The Ricochet Podcast - The Hole Truth

Episode Date: January 12, 2018

Yes, we discuss that phrase, but no, we don’t say the word. Instead, we do a deep dive on immigration with two of the sharpest minds on the issue: the Center for Immigration Studies’s Mark Krikorian and our good pal Mickey Kaus. Dig in. Music from this week’s podcast: Dreamer by Super Tramp... Source

Looking for reliable IT solutions for your business? At Innovate, we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland. From network security to cloud productivity, we handle it all. Installing, managing, supporting and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate. The IT solutions people. Climate change is pushing families in Guatemala further into poverty. And it's not just.

Please support the Trocra Box Appeal this Lent. Because for these families, it's not just a box. It's a lifeline. Give what you can. Call 1-800-408-408 or visit trocra.org. Trocra. Together for a just world. We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. I just want to take a moment to talk about Haiti, one of the places the president of the United States referred to today as a s*** country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Bye-bye. So go to thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet. And we're brought to you by Tracker. Your phone, your wallet, your keys. You know that they're plotting against you, hiding somewhere, trying to make you late. Well, that sick game is finally over.

Go to thetracker.com slash ricochet to get 20% off any order. And we're brought to you by Texture. Question. Why subscribe to just a couple of magazines when you can have all of your favorites on your smartphone or your tablet all of the time for way less with texture you get access to dozens magazines for one low price and right now texture is offering you the listener a 14-day free trial when you go to texture.com slash ricochet and we're brought to you by ricochet itself that's right again back in the misty days of history, Rob Long would come in and tell you why you should pay. I'm going to channel Rob right here and say you – oh, no.

I'm sorry. This is the clean version. We're not going to swear like Rob did last week. But he might say that as uncivil as he could be when he had a technical issue, these are civil times at Ricochet. It's possible to have civil conversations it's necessary to have civil conversations and that's what ricochet is all about give it a try and get your first month free that's ricochet.com slash join slash i said apparently i'm i'm channeling for foster brooks this morning uh peter oh no excuse for that but whatever proportion of our audience remembers foster brooks he was a

genius of his kind actually he was the only one of his kind well the days of the comic alcoholic are are gone um now now we have what appears to be people who are who don't drink at all uh nevertheless saying things that suggest an unguarded tongue so we we got this thing. This is the episode of the day. And frankly, it's not the recent comment that I think is the most illustrative of our situation. But we can't say the word, but we can say what probably are the expected reactions to it. It didn't happen.

If it did happen, it shouldn't have been reported because it was private. If it did happen, it was true in a way because that's what those countries are if the president did say that well the democrats say the same thing about america it doesn't matter it's truth-telling let's move on etc etc what say you peter he should not have used language like that in the Oval Office. I would oppose to any president using language in the Oval Office for which I would cause my children to get up from the dinner table and go to their rooms. No, he shouldn't have used it. At the same time, he's using street language that is not really going to be as shocking to people as the press is pretending. Everybody hears that language,

and the idea that it would be foreign to the tongue of somebody who grew up in Queens is ridiculous. And he was asking a very good question. Was he? Why does our immigration policy tilt towards certain countries heavily and in effect penalize other kinds of countries. And we have a couple of guests coming on who can answer these questions in detail, but he was asking a pretty fundamental question that a lot of Americans have been asking for a long time. And although he was crude and vulgar, really inexcusably crude in the way he did it. He gave voice to a question

that very few politicians at the national level have been giving voice to. That's what I, that's what say I, I think if he said bleep head about somebody, they wouldn't have had the vapors as they did because that's the sort of thing that yes, you expect from somebody like, like, uh, you know, a street brawler from Queens, but the bleep holes comment in the context of immigration and why don't we have more people from Norway suggest something else, and I think that's why they're seizing upon it. And by seizing, I mean taking advantage of something that may be illustrative of the man's ideas.

We indeed can have a conversation about where's the best place to get people to increase American prosperity and ingenuity. That's great. And it's always amusing that when Trump literally dumps something like this out, people poke through the awful to find the seeds of wisdom and interpreting like the augers of the Roman Empire, this mess of guts to find out the brilliance in it. I get that.

