Bulwark Takes - Stephen Miller's Real And Insane Agenda (w/ Adrian Carrasquillo) | Bulwark on Sunday

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

Bill Kristol talks with Adrian Carrasquillo about the mass arrests in Southern California, the communities fighting back, and the dangerous precedent of military force in American cities. They also explore how Trump and Stephen Miller are using chaos to energize their base and reshape immigration policy.

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This free virtual event brings together leaders like Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor Andy Beshear, and others for real talk and real solutions. Together we'll tackle the most urgent issues facing rural America. Register today or learn more at ruralprogress.com. Hi, I'm Bill Kristol.

Welcome to Sunday Bullwork Live, also on after, afterwards, if you don't catch it live on YouTube, obviously on our website on YouTube. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Adrian Carrasquillo, who joined us what six months ago, I think. Yeah, it's a new year. It's been a great addition. Fantastic newsletter on immigration policy or deportation policy,

really more I'd say. That's one thing I've been slightly obsessed with. People keep talking about Trump's immigration policy or deportation policy really more. I'd say, you know, that's one thing I've been slightly obsessed with. People keep talking about Trump's immigration policy, but he doesn't. His immigration policy is not to have any immigrants, basically. And we're really talking about as a deportation policy, right. And it's striking. You know, anyone who's got a great job covering that. And I was personally so pleased when Adrian joined us because I believe I was the only native New Yorker at the

bulwark and now we have we've done the second one yeah I'm from Queens where are you from? Manhattan Manhattan okay you went to high school in Manhattan at Syverson right? Yes yes I did and you must have been there during 9-11 not true? Was there during 9-11 three blocks away a very formative time in my life and all of my friends. Is that right really? Yeah it doesn't you don't forget that right I was in DC and our't you don't forget that, right? I was in DC and our son was about five miles to the Pentagon. So that plane saw it hit or saw the after effects of it hitting.

You never minimize someone's experience of people will say, I was in school in Montana and I saw it on TV and I'm like, I was a little closer and it was a little scary. You know, what did you do? I mean, so they you're in school. It's like eight to eight thirty eight forty in the morning. I think we were in gym class and we heard a plane hit. And so us being, you know, just teenagers said, oh, I know where I can get a view of the tower

to see what's really going on. And we went to like the physics lab and we could see both like burning metal, but we could also see people come and falling. And so then that was of course bad. And so we were brought to homeroom. What we brought to a class in the second plane hit live on TV, as we were watching TV right at three blocks away. Then we were brought to homeroom, we were evacuated. So it was it was definitely just an insane day. Yeah, for people who don't know, the New York Stuyvesant is way down in lower Manhattan, so it's very close to where the tower was, obviously.

Yeah. And you went, could you get back home to Queens? No, we could not get back home to Queens. We could not talk to our parents. We just went, a nice part about being part of the football team, have a little community. So like a dozen of us walked to a friend's place and we played NBA Jam because we did not want to watch

You know loop CNN footage of the towers falling. So it just reminds you that you were a kid But at the time, you know, you think you're a big big kid, but really it was just like your teenager Crazy historic thing is happening. Yeah, I was wondering if people in DC in New York had a sort of different experience not to Minimize or claim anything for it, you know, obviously just where you are is where you are. You get but I do feel like it was more personal, obviously. For sure. Yeah. Oh, OK. So that was that's that was a memorable, depressing, terrible day. And now we're in another memorable and somewhat depressing and bad moment, I think.

Is there anything going on in the news? I don't know. You know, I read one. We agreed to do this show a few days ago. I thought we'd discuss El Salvador and the Venezuelans and the legal cases for the individuals who were unjustly deported. But I think we probably need to begin with LA. And one of the great advantages of having you is you have such good contacts and sources. You've been important at immigration for quite a while and now a deportationation So the lawyers are explaining what is it isn't happening. I think doing a pretty good job. So my friends but

What's your say you've talked to people out there in LA? What's your yeah, what's your sense of what's really happening on the have been happening and now happening it might happen on the ground Yeah, I think we could set the stage a little bit Actually, there were those reports NBC News had a story four days ago, that Stephen Miller was just sort of apoplectic and saying that there needs to be 3,000 arrests a day and that they need to be, why aren't they going into home depots?

