The Dan Bongino Show - President Trump Is 'Threading The Needle' | Episode 66

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

With the Middle East fully engaged in war, America and her President have started to balance staying out of the war while keeping nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands. In this episode: I discuss the perilous overseas situation as well as the active domestic war against the invaders over our border.  Trump to leave G7 summit early due to Middle East situation ⁠https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/16/white-house-says-trump-to-leave-g7-meeting-in-canada-early-to-return-to-washington-amid-mideast-tensions.html⁠ Military Moves Ships, Aircraft to Middle East as Senator Seeks to Stop US Action Against Iran ⁠https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/06/16/military-moves-ships-aircraft-middle-east-senator-seeks-stop-us-action-against-iran.html⁠ White House releases thread of Trump clips showing him saying Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon ⁠https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1934779415256551623⁠ Sponsors: Birch Gold - Text VINCE to 989898 Blackout Coffee - BlackoutCoffee.com/Vince Jacked Up Fitness - GetJackedUp.com code VINCE MD Hearing - ShopMDHearing.com code VINCE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Vince. We have a very big show ahead today. I want to talk about what's going on in Iran, the United States, and our involvement there, as well as that you feel that electricity in the air, that feeling before a storm hits. You feel it too. I'm feeling this. I'm feeling this. I'm at home at work. I'm feeling there's something ominous in the air right now. We'll get into the details about that ahead. Also, we've got a big domestic problem, which is we've got a lot of people who've invaded our country. What are we doing about that? And the president of the United States has heard you,

the president of the United States has heard you a big announcement from the president on deportations. We've got Mark Krikorian coming up from the center for immigration studies, just a massive, massive show ahead. Right here on Vince. Always so good to have you with us. The best damn audience in media. Hey, we are days away now from what has been dubbed the Rio reset.

Possibly the greatest threat to the US dollar's global dominance in over 80 years. And on July 6th, BRICS nations, Russia, China, India, Iran, and many more, they're all expected to unveil their plans to try to circumvent the US dollar thus cratering its value. Now it's been reported they've already been laying that groundwork as their central banks have been methodically divesting from the US dollar and US bonds in favor of gold. How can you help protect your IRA or 401k from any fallout from this landmark shift?

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Okay, this is a big moment in the Trump presidency. It's a big moment for the country and for the world. Right now, it does appear that we are on the verge of a much bigger involvement by the United States in Iran. There's something very ominous going on. And it's defined in no small part by the fact that President Trump quit the G7 yesterday, left the G7 yesterday. He felt like a look a day is enough. I've got to get back to the United States.

The White House is clearly stating that the reason for his departure is because of what is happening in Iran right now. that the reason for his departure is because of what is happening in Iran right now. And the president himself, standing on that stage yesterday, said, it is time to go. I've got to get back. I've got work to do. Take a look. Cut one. The president in Canada yesterday. —...from the A-game and why you're leaving the G7 early for Washington. — Well, I have to be back. Very important. I want to just thank our great host, we did a fantastic job thanking you, Canada.

But you probably see what I see. And I have to be back as soon as I can and have dinner with these wonderful leaders. And then I get on the plane, I have to be back early. Yeah, so you had dinner last night, then a late night flight, returning overnight to Washington, DC, meeting with the National Security Council today.

There are big things going on. The president of the United States tipped his hand a little bit yesterday onto what is happening here, warning the citizens, the civilians in Tehran, the capital of Iran, to get out. He posted to Truth Social yesterday, that's 6.30 PM Eastern time here in the United States.

Iran should have signed the deal that I told them to sign. What a shame. And a waste of human life simply stated, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I said it over and over again. Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran. Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran. Now, let me just remind you of the history.

When the president says everyone should do something on truth social, that I think has had a 100% predictive capability of what's going to happen next. The president has routinely, for instance, told you at key pivotal moments as he's dealing with the economy, hey, go buy stocks right now. You should be investing right now in the market.

And then if you did, well, then you saw very quick, great returns as the president would later make big announcements. The media, of course, would accuse him of insider trading, but this is the polar opposite of insider trading. This is telling everyone something meaningful is about to happen to the market. The president does that,

and sure enough, we get that big announcement. So the president is saying everybody should immediately evacuate Tehran right now. And if I was in Tehran, I would take him seriously when you hear that from the president of the United States. So some of the signs are clearly beginning to develop that something very big is happening. The president, of course, you heard in that audio saying

that he has to get back as quickly as he possibly can to the United States. They've got things to deal with. Also, the president yesterday on Truth Social, additionally, was laying the groundwork for an American strike here, saying that America first means a great many things, including the fact that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Make America great again.

Now, this is not a new line for the president of the United States. He has been saying for some time, including during the campaign phase, when he was appealing to voters for their support, that one of his clear, clear lines is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

In fact, the White House released a thread yesterday of all of these clips, flashback clips, cut sticks, of the president saying this over and over and over again. Take a look at some of these. I just don't want them to have a nuclear weapon. And they weren't going to have one. But I wanted to make a deal with them. No nuclear weapons.