That's maybe the role that he plays. But when he talks about why do we get places for people from these bleep holes instead of Norway, is this his view of immigration that the people who want to come here to escape these bleep holes are not the motivated types? But what we really want are sort of European atheistic quasi-socialists. Is that what he's saying, that the Norwegian people are better because of that or their character? How can you not look at this and say, I don't want the hard-working, dark guy from Haiti. I want the

college-educated, number-crunching socialist from the white place. That's not an unfair way of reading this, is it, Peter? That seems to me to be more the Roman augur reading that seems to me to be more the stretched over constructed reading than the one that i offered okay that is to say

that since 1965 when we had the new and chain immigration we've had a most overwhelmingly immigrants to this country have come from the third world. Overwhelmingly. Of course, immigrants were always poor. But at the same time, that seems to me the overconstructed interpretation, as I say. But at the same time, you have a very valid point. And he certainly owes us all an explanation. My reading on it is that it's as simple and straightforward as saying, wait a minute. Why are we getting people from the third world? Overwhelmingly. Who decided that? on it is that it's as simple and straightforward as saying, wait a minute, why are we getting people from the third world overwhelmingly?

What, what's, what, who decided that? But your view, if there's, if there's naivete, ignorance, racism in it, that needs to be explained, confronted, explained, and so forth. So yeah, we're getting people from the third world because people from the first world don't want to leave. They like where they happen. That's not quite true. That's not quite true. It's harder. It's harder to come here from, from the first world, right? Some leave. They like where they happen to be. That's not quite true. That's not quite true. It's harder to come here from the first world.

Right. Some of them do. Some of them don't. I mean, right. But look at it this way. A hundred years ago, the people from Norway were the poor people from the practically third world version of Europe. The people who came here over the boat were not the educated technocrats

who sat right down in the office and started crunching numbers. Right, of course. If you look back at movies in the 30s, 20s, 40s, there's the cliche of the Swedish janitor. The janitor used to be the guy who said, yeah, sure, you betcha, because they brought a bunch of dumb Swedes and dorky Norcs over, Norwegians over, and all they could get for jobs was menial labor. Or the Irish cops in New York, another cliche the irish priest the irish cops sure so people people came to this country to trade up people came to this country in search of a better deal for sure for sure then you could make the now now i admit i'm this is not donald trump's comment yesterday does not bear the weight of all this. However, the thought here is that those immigrants assimilated pretty quickly, a generation or two. And furthermore, there was a long national pause.

There was essentially no immigration from about 1924 until the Immigration Act of 1965. There was about four decades when the native stock and the immigrant stock went through depression and war together. And the question now is, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Are people assimilating? Do we have a culture that's clear enough and vivid enough for them to assimilate to? Are they dispersing across the country the way earlier immigrants did? Or are they settling predominantly in the southeast where they can continue to speak their own language, go back and forth to their home country, Mexico in this case, countries farther south, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras? Okay, all those, but I'm sure Trump

wasn't thinking any of that. He was just saying, wait a minute, why third world here? Why is it so hard for Europeans to come or Australians? Is India a bleephole? I'm just curious. I'm not setting you up for anything. I'm just curious whether or not it falls into that distinction. Well, of course, you'd have to ask Donald Trump. Haiti has no middle class. I mean there are countries that are just poor and no educational system, no working civil or political society anywhere.

Haiti is one of those. India is a very complicated situation and you've had what – it's something like 200 million people in the last decade and a half who have escaped poverty and moved into something resembling a middle class. It's a functioning democracy by and large. So the way I would read it, and here I don't even begin to interpret Donald Trump, the way I would read it is the most important aspect of all this is not absolute levels of poverty, but the kind of culture people are bringing with them. Do they have some experience of education,

some experience of education, some experience of democracy, and the speed and vigor and completeness with which we can assimilate new immigrants. I agree. I think you're absolutely right on that one. I'm just curious about this word and how it's applied and how people interpret it. And again, here's a question, and I'm not trying to do gotcha things. I don't do that.

I'm just curious what you think. If Donald Trump had used that word to describe a part of America that was, that say had been changed by immigration or suffered violence, et cetera, do you think that he would be excoriated or would people again point to that and say, you know what? He's right.