And they're scaling up operation at large, which is thousands of agents from ICE and FBI to even IRS agents, you know, to go into communities more for interior enforcement, right? And so it's not a coincidence that then they are going into a Home Depot in Los Angeles, they're going into the Garment District, they're going into restaurants in LA. And, you know, what I was thinking about Bill is, I said, okay, Paramount, California is massive. So, let me read about Paramount.

It's 82% Latino. This is a state that we know is heavily Hispanic. It's a town that's just outside LA. Yeah. So, in Paramount is where they arrested 20 workers. And altogether over the Friday, Saturday, so far, they've arrested 120 workers in California and largely in LA. And so, yeah, 82% Latino. And that just reminded me that, you know, we've heard so much about when,

in this mass deportation crackdown, immigrants receding into the shadows. And I think that's true in a lot of cities. I think, you know, small city in Tennessee, you know, you're going to work, you're coming home, you're trying to stay off the radar, you're trying not to get in trouble so you don't have your family ripped apart. And you're very, very much so the minority. But in California and LA, you're not immigrants of the lifeblood of the economy. And you very much can sort of fight back on ice and you outnumber, of course, and people are saying, wait a second, you're not going for criminals, which we know they're not doing. And they're going out for workers and people have been paying their taxes and have been here 15, 20 years. And so I think that that is part

of the, it's almost overlooked part of what's going on because we're so quick and we will talk about that going into and bringing in the National Guard and how the Trump administration is so excited to sort of clamp down on violent protest or protests in general. But I think that that's an important thing to think about. California, Los Angeles is a different animal when it comes to immigration and fortune. Yeah, that's very interesting.

People haven't really focused. They just assume it's gonna be happening anywhere, but it actually probably couldn't be happening just anywhere. It's an accident that's happening in a place like Southern California. And what is your sense of what's been happening for the last 24 or 48 hours in terms of the level of violence, the level to which it's out of control, and then,

you know, legitimate needs for getting some supplement, supplementary law enforcement or I guess that's not quite law enforcement, supplementary force in to handle it and so forth. Yeah, look, the the LAPD is not famed to be beloved by, you know, liberals and Democrats and things like that. Let's just say, you know, there's a long history there. The LAPD put out a statement and said that these were largely peaceful protests. Of course, there have been incidents,

I think in Paramount was where the Home Depot was, where there was video of ICE vehicles driving by, SUVs, people throwing rocks and things like that. And so then the response came back of dispersing them with rubber bullets and obviously less than lethal force and things like that. So from my sense, there's been isolated smaller incidents, but I think you and I both know that this is the Donald Trump,

Stephen Miller are sort of like dying for a moment like this, right? Because we know that Trump is not one of these presidents who even like feigns to say, I represent everybody. He sees his political opponents as his enemies. So LA, California, there's a million undocumented people in California. And if you think about that, that's a pretty crazy number.

Most sort of reputable statisticians and people who cover this stuff will say there's about 11 to 13 million undocumented people. Of course, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump have said 15, 20 million, 25 million. The numbers are just always insane when it comes to them. But for a million of them to be in California, I think that says a lot.

And I think this is a fight that definitely the administration is spoiling and happy to have. I think then we can get into, there could be problems for the administration as they ramp up this enforcement. I think we will see Americans standing up and fighting back a little bit more. Yeah, that'll be, well, let's talk about that in a minute.