You can't have nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are the single greatest threat to this world, to the whole world. And Viktor Orban understands that, and some others do too. Including Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. That's so, they can't have nuclear weapons. It's too destructive, too powerful. They can't have it. Don't let Iran have nuclear weapons.

That's my only thing I have to tell you today. Don't let them have it. They would have never had them. Everybody stop. They were ready to make a deal we would have made a deal was great for everybody no nuclear weapons you can't give nuclear weapons that again have a nuclear weapon and that was a license for them to make nuclear weapons and you cannot let aran have a nuclear weapon

you cannot let it happen because bad things will happen if that happens. The president, this is again not a recent development, his concern about nuclear weapons has been immense. He's been trying to settle North Korea down for years, which has a nuclear weapon and is constantly threatening to use nuclear weapons. Additionally, he's been trying to avoid any other countries, especially countries like Iran, from getting nuclear weapons. And the goal there makes a lot of sense. It's

too destabilizing to have terrorist regimes wielding nuclear weapons and then using the threat of those weapons as a way to compel every other country to act under threat of nuclear war. It's too much. So the president very concerned about that. Very concerned about that. So what we're watching right now is American ships are moving into position, getting closer to Iran as we speak. In fact, the United States military has moved a bunch of additional ships and tanker aircraft

into the Middle East, Military.com reported this week. And they've hurried a carrier to the region. They say, of course, that a US official has confirmed to Military.com that the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is now moving to the Middle East, it has been moved to the Middle East, to join the carrier USS Carl Vinson and its strike group. However, the official noted that the Vinson

is nearing the end of its deployment and the plan was always to be relieved by the Nimitz. Instead, now the Nimitz is headed there without any delay, canceling a planned port visit. The US official said that the Navy is also in the process of moving a third destroyer, the USS Thomas Hudner, into the region to join other destroyers, the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS The Solovans.

The move would increase the U.S. presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Israel. All three ships are capable of conducting ballistic missile defense. Now they note that the United States has already been involved in blocking missile attacks for Israel. The Burke and the Solovans have both launched missile interceptors in recent days and the Burke was currently in port in nearby Suda Bay Crete getting re-armed And they expect other destroyers to join those three in the near future. So a lot of ships are now moving in the direction

of this war in Iran. And they've been used in the last few days as a part of Israel's missile shield to stop the incoming ballistic missiles from Iran that have been striking in these civilian areas within Israel. So things are mounting up very quickly, mounting up very quickly.

The Pentagon for its part says that the ships are there in a defensive posture, suggesting that this is right now, not a situation where they're being used offensively. In fact, Sean Parnell is a Pentagon spokesman. He said, American forces are maintaining their defensive posture and that has not changed. We will protect American troops and our interests. So the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth,

he went on the Fox News channel last night. He was on there for a very brief interview, very brief appearance. During it, he talked glowingly about that army parade that I loved from Saturday in the nation's capital. But he also talked about Iran. Again, a very short conversation on this subject between Jesse Waters and Pete Hegseth. Let me start with cut two here.

Here's the Secretary of Defense saying that the president is still at this very late hour aiming for a deal with Iran. He would love for them to make a deal to avert any more bloodshed. Take a look. Is he still aiming for a nuclear deal with the Iranians? Of course. The president, as he said today, his position has not changed.

What you're watching in real time is peace through strength and America first. Our job is to be strong. We are postured defensively in the region to be strong in pursuit of a peace deal. And we certainly hope that's what happens here. And America first means we're going to defend American personnel and American interests. So when you see jets and you see air defense assets and counter UAS assets, that's because my job as the secretary of defense is to ensure that our people are safe and that we're strong so that we can set the conditions

for a deal. And President Trump's made it clear it's on the table. The question is whether Iran will take it. Okay, so you're listening to some of that and you're starting to hear is, look, this is a defensive posture we're taking. We're trying to protect our assets in the region. But the reality of course is we're moving more Americans

into the region, thus increasing the number of targets that the Iranians may take a strike at. Obviously, we don't want the United States to be dragged into some sort of never ending war with Iran or be left holding the bag, picking up the aftermath of whatever regime change operation takes place in Iran. But right now it does feel like we're hurtling towards something very meaningful there. Let me get to part two of what Hegseth had to say in terms of what options are on the

table. Cut three, here's Pete Hegseth on the options facing the United States right now. What it looks like right now is we're vigilant. We're prepared and we've messaged consistently from the beginning that we're in the region to defend our people and our assets. And Israel took an action out of self-defense. We believe that Iran, as president has said from the beginning, should not have a nuclear weapon.

That position hasn't changed. They can give it up peacefully. That position hasn't changed. And as a it up peacefully, that position hasn't changed. And as a result right now, we've got assets in the region and we're going to defend them. And we're going to be strong in the process. So people are reading into a lot of aspects right now. We're strong, we're prepared, we're defensive, and the President Trump hopes there can be peace.

