like Trump is not going to have some 30-year-old telling him what to think.Yes, he does rely on staff, whether itâs Stephen or itâs Jared, for, you know, assistance and input and information.But the idea that theyâre going to be pulling his strings, that itâs President Kushner or President Miller or something, itâs justâitâsâit just is laughable.I mean, the guy hasâTrump is much too big an ego and much too strong a personality to be pushed around on stuff like that.I justâI just never believed that stuff.
Thenâthen, Mark, he says, âshithole.â
Yeah, well, he probably said that all kinds of times.It wasnât that he said âshitholeâ; itâs thatâitâs that, you know, Durbin or whoever it was immediately ran to the media and said, âOh, my God, the president said a bad word.âYou know, that was, again, the kind of thing a guy in a bar watching TV over a beer would say.And thatâs who Trump is.Heâs just a guy with a lot of money whoâs sitting in a bar, watching TV over a beer.And so, you know, he was just speaking normally, and Durbin, you know, realized this was an opportunity to sort of get one over on the president.
And I think, I mean, in a sense, it was almostâin a sense, it was the presidentâs naivetĂŠ, I think, that led to that problem.Itâs not as though he or anyone else hasnât basically either said or thought the same kind of thing.But itâs that he didnâtâI donât think he appreciated that Durbin is not his friend. âŚ
Zero Tolerance
Letâs talk about âzero tolerance.âHappens a little later now.Once again, itâs Attorney General Sessions to the rescue in some ways, pushes it forward.Once again, thereâs coverage of the crying babies and the little children.Once again, it has an effect on the president of the United States.What are you thinking when youâre watching and youâre part of, in some ways, the aspiration, at least, of zero tolerance?
I think the administrationâthe administrationâs failure there was the same as with the travel ban, is that they didnât do the preparation, the public preparation that was necessary in order to try to limit the outcry.In other words, the point to the zero tolerance, what zero tolerance means, is that if you cross illegally, thatâs a federal crime, and theyâre going to try you for it, because most of the time, people who cross illegally are not tried.Theyâre dealt with not criminally but civilly, because you can deal with it either way.
Under Bush, there had actually been initiatives called Operation Streamline, where in certain portions of the border they prosecuted everybody for illegal entry.And it wasâyou know, it was a kind of experimental thing.They tried it in areas that had less traffic just to see how it worked, because U.S. attorneys generally couldnât care less about most immigration offenses, certainly this kind of thing.But what they did is they, you know, theyâthey got organized.They said: âLook, weâre going to bring 10, 20 people in at a time.Thereâs no question that theyâre guilty, because theyâre here.I mean, if theyâreâliterally, if their feet are in the United States, theyâve committed the crime.Thereâs nothing to prove.â
And they would bring a whole bunch of them in at a time.Theyâd all plead guilty.Theyâd be given time served or five days or something.The point was not to put them in jail; it was to get the criminal conviction, send the message, âThis is serious,â and then youâd deport them, so if they do return, and you make clear to them: âIf you return, youâre going to real jail.Youâre not going to be in aâyouâre going to prison.Youâre not going to be in a jail with a couple of other illegal aliens for four days.Youâre going to be, you know, bunking with somebody with tattoos all over his face.âAnd most of these guys are just ordinary schmos. Theyâre not criminals.They donât want to spend any more quality time with an MS-13 head chopper than anybody else does.
That was the point to it.And so what theâand under Obama, they pretty much stopped it, obviously.So that point was to essentially re-establish Operation Streamline, so that if you cross the border illegally, youâre going to be prosecuted.What happened with the family separation thing is that people were bringing kids, because the kids were their passport into the United States under our ridiculous loophole-ridden policies.
So the Marshals Service doesnât take the kids into custody when the parents are tried.And so when they take the parents into custody for the trial, the kids magically, legally speaking, are now unaccompanied minors.Thatâs what happened, and it seems to me thatâand itâs easy to second-guess.Iâm not necessarily blaming anybody, but thereâs a certain Monday-morning quarterbacking here.