But just in terms of where we stand, so it's, we're speaking noon Eastern time Sunday, it's still early, reasonably early Sunday morning in LA. I think I saw the mayor of LA saying there's not been National Guard deployed on the streets yet, or even the excuse, the reason he doesn't have to invoke the Insurrection Act is using the Guard and conceivably are active duty military that's in the presidential memorandum last night, which people should read. It's a pretty, goes very far in my opinion,

stopping just short of the Interaction Act, but it's to protect federal facilities and functions, I think, which you can actually see doesn't, not actual law enforcement protecting federal, other law enforcement officers. Federal functions are pretty broad term though, so that gets you pretty close, I think down that slippery slope. the in the first Bush White House and going through the night with killings and fires and so forth. Yeah, and I think that gives away a little bit of the game

that this is not Los Angeles, California is not burning, but you're right. I mean, the Trump administration federalizing the National Guard sending 2000 National Guard, Governor Gavin Newsom saying, we don't need this. This is an escalation. This is unnecessary. This is too early.

I was just reading the LA Times and they were saying that National Guard has been spotted around some federal buildings already, but I don't think that, you know, what I think I would look for is that there's a City Hall Los Angeles gathering demonstration protest 2 p.m. Pacific time. So that'd be 5 p.m. Eastern. And I mean, I know you haven't watched Andor yet, and I'm not about to give spoilers to the audience who's here for politics, and now they're like,

don't ruin this show that I wanna watch. All I will say is, there's a very famous sort of rebellion, and it gets into the empire with propaganda and sort of setting up state violence. And so, of course, this is serious, it's not a joke. So I don't think that that's necessarily gonna happen. But when I see that there's a planned event today, and that there's all this National Guard

coming into the state, like that's the most recent media that sort of like flashes to me, which is a little scary. But again, I think the administration is happy to have this fight. Yeah, it's striking with looking at that presidential memorandum, it's been reported a lot, understandably the headline 2000 National Guard. The actual memorandum says at least 2000 National Guard.

It's kind of a funny way of phrasing it directly to the sector of defense. Usually I think what puts an upper limit on how much force you can use before coming back to get more authorization. Here it's a lower limit. I want you to deploy at least 2000 National Guard and any active duty military that

you think necessary to secure federal I think it's facilities and functions. Very open delegation to the Secretary of Defense and Hikes has already tweeted about possibly using active duty Marines from Camp Pendleton about 30 4050 miles to the south along the coast. So yeah, I mean, I do believe that, well, you've covered the administration, so let's talk about that for a minute. I mean, do you not believe this was where it was always

heading in the sense that they, as you say, they wanted to provoke, they were willing to provoke, let's not be too go overboard. They were at least willing to provoke demonstrations, willing to use that as a reason to not go quite to the Interaction Act, but go to using act of duty military. And I do think we're now just a step or two from if there's a little violence or I'm sure there isn't

or some seems like there's violence or seems like there are threats by these agents to pretty having act of duty military on the streets of a major American city, you know Yes, and when he did his spate of executive actions in his first couple days And and the legal community and a lot of the folks and lawyers that we talked to were sort of horrified by everything They were seeing with the one thing they told me is like the only thing we're stopping short of is soldiers in American cities He's literally doing everything else that he said he was gonna do that. He promised he was gonna do that

He warned he was gonna do So that's interesting because when he declared the national emergency at the border There was always this opportunity and this possibility that besides soldiers at the border that now they could go into cities, right? And so that's that's been a fear in many ways. And I think this is also sort of a gateway into the rest of the immigration stuff we want to chat about. This is what the mass deportation policy, where it sort of was always going to go, because you start with, we're sort of intimidating and we're spreading fear. And there's a lot of immigrants in the shadows and stuff I talked about just driving to work, going back home and there's people that are afraid but human nature is also

not just to be afraid but to also be angry if you're going into their community and if you're taking away workers. This began with somebody the other day I think it was Jim Acosta might have said to me like the big lie is the election but the second big lie is like they were only going for terminals. And of course, people didn't know what mass deportation was. There was, and I know you know this, but I'll just say it for people who are watching, their 100% was frustration with Joe Biden's border policy. That was a fact. And so people wanted that to be tightened up. And what the Trump administration did was sort of bring in the Trojan horse of, yeah, we're gonna do that and more. And so what would we expect when you're going

into these major, majorly predominantly immigrant and Latino communities with way too much force, right? We've seen that with the masked agents who will not give their identity. What the hell would we do if somebody like wanted a masked person wanted to throw us into a van? Like, whoa, hold on a sec, what the hell would we do if somebody like wanted a masked person wanted to throw us into a van? Like, whoa, hold on a second, what the hell's going on here?