All right. So the framework that he's giving us is the justification of preemptive strikes. In other words, Israel takes a defensive strike against Iran in order to prevent the development of a weapon of mass destruction. And now you hear Pete Hegseth basically giving you

the contours of a justification for a preemptive strike by the United States of America, that that move would be considered defensive. Now, normally when I hear the words defensive, it's I'm trying to stop an incoming attack that's on its way, or I'm in the midst of fighting back against an aggressor who just struck me.

But you can clearly hear that there's an element of preemptive strike that is being built into the logic here would be qualified as a defensive maneuver by the Trump administration joining in with Israel's efforts here. Obviously, Israel wants the United States to support its attacks. There have been quite a few people who say, well, Israel is just going to do this on its own. But the reality is that there are multiple nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran. And among them is you've got the Natanz facility, which has already been struck. But you also have another facility that's sort of deep underground that the Israelis can't hit easily.

They can't hit easily, but the Americans can. We have the bunker buster technology to reach it. And as a result of that, there's a lot of chatter right now about this happening. About the United States using these bunker buster bombs on the Fordow fuel enrichment plant in order to reach deep underground to debilitate this thing. That of course would be direct kinetic involvement by the United States of America, should that happen. Now, as we reflect on all of this,

I realized, and let's be honest about this, one of the realities in America today is that Americans are reticent to dive into wars without clear explanations of what the upsides are to us, without clear explanations of what the American priority is, how this serves Americans specifically. And they'd like to know in the long-term, what is this all going to mean?

We've been through this dog and pony show a million times and the Washington establishment almost never tries to give you any sort of reasonable justification for any of this. In some cases, they straight up lie to you, like going into Iraq. They lie about weapons of mass destruction. We get into a never ending war there. We lose thousands of Americans in that conflict.

And so we begin to develop natural immunity to war fever in the United States. In my household, my dad was a Marine, is a Marine. He was deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq endlessly. He went over and over and over and over again. My brother was wounded in Afghanistan, in Helmand province. I've seen this before. And all I'm saying is my instincts these days

are not to simply jump on the war fever bandwagon. My instincts are, I want more information. I want to know everything. Tell me what you're doing and how this serves me. And what's going to happen next. There is clearly a law of unintended consequences. And it is, so what happens if the regime gets overthrown in Iran?

Who takes over? Will the United States be involved in creating a new government in Iran will there be sectarian violence in that country? What happens to the Strait of Hormuz where so much of the world's energy flows through there who takes over? That pathway for energy just China go into Iran and take over are they tasked with rebuilding that country for energy? Does China go into Iran and take over? Are they tasked with rebuilding that country? Right now, 90% of all of Iran's oil exports go to China. That's about 10 to 15% of all of China's oil imports. This is a massively important country to energizing China.

So what happens as a result of all of this? Well, it's anybody's guess at this hour, but I do think that it is worthwhile for us to be told whatever these guys know. In fact, let me take you back in time here. Ten years ago yesterday, ten years ago yesterday is by now you probably know the president's anniversary of coming down the golden escalator and announcing his candidacy for president of the United States and When he did that I just went back and I checked and I was like I wonder what he said about Iraq When he came down the golden escalator and sure enough. Here's the president Condemning the Washington establishment 10 years ago as of Monday. Take a look cut for it Here's the president of the United States back then, just Mr. Donald Trump.

I said, don't hit Iraq because you're going to totally destabilize the Middle East. Iran is going to take over the Middle East. Iran and somebody else will get the oil. And it turned out that Iran is now taking over Iraq. Think of it. Iran is taking taking over Iraq. Think of it. Iran is taking over Iraq, and they're taking it over big league.

Iran is taking over Iraq, and they're taking it over big league. I said, don't do that. You're gonna totally destabilize the Middle East. Now, interestingly, in that audio, of course, he does, and at the very same time that he's saying it was idiotic for the United States to destabilize the Middle East

by going into Iraq, he was concerned about the rise of Iran. That was 10 years ago as of Monday. So I thought that was fascinating to hear him say. Also remember on that debate stage, the president of the United States then against Jeb Bush, who was running for president outright talking about how idiotic it was to go into Iraq. He said it, here's cut five, the president of the United States back during those 2016

debates. Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake. All right. Now you can take it anywhere you want. And it took Jeb Bush, if you remember at the beginning of his announcement when he announced the president, took him five days He went back. It was a mistake It wasn't a mistake took him five days before his people told him what to say and he ultimately said it was a mistake

The war in Iraq. We spent two trillion dollars thousands of lives We don't even have it Iran is taking over Iraq with the second largest oil reserves in the world Obviously, it was a mistake mistake. George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. Okay, yeah, we destabilized the Middle East. It was a massive mistake, he said. So look, in a moment I want to talk about what the, what voters wanted when they chose President Trump and how it is that he can actually set about accomplishing all of that as he tries to confront Iran and this problem of them attempting to get a nuclear weapon. I've got more on that in just a moment. Before we get there, I want to

share with you our sponsor, Blackout Coffee. Love Blackout Coffee, which supercharges this show by being a great sponsor and by filling me up with great coffee every single day. I love Blackout Coffee as a sponsor. John is the owner and he's the real deal. He built Blackout Coffee from the ground up, refusing to compromise on quality or values.