But the way to have approached that would have been to come up with an arrangement for ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to maintain custody of those people rather than pass them to the Marshals Service.I mean, the Marshals Service would take them to court, but they wouldnât serve their five days or whatever it is.They wouldnât legally be separated from the kids.They would still be in ICE custody.Theyâd be separated for a couple hours to go to the courtroom and come back.They would serve their five days in ICE custody, and then ICE would already have them for the deportation, and theyâd be sent home. âŚ
So in terms of DACA and in terms of separation or zero tolerance, over those eight or nine months, fall of â17 and spring of â18 into the early summer, from your perspective, how do they do?What is the net effect of your quest and crusade as a result of what this White House did?
⌠The answer is, you know, I donât think you canâI mean, I donât think itâs appropriate even to judge success or failure in that kind of relatively short time period.I mean, Iâm not sure ifâIâm not sure if the net effect of the Trump administration on immigration policy in the end is going to be positive or negative.I mean, thatâs actually kind of an open question from my perspective.But itâs a question we canât answer until the administration is completed, and then we look at it in retrospect. âŚ
The 2018 Midterm Elections
Letâs talk a little bit about the politics now of it as well.Letâs go to last summer.Itâsâmidterms are coming.Whatâs being raised in political terms from the White House is, weâve got to get immigration out there in front.Itâs theâif the Democrats areâif we all automatically are going to lose some seats, but the Democratsâif weâre going to stop the Democrats, immigration is our issue.Weâve got to say thereâs caravans coming; weâve got to use the [murdered student] Mollie Tibbetts story; weâve got to put the military on location.Weâve got to do what we can do to make it look like a crisis.Did you agree with the politics of it?
I mean, it was a crisis.I donât do politics, so, I mean, I donâtâas far as elections and stuff, I donât know, but it was a real crisis.And, you know, using the military can be theatrical, but thereâs actually a practical purpose to it.I mean, those guys do in fact free up Border Patrol agents to do what theyâre supposed to be doing, although now even the Border Patrol agents are just welcome wagon at this point.
But so thereâs aâthereâs an actual practical policy reason to use National Guard or military on the border.Itâs just that I think the presidentâs gut reaction, again, is very similar to regular people: Letâs send the Army down there.Itâs just that then, when you find out actually whatâhow that works, theyâre not patrolling the border, shooting people who are coming across; theyâre driving buses and helping the Border Patrol.Itâs a support role, but itâsâitâs an important support role.
Mollie Tibbetts likewise.I mean, you can overplay that, I think.You know, itâs like: âOh, my God, an illegal alien killed an American girl. Terrible.âAnd thatâsâobviously, it was terrible.But there are policy consequences to it.I mean, I wrote about it at the time.It wasnât quite as bad as [murder victim] Kate Steinle, because this wasnât a sanctuary issue and all the rest of it.But the guy had succeeded in working here for years and using fake information and, you know, had a driverâs license and all the rest of it, and gotten away with it.So thatâs, you know, that tells us something about the weaknesses in our immigration system.
Again, can you overplay that? Sure.You can overplay anything.And did they? I donât know.I mean, I donât haveâI canâtâI donât know that they overplayed that.But itâs a real thing.And as far as at the border, it really is a crisis.I mean, to this day, there is not a single Democratic elected official who is willing to say, âWell, you know, maybe 100,000 people showing up at the border and saying, you know, âI want to claim asylum,â and then, you know, they get to stay for the rest of their lives because ICE is never going to look for them,â that thatâs somehow a problem.There isnât a single one whoâs saying that.
Former Democratic officials are saying it.[Sen.] Claire McCaskell has made that point.Sheâs no longer in office.Jeh Johnson, DHS secretary, former DHS secretary under Obama, who, you know, heâs an Obama guy, but heâs a serious guy, heâs been willing to come out and say this is a crisis.To this day, no Democratic elected official has been willing to say that.