He's telling the truth. You know, uh, I would have to give that one a little more thought, but that and say, you know what? He's right. He's telling the truth. You know, I would have to give that one a little more thought, but when you say, if you pointed to places in America, I live in California, as you well know, James, and there are really quite large

stretches of California that have been transformed demographically. Whole towns that have turned over. I think in particular, if we had Victor on, he'd be able to tell us in detail about the Central Valley and the Salinas Valley, the agricultural communities. There's a place not four miles from where I'm sitting right now in Redwood City, California. It gets referred to informally as Little Mexico. And in my time out here, it has – and you can go and stand in the middle of this place and walk around for a few blocks in each direction.

You will not hear English. You will not see English. The storefronts, the bodega fronts are in Spanish. And that has gotten bigger since I have lived in California, not smaller. So there are moments when you think assimilation is working, but it's going the other way. There are pieces of California that are being integrated into the Mexican culture. Now, you want to be very, very careful about that because there were periods, of course, when Little Italy in downtown Manhattan was growing rather than shrinking. And it was a sign of good things, not bad things.

So you have to be very, very careful about that. But the point that Victor makes that many people here in California make, except that they make it quietly by and large, only Victor has the guts to say it out loud because it's so politically incorrect, is that large portions of this state have been transformed and nobody voted for that. Right. Nobody got asked about that. I know, and the transformation is – he's described it. He finds himself almost in a different country. The reason that I brought it up is to say that the people who say Trump tells the truth and that he points to these other countries as bleep holes,

but the Democrats and the liberals say that about America. My point is that if Trump had said it about certain kinds of America, I think people would say, well, you know, he's got a point there. He's right. Look at that place. It is a bleep hole. And the reason for it is this. And that's why you can tease out of this, this racial component or even if you don't

think that Donald Trump is a stone cold racist or a racist at all. He's just a, he's just a New York guy who says stuff. This makes it difficult for his defenders, I think, sometimes to go against that charge when you look at something like this. And that's the problem in having this great blurt and flood of things is that there's interpretations gore for all, but there's one – I'll leave you with this because we have to get to our guests. Here's something else that he said that I think is beyond i don't think it's beyond interpretation when he said that he's not going to go to london because he doesn't like the embassy deal do you believe him i just don't know what to think who knows what's in his head uh no i don't i tend not to believe him i tend to think he's worried because he'll receive a cold reception.

British people are very unpopular there, even in the Tory party, right? I don't know. What do you think? I think he's right. And if that's the case, then the tweet was just an absolute, total, stonking falsehood that we're expected to swallow. Well, I don't know. I don't know. That's that's no. I mean,

putting the best face on a decision that you're forced to make is politics. It seems to me here's a falsehood. A falsehood is if you like your doctor, you can keep him. Barack Obama said that dozens of times. And we now know that the White House knew it was untrue when he was saying it. Trump is trying to spin. Barack Obama told the stone cold lie, in my opinion. All right. There you have it. We'll come back to that.

I don't agree. We'll come back to that. We'll hash it out in the comments. Peter, you should join me in the comments where we can slug it out a little bit. Yes, actually. I'm there naked by myself being accused of being a bitter old man because I'm not exactly. And I'm not. I am neither, I hope. I'll be old at some point.

No, no. I'm not bitter, and I think it's wrong to mistake anger or engagement or something like that with some fury that I didn't get a pony for Christmas or that I don't like Trump. He's my president. No, no, no, no, no. Looking for reliable IT solutions for your business? At Innovate, we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland. From network security to cloud productivity, we handle it all.

Installing, managing, supporting, and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate, the IT solutions people. It's energizing, if nothing else, to have conversations like this about somebody that, about whom there are different opinions, shall we say.