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Blackout Coffee has you covered. Support a company that actually shares your values, blackoutcoffee.com slash Vince. Use the code Vince and get 20% off your first order. Our thanks to Blackout Coffee. Okay. Look, in media there's all sorts of pressures for everyone to give you a very clear like,

we should go to war, we shouldn't go to war, let the Israelis handle it on their own. I'm not gonna pretend like I've got all the answers to everything, I never will, I never will. I will tell you exactly how I'm thinking about all of this though. The hesitancies that come with all of this, the concern I have for the wellbeing of our country,

the desire I have to make sure that the American people are the first consideration of the American government, that's all critically important to me. And as far as the president is concerned and his thinking in all of this, look, Don Jr. was just with my friend, Mary Margaret O'Lahan, Donald Trump Jr. was, and she asked him about this, like, hey, what's going on? I'm sure you're fielding a ton of phone calls right now about what's happening in Iran. And listen to the president's son here in Cut 8 talk about why his father was elected

president and what he can accomplish here. Listen to this. You've brought together so many different people as a bridge, the Republican Party. Are you feeling a lot of phone calls right now about what's going on in the Middle East? Listen, you know, it's interesting. There are some factions, obviously. There's sort of the total non-interventionists and then there's the extreme interventionists

and I'd love not to get involved in wars, it's not my thing. I think we can't pan on that. I think we've got to protect civilians from some of these things. But yeah, there are definitely a lot of people calling around what's going on. There's definitely been a culture shift I I think, in the last few years, and especially probably over the last few months of what would have been traditional conservative dogma. But I think generally speaking, the American public is very clear about not wanting to be in another never-ending boots-on-the-ground war.

I think that is something that I think everyone probably agrees on. And so, yeah, it is an interesting time. There's a lot going on, but I understand, you know, my father gets these things, has an instinct for this, better than probably anyone. He understands what his people want, and he wants to keep us out of wars. Okay.

So what you're hearing right now is kind of a convergence of two important elements to the Trump foreign policy, which you should keep in mind. One is no stupid endless wars. No stupid endless wars. The president was elected to stop all of that. In fact, the president was elected primarily

on three very big planks. One was secure our borders. Another was restore our economy. And another was no stupid endless wars. Those are the really the three big planks of the Trump presidency. Simultaneously, you are also hearing an ever present concern about nuclear weapons from president Trump. He talks about it all the time.

People bring up things like climate change. And he goes, I'm not worried about climate change. I'm worried about nuclear climate change. I'm worried about nuclear war. I'm worried about nuclear climate change. I'm worried about nuclear war. I don't want nuclear war. And being the president of the United States, he's got the vantage point that almost no one else on the planet has to know about the destructive power

of these weapons, how close any particular country is to having them, their proclivities for using them. So long as he's getting authentic intelligence that isn't rigged by the Intel community, he gets a much more accurate picture than the rest of us do about what's happening. So two things, no endless wars and Iran can't have a nuclear weapon.

He's been clear on both of those things. Now, Charlie Kirk has an interesting take on this because he acknowledges both of these components and says that if anybody's in a position right now to thread the needle on this subject, it's President Trump. President Trump is the rare person who can thread that needle. Take a listen, cut seven, here's Charlie Kirk assessing this. This is the moment that President Trump was elected for. Thank God that we have President Trump in the Oval Office with this high stakes situation.

Look, President Trump 10 years ago, he went down the golden escalator. And when he announced for the presidency 10 years ago to this day, he remade the Republican Party on foreign policy. He said no more permanent wars in the Middle East. He criticized the Bush-Cheney philosophy of endless quagmires. Albeit, though, he is not an isolationist. He is willing to use violent and precise force against our enemies, like taking out Soleimani or dropping the Moab, if and when necessary.

President Trump understands his base extraordinarily well. He knows that his base does not want another Iraq. He does not want Libya, does not want a civil war or bedlam where the United States is left carrying the bag, but also President Trump has been morally clear for a decade, Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, and President Trump has the talent, the expertise to be able to thread that needle. So what's happening at this moment, in other words, is you're having to place trust, as you so often have, in President Trump's ability to navigate this. I voted for this guy because I find him superior in every possible way to the establishment

which has betrayed us so frequently through the years. But something worth remembering in the midst of all of this, if anything ever occurs that you have questions about or that you disagree with, one of the neat features of the Trump presidency's is that he listens. He listens. And this is where I wanna shift

to the issue of domestic problems. We have an invasion going on in the United States right now. And it was about a week ago that the president of the United States indicated that he wanted to start going a little bit easier on illegal aliens who were working on farms in the United States. He was hearing from big agriculture, which was concerned that too many illegals

would be deported for them to continue to take advantage of these foreign nationals and work on these farms. He also said hotels he might go easier on. That was what he posted to Truth Social. He was met with instant reaction from his base, from you, who said, no, no, no, wait a second. I voted for you on the promise that you would deport any illegal foreign nationals here in the country,

that you would turn back the evasion. And so we get an update on this story today that the Trump administration has reversed course on this, that Trump officials, the Washington Post has this, a number of outlets have this this morning, Trump officials reverse guidance exempting farms and hotels from immigration raids.