But my point is, it was a crisis then, and it was pretty clearly a crisis.And it was smaller, and we could have headed off a lot of the problems weâre dealing with now, had we not.So these are real things.Itâs not as though the administration shouldnât have been talking about this stuff.These were real problems.
The Government Shutdown
⌠Tell me what you think happened with the shutdown.
I mean, again, understand this is notâno little birdie gave me updates from inside the White House.
But youâre looking from a perspective of a certain issue.And the impact of it?
Yeah. I mean, the impact wasâwas bad for the president, because when you draw a line in the sand, and then somebody crosses it and you draw another line in the sand, itâs essentially what Obama was doing with the red line in Syria.People just donât believe you anymore.And the president, you know, could sign one bad funding bill, and did, but then said, âIâm never going to sign one of these again.â Then he did.You know what I mean?
So if youâre going to have a government shutdown, you need to have an exit strategy.You know, itâs the same as Vietnam.You need to know how youâre going to get out of this thing before you get into it.And the problem is, they didnât have an exit strategy.And at some point, they were going to have to reopen the government, because the Democrats werenât going to deal.I mean, if they thought that, they were mistaken, because there was no way the Democrats were going to give the president anything he wanted, because, you know, partly heâs the loudest voice on the issue, so heâs going to end up getting the blame regardless.But, you know, the media works for the Democrats.And Iâm not being facile about this orâbut I mean, you know, yes, they do.
And so there was no way to develop a narrative where the Democrats were to blame for the government shutdown.It justâit wasnât going to fly.Iâm not saying itâs not true.Of course it actually was true, but it wasnâtâthat was not the storyline that was ever going to work out.So the point is, they were going to have to back down, and when you back down, you end up, you know, looking weak.And thatâs what happened.
Itâs similar to thisâthe idea that the president was toying with of shutting the border crossings down on Mexico.This was what, a couple months ago they were talking about this.Youâre going to haveâif you do that, youâre going to have to reopen the border at some point.I mean, the car plants will all start closing.You know, itâs notâbut if youâif you close the border for one day, and you say, âWeâre shutting everything down for 24 hours to send a message,â well, youâve created an exit strategy, because when the 24 hours is up, you open it up again, and you get to say: âSee? See?See how difficult that was?You donât want me to do that again, do you?â
Thatâs why I think theâthe government shutdown was a defeat for the president, because they had no exit strategy, and they were going to end up losing.There was no way theyâit seems to me there was no way they couldnât lose, in which caseâI mean, I donâtâyou know, look, Iâm not a legislative strategist; Iâm not sure there was any good result that could have come out of that.But clearly the result wasnât good for the president.It showed him as weak.And heâsâyou know, he said, âIâm never going to sign another one of these again.â And then he did.
Crisis at the Border
⌠So then he has a real crisis.Now, if there wasnâtâif it wasnât a real crisisâyou say it was a crisis.
It was a crisis then, but itâs a bigger crisis now, absolutely.
Right. How big?
Our border, as weâreâwell, you guys do your editing however you want.But as weâre talking here in June, our border is ceasing to exist.I donât think thatâs an exaggeration.IfâI mean, even The New York Times actually had a great quote last week, that the Border Patrol is no longer even able to have any control over the number or character of people who are entering the United States.I mean, itâs that serious.We no longer have border control.And, you know, this is notâIâm not hyperventilating.This isnâtâIâm not out there giving stump speeches.Iâm saying that we no longer have a border in any meaningful sense.We have a show border that doesnât, cannot, because of our policies, stop anyone.