I like to learn. We just covered so much Trump territory right there, James. I am sure we are both going to get pounded in the comments. I'll see you there. I hope so. Pounded in the comments. Ouch. Listen, folks, if you want, however, to learn some things, and you do, because that's why you're listening to this podcast, you can learn how somebody like me, bitter and old, completely misses the point, and how somebody like Peter, young, sprightly, and optimistic can put a good spin on things. You like to learn. You like to go to the comments so you can learn what other people think. Well, learners love The Great Courses Plus. It's a wonderful way to discover interesting information about people, places, and ideas in virtually any category. And there's unlimited access to

thousands of topics. Great insights from some of the world's leading professors and experts. The Great Courses Plus has a brand new course that we highly recommend. For example, law school for everyone. Learn the fundamentals of US law in 48 lectures delivered by four exceptional lawyers and professors. You'll enjoy the procedures and the legal specifics surrounding litigation, criminal law, civil suits, and even tort law.

And you'll get insights on some of the most important, decisive, and controversial court cases in American history. One particular lecture you may find timely, given what's going on in the news, is the Fifth Amendment privilege. Now, according to the Fifth Amendment, quote, no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself, end quote. In this lecture, you'll examine the history of this core aspect of the Bill of Rights and learn how the amendment works in and out of the court, how the privileges become

subjective to compromises over time, and what pleading the fifth actually requires. Well, you can watch it on your TV, on your laptop, your tablet, your smartphone, or you can listen along with the Great Courses Plus app. So start the year off right. Learn more. Sign up for the Great Courses Plus. And as one of our listeners, you'll get a free trial to enjoy it all. But you need to go to our special URL here. So start your free trial today at thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet. Remember, thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet. And our thanks to The Great Courses for sponsoring this, The Ricochet Podcast. And now it's time to talk immigration with Mickey and Mark. Mark Ricorian is the nationally recognized expert on immigration issues and has

served as the executive director of the center for immigration studies since 1995. Mickey Kaus has been writing about immigration since the whole controversy over the Bering straight wall back in the day. And you can read his thoughts at Kaus files.com. Welcome gentlemen. Glad to be here. Thank you.

Where are we here? Yeah, exactly. Go ahead, James. What happened this last week? Mark? Well, what happened is I think the president in that meeting, you know, that the infamous televised meeting was trying to show that he was, you know, not crazy and not whatever it was. And so, you know, they had all these people over, and he basically just agreed with everybody,

which is kind of what he does, even though people don't agree with each other, said some things that worried me. So it was starting to sound Jeb-like. I joked on Twitter that the J in Donald J. Trump now stands for Jeb. But it didn't really mean he was going to be caving into the Democrats any more than that earlier Chuck and Nancy episode did. And I'm not sure I don't really buy the idea he's playing 18 dimensional chess. I also don't buy the idea he's ready to sell out

his supporters. I think it's just sort of the chaotic way he runs things. And as soon as the meeting was over, the White House said, yeah, but there are these three things we have to have. Otherwise, there's no bill. And those three are the wall, the end to chain migration categories, and the end of the visa lottery that gives out 50,000 green cards at random to people around the world. And they've held fast. And when the gang of six, and they really ought to come up with some other word than gang, you know, tribe of six or something. I mean, it's just, anyway, when they came to brief him on what they were about.

And this was yesterday now. We're talking about, uh, about. And this was yesterday. Now we're, we're, we're talking about 48 hours, essentially first big powwow with Democrats and everyone else takes place in the cabinet room. We're recording this on a Friday that took place in the cabinet room on Wednesday and Donald Trump, we were told that I beg your pardon, Tuesday, the president, we were told, uh, the media was invited to, as they often are, watch the beginning moments, but then they were expected to leave. The president left them there. And the thinking is he wanted to show people that he wasn't crazy. He could conduct a meeting in a rational, calm and impressive manner. Right? Right, exactly. And it was, you know, the meeting

was a meeting. I mean, I think he proved that point. Right. And then the gang of six comes to see him when this is a I mean, it's almost day by point. Right. And then the gang of six comes to see him when this is a I mean, it's almost day by day. Developments are so striking this past week. Right. This was yesterday. I'm pretty sure the gang six came Durbin and whoever. And they came to the meeting and they found out Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham included. Right. Right. Lindsey Graham and Trump had invited Senator Cotton and Perdue and Congressman Goodlatte to the meeting, unbeknownst to them, basically to kind of swat down their proposal, because their proposal really was almost a calculated insult in the sense that it did the absolute least you could imagine toward the goals that he had set out and in fact some things it did for instance it amnestied the parents of the dreamers with work visas which is which was a pa i mean literally it's almost like they're throwing it in his face so honestly if it were