So yeah, I mean, and I think that like Stephen Miller, as we saw with his tweets yesterday saying this is an invasion, saying this is an insurrection, they're just happy to be able to have these images on Fox News and to say that, no, no, no, no, it's not us doing this. But yesterday, I think it was ICER, the administration was releasing that some of the people they were arresting were these, of course, typical gang members and killers and rapists and all this stuff. And people are showing video of them grabbing workers at Home Depot and roughly throwing

them against a gate. So it's just, we sort of have seen this for months, but now it's really just hitting this boiling point. This will seem like a stupid question, I guess. Why are they committed to the mass deportation? I guess they believe in it as a policy. But so as for a sort of more standard political point of view, you fix the border, you overdo it, maybe literally no one can basically get it now. But maybe there should be some people that in seeking asylum, but whatever. I mean, the never obvious how much support there was from asking portation, especially as you say, once you get beyond the kind of, you know, criminals and people who there isn't much sympathy for. And but they are really resolute on this. I think

people have I don't I feel like my friends are who are kind of still working in some of them working in under the like an old fashioned political framework don't quite understand what's I guess I don't even fully understand, what's going on here with Trump and Miller and Holman and these guys where they think this is important, I guess. Look, I mean, I think I've wrote about Miller wanting to make America white again.

And you also, Terry Moran just got suspended at ABC for what he said yesterday about Stephen Miller, where he said that this guy is sort of motivated and fueled by bile and by hatred. And so he's getting suspended for that. Stephen Miller used to be on the fringes of the Republican Party on the far right with Sessions and with Krakorian, and now he's leading domestic policy for the United States. I think that we always know that Trump politicizes everything and that's his North star and his sort of gold-rim success. But Miller, when you look what you just described, you said most Americans

agree criminals. So Pew, which does great polling on this stuff, said that Americans agree criminals so pew which is does great pulling on this stuff said that Americans basically ninety seven percent of Americans support getting criminals out. Okay, so we've got that down But then the folks in the middle the folks who are not the MAGA to port everyone and the you know Sort of open borders crowd Only five percent support deporting the spouse of a US citizen You know, I think it's 9% support deporting dreamers. And then you just go down the line as these really low numbers. So.

I mean, I've heard Republicans say kind of like, what is how is this going to help us in 2026? Yeah, that the early shut down the border sort of fix the problems we were having under Biden. But yes, there's support for that. Um, and what I, what we've seen in focus groups, both bulwark focus groups, but also some exclusive focus groups I got access to was, um, some Latino voters in Arizona and half of them saying they already regret their vote for Donald Trump.

And, and what I think is important to understand is immigration is not the number one issue with these voters, but it's sort of this powerful number two, where you have the economy and jobs. And they said, I voted for Trump to help my family, construction workers, furniture delivery guys. And they said, so that's not happening. Now he's doing tariffs, the economy is floundering. But on top of that, you're taking out tax paying people

who've been here 10, 15 years. And so they always would mention immigration as sort of this like, you know, buttressing issue that said like, what the hell's going on, you know, so open question. But I think with Miller, we know some of the stuff what's going on there. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you believe in some version of the great replacement theory, and there are different kinds of it, you might say different, more or less extreme, all pretty extreme versions of it, you do need to do deportation.

