Bulwark Takes - Racist Republicans Want to DEPORT Zohran?!

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Sam Stein and Tim Miller break down the grotesque and dangerous rhetoric from GOP Reps. Andy Ogles and Nancy Mace, who suggested deporting New York mayoral candidate and naturalized U.S. citizen Zohran Mamdani. We go beyond the outrage to explain how trolling rhetoric like this is often a precursor to actual policy, and why ignoring it is not an option. 

Hey guys, it's sam stein managing editor at the book i'm joined by tim miller. Uh, we are here to discuss. Um, These fucking assholes is what we're here to discuss these fucking assholes I was gonna be a little bit more diplomatic, but sure that's objectively true We have two tweets that we're going to be uh talking about one from aniogles and one from nancy mace both of which suggest if not directly call for the deportation of, you got it, Zorhan Mamdani. Who knew that they would move this fast to something so predictable? But they think that the democratic socialist, now mayoral candidate from New York who was

not born in this country, he's an immigrant, but came to this country, should be deported even though he's a citizen of this country. Fuck these people. Fuck you, Anthony Mace. Fuck you, Andy Ogles. You know what you're doing. This is real. It's a troll, but it's real and it's damaging. And all these people that tried to get high minded about how Zoran's rhetoric was too extreme and you know, everybody knows my opinion on that. Like, and then on their side, there's no accountability. There's no anything. It's just they can be as racist and as nasty and as disgusting and despicable as they want. And no one on the MAGA side is going to blink at all. And they should be ashamed of themselves. And I knew we also as coming as you mentioned Sam, but last night on the next

so predictable, it was so fucked up last time the next level. I said this because the first group to do this was the New York young Republicans. It's the most maga of the young Republican, you know, whatever outfits. And these guys had hosted Trump before. Um, they are one of their former chairman is now high ranking official in the Trump administration has a job he's totally unqualified for. And I was like, look, if these guys are jumping on this now, it should not be dismissed as just like, oh, these are just some troll young Republicans. It's like, this is where these folks are going

to go. And time and again, their trolls have turned into reality. Like the Muslim ban was a troll at the start. And then it became the policy of the government, right? Like, like how many times I Muslim ban just for the history of it, the Muslim ban was introduced after the horrific attacks in California. And it was a press release. It was just a press release designed to get media attention, then then turn into policy. Yeah.

Then it became the government's policy. So I don't, you know, I mean, they, they jailed Mahmood Khalil for nothing for an op-ed. And so I'm not really saying suggesting, I think they're actually going to denaturalize Iran, but you can't come and tell me this is fake. It was a threat or Tim, you got to, you know, uh, you, you, you know, you just got to, you know, lighten up for the LOLs, nothing matters. It's like, no, like they're doing this. They're jailing people in this country for their speech, you know, and they're jailing Muslim people, let's be honest, directly for their speech related to Israel, Palestine.

And so now when you have prominent elected officials, the advocacy group that's probably the closest to the president, as far as young Republicans are concerned, calling for this, it's like, it should be taken seriously and should be denounced and these people should fucking be ashamed. Right. Look, here, think about it this way. Let's say it is a joke. I don't think that makes it any less worse because if it is a joke, what it's saying

is that Nancy Mason, Andy Googles and young Republicans think that their people will get a real rise, a real laugh and hoot, if not become galvanized by over racism and state ism and this type of honestly horrific anti Muslim ism. And it's just like a really nasty view of their own people. So that's a bad joke, but it also doesn't make it funny or anything. It just makes it disturbing. And I also got to say, so this is where you get to the political and there is a discussion on the chain about how this is reverse polarization. Yeah, it's a strategic, right? Like they want, they want what we're doing right now. They want people to defend Zoran because the Republicans are going to want to try to make Zoran the face of the party and they think he's not palatable. And I'm like,

whatever. I don't, I don't think Andy Ogles, who's a moron from Tennessee is actually thinking that deeply. I think that he's just a racist piece of shit. And it wants attention for himself. But let me tell you this. I actually also reject this notion of like, don't fall for their distractions because like Trump is a walking distraction. Trump appealed to people. There was a group of Trump supporters who came to him because he engaged in all these cultural issues and they thought he was funny and they thought like whenever they connected with it. And I'm telling you that the reverse can be made true. If you make an argument about this, I was just watching the Yvonne the other day and you can kind of see it already in him where he was starting to talk about how

he's feeling used by Maga. And he feels like he's just this pawn in this political game. And he thought that it was these guys were coming after the deep state, but it turns out they're not. And he thought that they were anti-war and it turns out they're not. You can see it already happening in real time. And I'm telling you, some people watching this might think that all those bro guys are all racist. They're not. Deo Von does not want to live in a country where the people in charge are deporting people just because they have bad political views. Like that's that it isn't there. There are a handful of people out there that are frees and they

we should engage on this. It should get attention because it might actually boomerang off against them and even if it doesn't fuck it still anyway. I'm glad you brought that up. I didn't know that's where we're going to go. But a couple reasons why I think you should engage this stuff, even if it's designed to get people to defend Mamdani, which whatever defend them. One is I think if you don't engage this stuff, it gives the worst actors in politics more runway to do worse things. And it allows them to take what are trolling exercises or whatever you want to call this and turn them into policy, because they're not going to get pushback. In fact, they're just going to get, they're just going to get attaboys from their people.

The second thing is because this is not a one-off. I mean, what's happening across the country is such an egregious deportation regime that it's almost impossible to comprehend the scope of it and keep track of it. So we and I'll just I'll end after this but the other day as you were aware we decided to put together a list of some of the more horrific stories that were happening across the country. We put together what I thought was a fairly comprehensive list. It's like you know 10 really gruesome stories across the country. Today just perusing social media someone passed me a story from Texas. It's from the Austin Chronicle. And I read it and I was shocked.

The lead is this. 10 years ago, Germaine Thomas was at the center of a case brought before the US Supreme Court. Should a baby born to a US father deployed to a US Army base in Germany have US citizenship? Last week, Thomas was escorted on a plane with his wrists and ankles shackled. He says he arrived in Jamaica, a country he been to a stateless man quote i'm looking at the window on the plane thomas told the chronicle and i'm hoping the plane crashes and i die that was shocking. What shocked me more was this. The date of the article june fourth twenty twenty five it's june twenty six How did I not see this article for 22 days? And the reason I didn't see this article for 22 days is because this shit's happening everywhere.

Everywhere. And so if you don't stand up to it at any particular moment when it's in front of your face, it will just keep happening. And the Zoran example is a way to bring attention to this where it should, this should break through outside of just the bulwark bubble. would think because it's like guys maybe Zoran won't actually be deported back to Uganda you know because they decide it's too big of a political risk but they're deporting Zoran type people back to home country. Shouldn't have to be an elected official on the precipice of the New York mayorality to have protection from this shit. I agree I've got nothing to add to that.

Just ending on the facts so that people understand. Zoro Amandani was born in Uganda in 1991. He moved to New York with his family in 1991. And he's going to be the mayor. Oh no, that's, that's a tough one. Putting that aside, he moved to America at the age of seven in 98. He became a naturalized US citizen in 2018. So he has been here.

I mean, this is crazy. What are we doing here? All right, Tim, thanks, man. Appreciate you guys. Thank you for watching. Hope you appreciate this. And we'll talk to you later. That was terrible math.

26 years. See you later. Bye. Subscribe to the feed. I was a liberal arts major.