They said the Department of Homeland Security on Monday, that would be yesterday, told staff that it was reversing guidance issued just last week that agents were to not conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels, restaurants, a decision that stood at odds with President Trump's calls for mass deportations of anyone without legal status. Officials from ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including its Homeland Security Investigations Division,

told agency leaders in a call Monday that agents must continue conducting immigration raids at agricultural businesses, hotels, and restaurants, according to two people familiar with the call. The new instructions were shared in an 11 a.m. call to representatives from 30 field offices all across the country. In other words, no amnesty, no look the other way amnesty, no softness. We have to do this uniformly. Look, the president's trying to balance

some competing interests here. He wants the economy to do well. When he hears from big businesses who say, this is how the economy does well for my business, he respects that. But at the same time, voters, his voters, you stood up this week and said, well, wait a second. Wait a second.

I voted for you on the basis that you would thwart the invasion. That's the most critical, urgent, pressing threat we face. Above and beyond everything else is the invasion of our country. If we want a country, we've got to turn back the people who've invaded it. So a big update here as a result of, again, the president hearing the feedback of his base. He takes it seriously. He takes it seriously, which again makes him unique among politicians among people who occupy these seats in Washington. He's a deeply unique man. Coming up,

I'll be talking to my guest, Mark Krikorian, about everything that's happening with deportations, including how many people have self deported from the United States. I'd love to dig into that as well. That's a head. First, I gotta thank our sponsors. More and more Americans are prioritizing their wellness and getting back in shape. Studies prove that strength training does a lot more to help burn fat than cardio alone.

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That's a $100 value just for listeners of Vince. That's shopmdhearing.com. Use the promo code Vince and you'll get a pair of hearing aids for just $297. Shopmdhearing.com, promo code Vince. Our thanks again for their sponsorship. Appreciate them for that. It is amazing what's going on in the world right now. and the Mark, thanks for joining me today, sir. Glad to be here. Okay, so I was just mentioning that there's all these reports now that ICE has reversed its guidance on the deportation of farm workers and hotel workers, saying, full steam ahead now, baby. We're going in. We're going to...nobody's off the table. What do you make of this back and forth over the course of the week from the president's truth social post where he seemed like for a moment

he wanted to go a little easier on those industries right back to ICE saying, no, no, no, full seam ahead. And remember last week it wasn't just a truth social post by the president, ICE actually sent out a directive to their regional managers around the country saying no, not only no raids, but no investigations even of farms, restaurants, meat packers or hotels.

And you had said before the break that the public, the base responded and that's actually true, but there was a real response within the administration too. I mean, enormous pushback demanding that this be reversed. And it was, and it was a ridiculous policy anyway, but it was kind of an attempt at the business side, the old Republican party to try to go back to business as usual and have loose immigration policies

where we wink at illegal immigration. So what I don't understand as I read each of these stories is you get all these people complaining in these industries, oh no, my labor is going to be deported. Isn't that a confession on the part of the people who are approaching the administration that they're breaking the law? It strikes me that, I mean, if we're going to hold this system accountable, not only should we deport the illegals, we should be prosecuting the business owners who are exploiting illegals, Mark. Oh, absolutely. The problem here, and some

of this, of course, is dishonest on their part. They're like, well, we don't know who's illegal. We just know a lot of them are illegal. But the problem with the law is that the government would have to prove knowing employment of the illegal immigrant. In other words, a particular person, they have to be able to prove you knew this person was illegal. And there's all kinds of ways they get around that. And part of the problem is the law says, if an employer looks too closely at your documents and says, hey, you know, this is a little squirrely, you got anything else? They can be sued by the Justice Department. And they were under Biden and under Obama. And so, in a sense, even honest businesses are often between a rock and a hard place. But there are ways to make sure your workforce is legal. This government,

this administration needs to make clear, not only are we going to enforce the law, but here are the ways, the tools you can use to make sure you stay right with the law. So there was, I saw that there was one big plant that in the last week has received a lot of attention in Nebraska, a meatpacking plant, where last week, I believe it was Tuesday, the ICE goes in, they deport a ton of people. They take a bunch of people in the custody for deportations. The business is complaining that like something like 20%

of their workforce showed up the next day. But then subsequently NBC had a report that all of the seats in their waiting room were now full for fresh interviews. Tons of people who apparently don't feel like they're under any threat of deportation, so that suggests that they're either American citizens or legal immigrants, are awaiting interviews now to work there.

But the owner of that company said that he used the e-Verify system and he said, everybody was okay according to the e-Verify system, so I just thought the government had it right. It seems weird to me. Is the e-Verify system broken or is this guy just overstating how frequently he used it? No, the system is not broken, but e-Verify can be fooled. But to fool it on this scale, I think the HR people at this plant were part of the conspiracy.