I'm just a practical, if you think it's a huge problem, that America's getting a lot browner and somewhat blacker and darker complexion in general, then it's a huge problem that X percent, there's different numbers, different periods, we know 30% of kids in elementary school, maybe or not Caucasian or the children of immigrants. Some of those are undocumented immigrants, obviously, and that X percentage, 10, 20 years from

now are going to be the children of those children and so forth. You need the deportation. I mean, I guess I myself have not taken that quite seriously enough. I mean, I guess I myself have not taken that quite seriously enough, I've got to say I think I've been correct in seeing that immigration was itself an excuse for the authoritarian agenda. Because I think for Trump, someone like Trump, who was not involved in these issues until 2015, you know, it's more immigration is the issue people really care about and the issue

he can demagogue. And he wants to, you know, what a lawless and administration where you can make unbelievable amounts of money, but also do whatever he wants and break the law and maybe stay in power for quite a long time and so forth. And so for him, the immigration is a little more maybe a means to the authoritarian end. Press opposed from Miller and home and some of these people. It is part of the ad that is an it is an actual goal that they take very seriously well that starts to get into also what they're doing with due process where it's like oh well this these guys are bad dudes so we say take our word for it you have to believe our insane rubric around tattoos that no scholar or anyone who's written books on this stuff says is true about gang members from Venezuela. So first believe that these are all terrible people, the worst of the worst.

And then it's like that slippery slope. And I know that there can be worlds where people say, oh, you know, liberals saying this is going to happen. Donald Trump has said that US citizens homegrown would be next. And so if they're taking away due process from people, the ability for someone to say, hey, actually, listen, I'm not a gang member, just so you know, then why can't that happen to other people?

I think another interesting part is I was reading before that going after undocumented workers really slowed down and stopped during COVID because we realized they were delivering, packing, making our food. So it's like how quickly we forget certain lessons and essential workers and immigrants and all this stuff. I lived in Hoboken, well, I lived in North Bergen

during the pandemic in New Jersey. So I was across and I lived in sort of this area in North Bergen around Jersey city. And when I went to the supermarket, it was sort of horrifying in the sense that so many of the people who were neighbors were essential workers. And there was just so many people with masks

and it was, I remember one guy had like styrofoam sticks to his head so you couldn't get closer than six feet to him. And then I walked to Hoboken, which is a much whiter city, which was a lot more remote friendly. And it seemed like the safest place in America. You know what I mean? So it's just like, I can't help but think about the way that we have sort of been like,

anyway, pandemic, that's over. But yeah, you're right. In a time where we have such insane political gridlock, and it's easy for Americans to say that immigrants are either taking my jobs or are the enemy, Trump has stoked that more than anyone else, you know. Where do you think this goes just in terms of LA and the National Guard? And we could feed her out of the, could this could be a trial run that

got resurrected two months ago? It could be, it could explode. All right. I mean, a couple of the previews of my newsletter that I'm going to be working on today for tomorrow. My headphone is still need to read the tree. Subscribe to your newsletter and read it. How do I get the ball? Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, is, is look, I do think that things are going to get bad before they get good in the sense that they're just waiting for any violence to pop off and to try to turn that down. As we saw in his first term, Donald Trump loves to crack down on protests. I do think that LA is showing some of the way and some of the future in sort of in pushing back on ICE. And by the way, it's not just Los Angeles and California.

There's been in other states so far this week, I think it's in Florida as well, local people just sort of pushing back on ice and predominantly white crowds also, you know, saying like, get out of here. We don't want you here. And there's a reason these guys are masked. We've written about this. This is not some, you know, why do they have to hide their identity if what they're doing is legal and above board and everything's okay when you're, you know, breaking the window of somebody with a crowbar. And I forgot what city that happened in, but basically they were looking for an immigrant. The guy's name was like Alex. They were like, Oh, we're looking for

Antonio. He's calling his lawyer. They're breaking open his window with a crowbar, a massed agent. So we know that this stuff is overreach and is in and is insane. And I, and I really think it's interesting what place like, like California, like LA, um, where they're going to be fighting back. So I think that that's, we're going to be seeing more of that. And it only makes sense as they ramp up their interior enforcement with this operation at large to see moments where people think it's going overboard. Work site raids, we've seen in the past that when there's large work site raid crackdowns,