Weâre now seeing 100,000 people a month. Itâs growing.It may go down a little in the summer, but thatâsâthat would just be a little blip.The numbers are continuing to go up, and itâs not just Central America.Central America is just the closest place.Weâre starting to see people from Africa in significant numbers.They have been coming anyway, but now theyâre doing it in the same strategy the smugglers have used for Central Americans, where you have 100, 200, 300 people just show up.Essentially makes any patrolling of the border impossible during that whole shift, because youâve got to get everybody blankets and burritos and stuff, and take somebody to the hospital.And so the Border Patrol just becomes a welcome wagon.
Itâs going to spread.Weâre going to have planeloads of people from Pakistan and Indonesia and everyplace else.Weâve already got Romanian Gypsies coming over the Canadian border.Iâve actually seen some of them.Again, theyâre bringing a kid, because the word has gotten out: If you have a minor with you, you areâyouâre let into the United States.You get a work permit, because we parole them.And if you lose your asylum claim, no one will ever look for you.So itâs essentially a permanent residence in the United States, is what it amounts to.
That means we donât have a border.I mean, this really is serious.And itâs going to get worse.And I donât think the Democrats appreciate what a danger it is for them.I think they are kind of enjoying it.Itâs schadenfreude for them.âHa ha. Orange stupid man said he was going to be tough on immigration, and now thereâs more people than ever sneaking across the border.And itâs not a crisis, but itâs Trumpâs fault anyway.â
But the president is, I think, doing a reasonably good job of showing that heâs actually trying everything he can.Thatâs what this tariff threat is about, too, is look, weâre running out of options.Weâre going to, you know, have this tariff on Mexican goods until Mexicoâunless Mexico starts cooperating more than it is already.
Iâm skeptical that thatâs going to work.But as aâas a step in showing voters that youâre doing everything you can, but ultimately, unless Congress plugs these loopholes, you canât fix this.I think itâs actually an important step.And the danger to Democrats is, next November, if this is still bad, theyâre in trouble.I mean, this is, you know, theyâreâthey are essentially filling the Angela Merkel role from, you know, Europe in 2015, inviting in a million-plus people from abroad.
Obviously, itâs different, because the presidentâs the president.In other words, the sort of the person in charge of the government is not the one doing this.But Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the House, and [Chuck] Schumer has a veto over anything that goes through the Senate because of the filibuster.Theyâre the ones that are stopping this.The previous Congress, yes, should have done a better job on this.But they actually did have legislation that included some of these fixes that the White House wants.The legislation failed in the Senate.It almost passed in the House.The reason it didnât, really, is because of [then-Speaker of the House] Paul Ryan, who was a Republican, but an anti-Trump Republican.
I think thereâs a real danger here that some Democrats who are not in office are starting to see that this can blow up in their faces, because if the public gets the sense that the Democrats are the reason we canât get control over the situation at the border, theyâre going to get a two-by-four to the side of the head.So in some sense, I donât think the White House is operating on a âworse is betterâ strategy.I think they really are trying to do whatever they can think of to try to stem this.But it could actually work out to their advantage in the sense that this gets so bad, and obviously whoever the Democrats nominate is going to be even less likely to get control over whatâs going on at the border.And so, you know, I think itâs going to rebound to Trumpâs benefit.
⌠And does it feel to you like the administration has an organized, coherent approach?I mean, with all of the shakeup at DHS, whatâs your take on where they are now and their approach to the situation?
Iâm not sure they know what to do.You know, theyâreâtheyâreâthis whole shakeup is, you know, itâs kind of like, you know, it is sort of The Apprentice, you know.Itâs youâre not performing, so youâre fired, and weâll bring in somebody else.The problem is, as youâre taping this, there are no confirmed officials in chargeâin charge of any immigration bureau, not the head of DHS, not CBP [Customs and Border Protection], not ICE, not USCIS [Citizenship and Immigration Services], not even PRM within the State Department, the Population, Refugees, and Migration Bureau.
The only one that hasâthe only bureau that deals with immigration that has a confirmed director is Consular Affairs in the State Department, and there obviously, immigration is only part of what they do.So Iâm not sure the administration has a strategy on this.I hope they do.It doesnât seem like it.
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