In other words, they were providing the fake or stolen information to the workers to make sure that they passed e-Verify. Because, you know, individually there are almost certainly scattered instances of people gaming that system. But on that scale, I just think it's almost impossible for the HR people not to have been in on it and you're right that is also the get holding those employers responsible is essential both in a policy sense but also in the political sense because remember all of this enforcement is part has to be politically supported and the way sort of middle-of-the-road normy people will support this is by showing, yes, the illegal immigrants are being arrested and sent home, but their employers are also being held

responsible. And that needs to be an essential priority for the administration. I mean, look, the math is really simple here. There are fewer employers than there are who are exploiting illegal aliens than there are illegal aliens in the country. So that would stand to reason that if you begin prosecuting these employers, you shut off one of the huge magnets for illegal immigration, and you induce the self deportations that the Trump administration is looking for, right? Yeah, exactly. And there's something they can do to kind of

move that along and make it easier to make a case against employers. Social Security Administration sends out something called no match letters. So when you send payroll info, if it doesn't match the records, they send you a letter and say, hey, something's wrong here. The problem is, because of anti-discrimination law, the letter says, don't you dare fire these people because if you do, you'll be sued. So what they need to do is say, here's a no match. And here's a letter from ICE telling you what to do because it could be a typo.

There's honest reasons there could be this issue. Most of them are illegal aliens. If you don't follow those steps that ICE would lay out, then they can come after you because then you've shown that you knew what you were doing. Okay, so what you're describing is that different government agencies have relevant information in order to,

if you synthesize it, you can figure out who's here illegally and get them out of the country. This is one of the reasons the big beautiful bill is doing this the reasons the big, beautiful bill is doing this. There's been a lot of attention paid to the fact that, oh, there's like information gathering operations in the big, beautiful bill.

As I understand it from the Trump administration, the reason for this in particular is to confront illegal immigration. In other words, ICE has information about illegals, the IRS has information about illegals, the Justice Department has information, but it's not synthesized. So it makes it very difficult to track people down

and get them out of the country when you have a federal government that's that disjointed. Yeah, and it's not even just a problem of being disjointed. In other words, that the systems aren't talking to each other. The IRS, for instance, as you suggested, they know where hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are, because they're people who submit a tax return that has the real ID number that the IRS used to give to illegal aliens, called a taxpayer, individual taxpayer ID number, but the W-4 has the fake or stolen number that they gave the employer.

So the IRS knows these people are illegal immigrants, but they say, oh no, we're barred. We can't tell immigration where these people are because that would be wrong or something. So in other words, it's not just a technical problem, it also is a cooperation problem. It's totally insane. Okay, one more thing on the big, beautiful bill

while we're on the subject. Do you know if there was ever any effort to put nationwide e-verify in this thing? As good as the bill is, by the way, it's amazing. Like I love that it increases deportation operations. It gives so much money to ICE. Rightfully so. That's for hiring a lot more ICE agents.

More than double what they currently have. It's for building multiple layers of border protection on all the navigable elements of our border. It is chef's kiss perfect on all of those issues. But there's no nationwide e-Verify that I'm aware of. Do you know, Mark, if there was an effort to include that? No, because it's a reconciliation bill and it can only be deal with money related issues.

Requiring e-Ver verify as a policy issue. So, but... Kind of. Although you could deprive funding, you could you could deprive funding as a basis for getting it in place, right? That's what we did with drinking laws in the country. I mean right now we give highway funding stipulated on the fact that you make 21 the drinking age in every state in the country and boom presto change-o everybody says 21. So there are ways to do this with money, right? Yeah, I mean, there are, but again, I don't know if it would pass the muster with the rules

about what a reconciliation bill. In other words, the whole point is you're trying to get around the 60 vote threshold for filibuster in the Senate. And there are rules about what can be in that kind of bill. I'm pretty sure e-Verify would not pass those rules. But the administration, actually we've made the case, we published this, the administration has the authority in the law to mandate e-Verify on its own. That would be sued, they'd go to court and all of that. So I think they should give it a try. I think there's a good case to make. They could do

it without having to get a bill through Congress. Well, I love that. All right. Well, I hope that works. Let's talk about self-deportation then. Andrew Arthur, who you know, your colleague at Center for Immigration Studies, he wrote a great piece for the New York Post this week, estimating that some one million, just under one million foreign nationals have already self-deported out of the United States in the few months that President Trump has been in office. Can you describe for us what this phenomenon is, why it's happening the way it's happening? The administration has made a big push

both to arrest illegal immigrants and physically take them in custody and send them home, but even more to leverage that to get illegal immigrants and physically take them in custody and send them home, but even more to leverage that to get illegal immigrants who are not in custody to pack up and go home so that they don't get arrested. In other words, leave two steps ahead of the law. Self-deportation is what Romney called it, remember years ago and was mocked for it, but actually it is the way it works. When Eisenhower had a big immigration enforcement push in the 50s, for each person the Border Patrol physically deported,

ten other people left on their own. So this works and it's starting to work now and this is why this short-lived directive to not enforce the law against in restaurants and hotels was so dangerous because it would have removed any incentive for illegal immigrants to go. Because if you're not raping anybody, and most illegal immigrants aren't violent criminals, you figure, well, I'll take my chances

because they're not gonna enforce against the meatpacking plan I work in or what have you. So it is an essential tactic. It's more important really even then or numerically more consequential than paking people into custody. But if you're not enforcing the law and doing raids, you're not going to have self deportation. So let me go back to the Dwight Eisenhower numbers because that really stood out to me and Andrew Arthur's piece for the Post too.