I think that that is something to watch for if Americans start saying like, wait, you're not going for the employers who are hiring these undocumented people. I was just reading that in 2017, Trump commuted the sentence of a meatpacking executive who was found under the Obama administration to have willfully hired and paid

for all these undocumented workers and their paperwork to work there. So we're not going after the employers, but we're kicking open doors and we're getting dues at Home Depot. And I do think that that's going to continue to piss people off in the country. I was struck that, I think it was Kristi Noem said, we're going to prevent, or maybe Trump himself said this, we're going to prevent Trump, I think we said it first, we're going to prevent or maybe Trump himself said this, we're going to prevent Trump, I think we said first, we're going to prevent people from wearing masks, demonstrators wearing masks, and then no reiterated it. And someone, well, a I mean,

it's kind of amazing since the ice people have been wearing masks, and yes, yeah, and allegedly to protect, I don't know what their their families or whatever from retribution, but these demonstrators that they have some fear also retribution, surely, you know, but anyway, I'm not really a big fan of wearing masks in either case, I suppose. But the I think it's somewhat real. Yeah. For gnome and Miller and Holman, uh, and Trump himself, I suppose, in Vance, the obvious irony of they've been, they've been defending the wearing of masks for months. People like you and me have been sort of saying is that that's not really

doesn't seem right, you know? Uh, now they're just saying about demonstrators can't wear masks, you know? But liberals think that's a great gotcha to say, Ooh, look at that. You're contradicting yourself, but actually they don't care. No, a hundred percent. You're right. That there's a ton of people that, and we've seen this also in focus groups where people are like, I'm kind of okay.

I don't like the way he's doing it. I don't like him going, them going into schools. They're okay with a lot of the immigration enforcement. Um, there was stuff around due process. There was stuff around Kilmar, Brown Garcia, Guantamo Bay It was an early one that in bull or focus groups We saw these were people who were saying there were they were Latino voters and one of them was in, Texas And she was saying a lot of these talking points like mega talking boys She was she was saying that immigrants do take your jobs in Texas and then later on she said

What he's doing in Guantanamo Bay is not cool. This is some like Nazi stuff. You can't just disappear people. And that was the first data point for me. And then we saw with El Salvador around the due process stuff. And so I do think that some of that is can continue to be an issue. And the masks, I guess, I mean, we'll see if they actually start arresting people for demonstrators for wearing masks and whether that's constitutional or not. I know that maybe there have to be some ordinance, I should think, that could then be tested in court.

But I mean, I'm just struck, Christine Ohm, Steve Miller, you've covered these people, both in the case of Miller in the first term as well, but who's making policy, who matters? What are the different roles of all these characters? I mean, I think that I've been I found it so interesting where they do these reports where they say that Donald Trump like basically believes this stuff and he's for this but like that Steven Miller is really the the driving force and the one who's Getting you know really ramped up in these meetings and wants them to do it. And we're seeing it now. I mean, from reports of him yelling about 3,000 arrests

a day and why aren't we going to Home Depot, they have this dream fantasy number of a million deportations this year, which I've written. It's just not going to happen when you literally look at the numbers. So around 100 days, I did the piece that was like, OK, even if you look at their lofty inflated numbers, which we could see from the 50 day to the 100 day

that it was impossible that they would have gotten those arrest numbers up to that level and things like that, they're just not on pace for a million deportations. And again, it reveals, so 1500 arrest quota, 3000. If you were getting criminals, there should be some finite number and this is not gonna, so we know what they're trying to do, right? And we saw when during the campaign, they said,

well, no, we're just going for criminals. And even Homan kind of said that's where, and then it started going into, well, there will be collateral damage. And then Levit from the podium said, well, if you're here illegally, you're a criminal. So, um, you know, I think that that's also been really interesting to watch. You know, I think that's an important point.

I mean, there was, they stuck on the collateral damage for a while. We're going after, and that's not as that happens in immigration. It happened in Obama. They go for a genuine criminal, dangerous person. There are other people there. Once they're apprehended, they may turn out to be undocumented and subject to removal. And no, they can be removed. They should be removed to their own country.

