Bulwark Takes - Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly Show Dems How To Fight Back!

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Adrian Carrasquillo was on the ground in Arizona to cover Gallego and Kelly hosts a town hall. Hear directly from Arizona locals on what matters to them concerning the new Trump Immigration plans. Huddled Masses | Kari Lake Accosted Ruben Gallego at a Posh D.C. Club https://www.thebulwark.com/p/kari-lake-accosted-ruben-gallego-at-posh-dc-club-mark-kelly-town-hall-immigration 

Hey, guys. Thank you for joining us today. I think we've got a cool one. I actually was in Scottsdale, Arizona, for the first, I'm sure, of many town halls from the Democratic senators there. Ruben Gallego, he's the first Latino U.S. senator in Arizona history. Mark Kelly, former Navy veteran, very respected, one of the most popular politicians in Arizona. The town halls that Democrats are doing now are on expected, like deep Republican cuts to Medicaid. So they're going to start, they're going to be, you know, a lot of voters want Democrats to be fighting back. So this is how they're starting to fight back. I was there also to hear from voters on what they think about immigration. You know, I think that it's, when you look at Arizona, it's a deeply purple state. It's a state that Donald Trump won in 2024 after Biden won it in 2020. Biden had won Arizona for the first time since Bill Clinton in 1996. So this is what we're talking about in terms of like this state and it being a major important swing state. The issue of immigration helped power Donald Trump to his win.

At the same time, you have Gallego winning a historic win and beating Kerry Lake, even and outperforming. Gallego outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris in that state, particularly with Latino voters. So there's so much here. You know, the town hall comes at a time and the Democrats increasing, starting to use town The town hall comes at a time, and the Democrats increasing, starting to use town halls. They come at a time where Trump's numbers in polls, they're underwater on everything from the economy, foreign policy, the Russia-Ukraine war, inflation, and prices of groceries. So voters are pretty ticked off with Trump on all those issues, but his strongest issue remains immigration.

Right. So I thought that that was really interesting, particularly at a time when the latest CNN poll shows that Democrats are more unpopular than they've been since 1992. So that's sort of the scene setter for, OK, what's going on on the ground in Scottsdale, Arizona, as all these voters show up to talk to the senators. And I want to start with Tom Dyson. He's a Navy veteran. He's a former IT professional. He's retired. He had started small businesses in his life. I like Tom a lot because he said his last name was Dyson, like the vacuum. And I think crucially, he also said he lives 90 minutes from the border and he cares a lot about immigration. So let's hear what he had to say. Let's turn back the clock a little bit more.

Back when we had the bipartisan immigration bill, I was looking forward to seeing that get passed. Unfortunately, Trump decided that he wanted to torpedo that. He took care of that and then ran on, you know, fixing the system that was on the verge of being fixed. I know someone down where I live who's been waiting years to get his son into the country who happened to be born outside the U.S. I'm not an advocate of completely open borders, but by the same token, you have to have easy mechanisms for people to use. Tom is big on Trump is only doing half the job on immigration. It's easy to raise the fields. It's easy to burn everything down. And he talked to me about what are you doing to create pathways for legal

immigration? You're not doing anything on that. You know, next, I want to talk about a huge part of the immigration conversation so far in 2025 to begin the year. This was in the new year. People were sort of like still, you know, bleary eyed for New Year's and Republicans were already moving even before Trump was sworn in with a controversial bill, the Lake and Riley Act. And this is an act that Democrats and advocates fear will erode due process, will lead to racial profiling for immigrants, you could be detained for petty crimes like shoplifting, things like that. Gallego and Markelli both voted for this bill. Trump signed it into law. So there are folks who are upset about that. I talked to Ricardo Reyes, an organizer for a veterans group, and he talked to me about sort of how Arizonans approach politics and what he

wanted to hear about Lincoln Riley from the senators. You know, we don't idolize our politicians. I do have very big concerns with the way they voted for the Lincoln Riley Act. I think it was a terrible bill. I think that they need to explain to us why they thought that that was a good bill, especially somebody like Ruben, who is, you know, a son of immigrants. I had an exclusive interview with Senator Gallego after the town hall. And I actually asked him, I said, here's what Ricardo said. You know, one of the voters, one of the people at the town hall.

And here's what he wants to hear you explain your vote for Lake and Riley. You know, quick plug. I have that exclusive interview and a lot more in today's Huddled Masses newsletter edition, so you should definitely check that out. But I asked Gallego to respond to Ricardo's concerns, and here's what he told me. At the end of the day, Lake and Riley was a tough vote, no matter what. It's a tool that can be used by law enforcement to get some really bad people. That's what he stressed to me. But he added that he does not believe the law will be used to broadly erode rights because by design, it is costly to detain somebody until their court date. There's a lot of other bills we're going to have to fight off,

he told me. This is not one of those where we should be expending our political capital. And that's a big thing from where Gallego has been coming on immigration so far this term. He has talked a lot about sort of these pragmatic, strictly political views, strategizing on sort of when it's smart to fight Trump and thinking because of the results of the election that voters don't and Arizonans don't want him to fight everything that Trump is doing. And that's controversial, particularly on the left. That has led to some concern, as Ricardo said. Next up, we have Jolanda Salinas. She's a waitress. And she told me how mass deportations are playing in her community, on the ground, to the people she talks to every day, and the parents she sees. That is correct. It's so scary. I feel for, I'm in a Title I school district, so I see the fear in the parents taking their kids to school or not taking their kids to school.

And as a waitress, I am very much around a lot of immigrants. And I hear their stories and I hear their fears about what's happening. And finally, we have Marcos Castillo. He was in an accident as a teenager, a car accident. He talked about the assault on DEI. And he talked about that what's often left off of DEI is the A, which stands for accessibility. He's an advocate for that. He's an advocate for that. He's an advocate for Medicaid.

And he talked to me about how this isn't the first time that mass deportations have been undertaken in U.S. history. And so listen to that. On a personal level, I think mass deportations is a disrespect to just humankind as a whole, but it also diminishes the accomplishments and the benefits of having good migration. I want to be able to see who's coming in and out, and obviously we don't want a criminal element, but that's not what they're going after. And they're just trying to check the numbers. I feel it's inhumane and it's bad for the economy. So you heard about that combination that Marcos mentioned at the end.

I think it's actually the most important thing to look forward to as we watch over the next year in terms of Trump's numbers. He mentioned what he's doing is inhumane and bad for the economy. I'm curious what Americans sort of what bandwidth they will have for these increasing actions that bring up situations that are, many people see as inhumane or illegal. Trump is testing the court system and, you know, launching broadsides against the judiciary on a daily basis on immigration. Everything from birthright citizenship, sending men to Guantanamo Bay, sending them to an El Salvador maximum security prison. He says these are gang members. And then the media follows up and does reports. And a lot of these men don't have criminal records

and they don't seem to be these dangerous gang members that the administration says they are. So, you know, ultimately, I wonder about Americans' ability to deal with all of that. But at the same time, I think the economy is the big one, because if the economy starts to falter, that's when I think all bets are off. Thanks again for joining me. As usual, like and subscribe to Bulwark. Subscribe to my Huddle Masses newsletter. And today's edition, we've got some spicy exclusive reporting. So thanks so much for joining us, guys.