10 to one. So for every one they picked up, 10 people self-deported. If we just made that contemporary, right now the president wants to, Stephen Miller and company are targeting at least a million deportations a year. That's around 3,000 a day. Tom Homan reported last week

that they're now up to 2,000 deportations a day. That's great that they're there and they want to get to a lot more with the big, beautiful bills passage, which I hope they do quickly. But if it's 10 to 1, that means a million deportations just handled by the government, 10 million self-deportations. We're getting a lot closer under that math to fixing this problem. So what did Dwight Eisenhower do that was so successful? Are there lessons here that we can apply today?

Well, there are. I mean, the basic lesson is this sort of multiplier effect, but I wouldn't, I don't think it scales up to 10 to one today, and there are some reasons why that number would have been higher, that proportion, because everybody they were arresting back in the 50s, they were all Mexican. They were all within a few hundred miles of Mexico. And so it was easier to get people to go home. So if we get a two or three to one ratio, that would be more realistic, but it would still be enormously consequential.

If you could deport a million people a year over four years, that would be, you know, let's say just two to one, that would be another eight million on top of that. It would be, it'd take an enormous bite out of the illegal immigrant population, but you've got to keep up the pressure and it needs to be across the board and not sort of get squirrely and and chicken out, you know? Right, and the key element seems to be not necessarily fear of an ICE raid, although that will induce people to self-deport. It has to be that we just close off your ability

to make an illegally obtained living in the United States. So no more employers to hire you here in the United States. No means to tap into our welfare system. No free healthcare because you're here illegally, no no benefits, no drivers license, no hotel stays, no drivers license, no college students. I mean if we cut off all of these just free benefits, the swag bag that the United States hands out to illegals, well then we shut off the magnet that's bringing them in the bringing them here in the first place right? Yeah absolutely and I think people overestimate the welfare side of it. That's essential. But the

jobs part is the most important to make it impractical to actually live here and get a job and open a bank account and to drive a car. All of those things need to be basically impossible, as close as we can get to impossible for illegal immigrants, so that those here figure the party's over, let's pack up the kids and go back, or people who aren't here yet say, look, it's just not worth it, let's go try to sneak into Canada or France or something instead of the United States. I do, I would like, I mean, I know this, we're late in the process on the big, beautiful bill, but wouldn't it be neat if the government created tax incentives for businesses that

verified all of their employees and then told the public that this is a great company that hires Americans, you know, because they have all these like tax incentive structures, for instance, for purchasing American made products. If you, the president wants to make it so that you can write off the interest payments on your auto loan if you buy an American car. They're clearly thinking, how do we stimulate the American economy?

This one, Mark, is a very big area to do that. Yeah, absolutely. And actually, I think very specifically, there's a place this can help, and that would be with farming. Because the excuse that the farmers give and they have a very powerful lobby is look we can't find any Americans to do this work and there's something to that I mean they you know there's not many Americans are going to go out and hand chop

lettuce but there are all kinds of uh mechanical aids to this sort of thing labor saving technology to this sort of thing, labor saving technology, that is expensive, but eliminates the need for half or even 90% of the labor. What we need is maybe a loan guarantee program for farmers to shift away from this medieval way of doing business where you're picking radishes out of the dirt by your hands and make it mechanized. And the government needs to invest in mechanization

research because in 1979, there was a lawsuit by the United Farm Workers that stopped all government funding of mechanization research because it would put farm workers out of jobs. And the Jimmy Carter administration, they were their constituents, so they agreed to it. It's crazy. And so we need, we can move almost all of this hand work to machine work. There's still jobs, but there are fewer of them and they're higher skilled and higher paid jobs, instead of having people out there literally kneeling in the dirt and

pulling plants out of the ground with their hands. Yes. And finally, like if you want to bring in foreign labor, then do it under the legal guest worker program. If you want to modify our laws around agricultural guest workers, by all means go for it, but it has to be legal. We can't have illegal labor pouring into the country. It just doesn't, nobody wants that. Certainly American citizens who voted for Trump. We already have an unlimited farm guest worker program. Literally, there's no limits on it. And the numbers of people using it have been going up. It's just that a lot of farmers, there's too much red tape.

They don't wanna have to pay that much. And so they are opting for illegal labor instead. There's no excuse for doing that. Yeah. All right, Mark Korkorian from the Center for Immigration Studies. I mean, I always turn to for the details, the expertise. Thank you, sir.

Really appreciate you as always. Thank you. Thanks, there he is, Mark Krikorian. Our thanks again to him. And that is good news, by the way. There's a lot of like, oh, there's nothing happening and it's not fast enough. And look, we've got, you and I have very high standards

for what we consider a course correction for our country, but I am glad to see that Tom Homan says we're at 2000 deportations a day now. We've got a million self deportations that have already taken place. The numbers are trending in the right direction. A lot more work to do, but work clearly being done in these first few months of the Trump administration.