They shouldn't be removed. They should be removed in a decent way and so forth. But that's probably legal and maybe advisable. I don't know why. Maybe it's not advisable. But anyway, it's within the balance of, let's say, the debate, I would say. What is striking is they've given up all pretense that's it's not it's within the balance of let's say, the debate, I would say, what is striking is

the they've given up all pretense, this collateral, right? We're now just going from mass deportation. Now, to be fair, those were the signs that the Republican convention, I remember seeing that Republican convention, mass deportation, that's like a pump. We're not even that's not pretending it's criminals. When you use the word mass, you could have said criminal deportation, right? You could have said deportation of gang members. There are many ways to say that.

Mass deportation implies, I mean, literally implies the opposite. That's what mass implies. It's everyone who's here who's only undocumented or in many cases now with the Venezuelans and others, people who were documented and legal and checking in as they were supposed to and holding jobs with paying taxes But yeah crump ends their legal status early and abruptly and then they're undocumented so I mean again the the I guess I Expected to be bad, but I'm a little startled by the I don't know where to use the ferocity almost if you get to just remove

All these people and say people who are on a work site, people who are assembling at a home depot and picked up to do a job. You know, it's they're not impervious, of course, to being questioned and so forth. But busting in masks into handcuffs into a van, maybe don't, you know, no contact with families or very, very little and lawyers and this out as soon as possible. That really is just that is mass deportation. I guess we should have taken them literally and seriously when they said that. This this Latino comedian kid did a really good skit, which I would not expect from just sort of like the guys having fun on TikTok, Instagram type crowd. And it was

an ICA. He was playing both the ICE agent and a construction worker. And he said, we're here at the construction site to get all these criminals. And he said, well, they're here working. So how are they criminals? And, you know, and so it's just like, it's so it has been from the beginning that we've seen that Americans really did not understand what mass deportation was. Even when you saw it in polling, like CBS News polling, it would have like 53 or 54 percent support, which we know that when you're, if you're supporting Donald Trump and then they ask you, what do you think about this policy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I support that.

That sounds good. And so we saw in both in polling and in focus groups that Americans largely did not know what mass deportation was going to be. And even in interviews, they would say, yeah, they're going to get out the criminals. They're not going to get out my neighbor. We've seen all these stories coming out. And by the way, I get so many messages from Democrats who were just like, so upset, like, what did you think was going to happen?

Where they're like, I knew they were going to deport criminals, but I didn't think they were going to get my neighbor, Carol. And then people were like, well, of course they were going to go after Carol. Once they cleared out, you know, the beginning of what they were doing with criminals. So yeah, that's that's been pretty insane. I mean, I probably mentioned a little on this, I will say the moment I saw where this could go, honestly, I mean, I think a lot of people saw was the Haitian Vance and the others going on about the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. There wasn't a pretense, whatever, even the

eating cats and dogs thing, which is insane, obviously, Ohio. There wasn't a pretense, whatever, even the eating cats and dogs thing, which is insane, obviously. There wasn't a, that's not a crime. I mean, there was no pretense even of a crime, right? There wasn't like, gee, the crime rate in Springfield, Ohio is quintupled, and here's six dramatic incidents of crime, and we've got to do something about it.

It was just, there are literally 25,000 Haitians living somewhere who are all legal, so far as we know, with temporary protection status, they're on the books. That's how we know how many there are. That's how we have all the data on how many kids are going to school, they're checking in there, have TPS there. That means they're, they were they they they checked in with the government and they were given the status and they have it for 18 months or

whatever. They're mostly working support as one could tell the city's doing better. And we got to get rid of them. That's in a way is a very it got a little lost in the debate over cats and dogs and the insanity of it all and then it wasn't taken seriously enough. I was like, well, what vans what a weirdo he is he's obsessed with these people, the Republican governor, the Republican, the mayor, and local representatives were fine with what was happening in some fields, Ohio.

That was really a sign that they want the, in this case, the very dark skinned Haitians out of there. And wasn't that such a great, a precursor, early foreshadowing of what was gonna happen in this administration? Because if it were just some magical barrier of legal and illegal, then this should be going differently.

The first thing they did was attack these refugee programs, these asylum programs, the use of TPS. There's another one that Biden instituted. And so it's the people who are here legally, who went through legal pathways. We've seen people who were sent to El Salvador. Andre, who we just did an event for the other day, the young Venezuelan gay hairdresser, who is now in Seacock, who was crying for his mother

as he was having his head shaved. He showed up to the US and used the CBP One app and demonstrated they were here. The other part of going after workers, so-called criminals, and showing up to an instruction site is, why are you showing up to court and getting people? These are criminals. Why are they at court showing up for their court date? You know, so it's just like, these are the things that you make such a good point that

Springfield was this early sign that this wasn't just about, are you here legally or not? Yeah, if they want to change the rules, they want to, you know, give notice that the programs are going to go on as long as Biden had intended it to. Maybe they can do that legally and then they can give people notice that they should prepare to leave or or apply for asylum in a different way or something. There are many, many ways to do this that were civilized, is that I'm going to put it. And there are many ways to seek to abrogate certain protections and certain statuses that could be done legally, could be done in a civilized way, could give people a chance

to appeal, could give people time to prepare for their departure if they're going to leave. But none of that was done right. The fact that it was very clear from the beginning was how much the Trump administration reveled in the suddenness, the brutality, the cruelty, the shock and awe of your leaving. I guess they thought that would lead to more self-deportation, or it just would satisfy their base, or it satisfies their own sense of how to run things

in a brutal way. What did Speaker Johnson, fine, I'll let you go, but Speaker Johnson, you gotta write this newsletter, Sam will kill us both if we spend all day talking and Johnson said this morning on one of the shows, it was a formulation, I was very struck by it, that, yeah, peace through, someone said, aren't you a little concerned about Texas saying we're gonna use the Axis duty Marines in the streets of LA? Is that kind of what we do routinely? We might do it if there's Katrina,

or if there's riots with 50 people being killed in a couple nights, but I mean, just throwing that out with sort of relish. And John said, well, peace through strength is a very important principle of ours and foreign and domestic affairs. And that was extremely revealing. I mean, whatever, I'm a Reaganite, so I like peace and strength. To think that something is appropriate in dealing with foreign enemies is also the right way to deal with people living, working, as you say, many cases legally, some

cases undocumented here in America. It's just striking that was John, no sense of what we want to follow. Of course we're following the law, President Trump's following. He could have said that, President Trump's following the law. No one's shown that anything in his declaration is illegal. And we could have tried to gotten into that kind of defense. We could have gone into some kind of defense of the decency of the policy, I suppose, that's pretty hard, but they didn't even try to, right? It's we're now peace through strength.

That's the way the US government's going to decide how to deal with people living and working in the United States. It's also different laws and for different people. They had some sort of very strongly worded statement yesterday that I don't have in front of me, but it was, you know, to the effect of if you confront, if you attack, if you have some sort of confrontation with law enforcement, we're going to come down on you so hard, et cetera. And what happened with all the January six people that were pardoned? Well, you know, and you have, you have Stephen Miller saying, uh, quote, tweeting something the other day and saying federal law is basically sacrosanct.

And he's, you know, the top and I'm like, what happened to state's rights? day and saying federal law is basically sacrosanct is the other top. And I'm like, what happened to states rights? Didn't these guys used to talk SB 10 70 was a state immigration law, Texas in 2023 passed a law where they were basically like making it Texas state law that crossing the border was, was a crime, you know, immigration has always been like a civil offense and not a criminal offense. So these states have done whatever they wanted, but now that it's the going the other direction, uh, Miller says that federal law is the number one thing. What a moment. I mean,

a bit of worrisome, obviously, both from a human point of view in terms of what's happening, but also from a broader, I'd say legal, constitutional, where the country is going point of view. But Adrian, keep on covering it as intelligently and effectively but also from a sort of human perspective as you've really brought that to bear too so well and the newsletter and other things you've done for us at the Bulwark and I really I really appreciate that so thanks thanks for everything Thanks so much for having me this is great and thanks for joining us on Bulwark on Sunday