Really like seeing that. Additionally, I wanna share a story with you about election integrity that is deeply, I think, important. And this comes to us from the director of the FBI, Cash Patel. Behind the scenes, Cash Patel and Dan Bongino have been working feverishly to get important information to the American people. And just last night, this was last night, 10, 17 PM Eastern time, the FBI's director, Cash Patel, puts out an update saying that the FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations

related to the 2020 US election, including allegations of interference by the CCP. I've immediately declassified the material and turned the documents over to Chairman Grassley for further review. This is important stuff. Now, it's not a shock to think that the CCP

was involved in interfering in the 2020 election, not least of all, because Hunter Biden and the Biden family were taking an immense amount of money from the Chinese. And the Hunter Biden laptop saga was itself a symptom of the rig election when the media and the deep state worked hand in glove to prevent the American people from knowing the truth about the laptop, its contents,

and also its connection to the CCP. So clearly, CCP interference playing a role here. So FBI Director Cash Patel saying, hey, we've got a CCP issue. We've got a CCP issue. Just the news gives us more updates here. John Solomon. And he says that the FBI Director Cash Patel on Monday did turn over to Congress this intelligence report raising concerns that China had mass produced fake driver's licenses to carry out a scheme to hijack the 2020 election with fake mail-in ballots for Democrat Joe Biden. Now these are not, you know,

McCloughan fake driver's licenses used for some 16 year old to buy booze. These are fake driver's licenses used for some 16 year old to buy booze. These are fake driver's licenses in order to steal the election for Joe Biden produced by the Chinese. The new declassified intelligence reports from August of 2020 weren't corroborated or even fully investigated and instead they were recalled from intelligence agencies at about the time that then FBI director Chris Ray testified that there were no known plots of foreign interference ahead of the 2020 election.

Really, so Chris Ray, then FBI director said, no, there's no known foreign interference plots going on of this election. And yet the current FBI director says, well, yeah, actually the FBI's got plenty of evidence for this and we just turned it over to Chuck Grassley in the United States Senate. The new documents turned over to Chuck Grassley

who first raised all of these concerns to the Bureau that the intelligence had not been fully vetted and instead was just dismissed, even though they had the evidence of the fake licenses, even though they had the evidence of the fake licenses. Even though they had the evidence. Cash Patel told Just the News that these allegations included plans from the CCP to manufacture fake driver's licenses,

ship them into the United States, all for the purpose of facilitating fraudulent mail-in ballots, allegations which, while substantiated, were abruptly recalled and never disclosed to the public. Never disclosed to the public. Now contrast that with the fact that the federal government went out of its way in the past during Trump's elections to accuse him of being in collusion with the Russians and they let that leak all over the place. That scurrilous hoax of a claim.

And yet they had real evidence that the CCP, which was in bed with the Biden family, was sending out fake driver's licenses in order to facilitate fraudulent mail-in ballots during a 2020 election that I will remind you was locked down due to COVID, allegedly. And where did COVID come from? Which country benefited massively from the COVID shutdowns?

It was China. It was China. So in the midst of the abuse that was perpetrated on the planet by China, they were working to rig the 2020 election to get Joe Biden elected, who was paid by China, they were working to rig the 2020 election to get Joe Biden elected who was paid by China. Those are the details here that kind of seem worth it, don't you think?

This is something of a bombshell actually being released by Cash Patel and Company. Officials who have seen the documents told Just the News the FBI had a relatively new confidential source who provided information in summer of 2020 that the Chinese government was manufacturing and exporting these driver's licenses as a part of a plot to create voter identities for Chinese residents living in the United States

so they could vote with fake mail-in ballots. The intelligence source claimed the plot was specifically designed to benefit Biden. Officials said, I'm sorry, remind me something as I'm talking about this. Okay, so Chinese nationals living in the United States so they could vote with fake mail-in ballots. Out of all the people who crossed our border

while Biden was in office, any nationalities stand out to you? Crossing our border by at least the tens of thousands. Any nationalities? Oh, that's right, the Chinese. Chinese foreign nationals were illegally immigrating into the United States, crossing our southern border by the tens of thousands. For what purpose? What was that about? Why did they have to fly and come across our southern border?

And so those Chinese nationals, whatever Chinese nationals were here, were being used in order to help rig the election for Joe Biden, according to these allegations. Specifically designed to benefit Biden. They also said the intelligence report was recalled within a few weeks, and then the allegations were never fully investigated.

Oh, so the government just turned a blind eye to it. On the grounds that the source needed to be re-interviewed, well, we should re-interview. Thank you as always for joining, Vince. This is the best damn audience in media. You can catch me each day on the national radio show, wherever you have a radio station, you probably got Vince. You can listen, that's 12 to three Eastern time each day.

And of course, if you wanna watch any of it, whether it's the podcast or the radio show, you can do that rumble.com slash Vince.