me i might have used more profanity than just the one thing he said and cotton and purdue senators cotton and purdue are significant because they are the authors of legislation that the president than just the one thing he said. And Cotton and Perdue, Senators Cotton and Perdue, are significant because they are the authors of legislation that the president has endorsed, and that legislation would do what? It would, this is not a dreamer legislation. This is called the RAISE Act, which would end the extended family category. So family immigration would just be husbands, wives, and little kids. And then it gets rid of the visa lottery and it changes the way we do skilled immigration

instead of the complicated kind of Rube Goldberg system of multiple categories and what have you, streamline the whole thing to what they call a point system in Canada or Australia. You put in what your education, skill, age, that sort of thing, and it gives you a number of points. And if you cross a certain threshold, you would be in the pool to be selected. So it's simpler and more likely to get higher skilled immigrants. The president didn't just endorse it. He had an event at the White House House has been talking about it consistently since. So that's why they were there to make sure that, you know, that their the president brought them in to make sure that their perspectives were

reflected. And now to Mickey, Mickey Kaus, in your Twitter feed this week, you have been. Well, I say this as a friend friend but you have been close to hysterical call this number tell the president no uh why have you been soaking mark sounds calm he believes the president is not going to cave mickey tell us tell us why you've been tweeting as you've been tweeting i i see trump as sort of a a large beast who who needs electric prods to send him in the right direction when he veers off course. And he's veered off course before with the Chuck and Nancy meeting, and I don't think it was completely fake. I think he has these impulses, megalomaniacal impulses. I'm going to settle this and make peace with the Democrats and confound the press. And he was only stopped when there was popular outrage on the right

and among his base to the Chuck and Nancy thing. So I think he responds to popular outrage. When people start burning their MAGA hats, he's taken aback and he shifts course in the right direction. So I thought it didn't hurt for people to call the White House and let them know. The most troubling thing to me about that meeting was he reopened the idea, which I thought was dead, of amnesty all 11 million. And he clearly has always had this impulse that I'm going to settle everything. And it's a very bad impulse to have. And so I

thought he needed a cattle prod. Mickey, almost every time we speak about immigration, I ask one version or another of the following question, and I'm going to do it again. And the question runs as follows. Mickey Kaus has spent his entire adult life as a liberal. And of the thinking man's liberal, which distinguishes you from a lot of liberals in my judgment right away. From leftists. Mickey's not a leftist, but Mickey is a humane person who wishes others well, and in particular those who are struggling, those who are on the margins, those who are poor. What do you make, for example, and this argument, where is your heart, is the question that

runs in one way or another through every aspect of the immigration debate. And this week we got, Mark took us through what's happening on immigration legislation. There was an announcement that the White House, this week, that the White House is ending the so-called temporary status for 200,000 El Salvadorans. Now, they came here after a couple of very severe earthquakes in 2001, and they were granted temporary status. And here it is 17 years later, and the Trump administration is saying, wait a minute, temporary is temporary. 17 years ago where those earthquakes took place. But the answer is, wait just a moment, Mr. President, where is your heart? These people

have made their lives in this country. How can you revoke their legal status? Mickey, how could you revoke their legal status? Well, first, one correction, and Mark would say this too, they didn't necessarily flee here after the earthquake. They were here already when the earthquake happened. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I misunderstood that. So they're basically in the same position as other illegal immigrants who were in the country illegally, but this earthquake happened, and the result was they got temporary protection. I don't quite know what's going on.

I would think some accommodation might be available to them. But is this a bargaining chip that Trump is doing, or is he actually going to send it back? But we know that El Salvador is not an S-hole of a country. So why is it so terrible to go back to it? I don't quite know what's going on there. Maybe Mark knows more. But the larger point, Mickey, how can you distinguish, how can you as a good liberal distinguish between wishing to do good to citizens of this country, people who just happened to be born here,er happenstance of fate,

as opposed to wishing to do good to those who live just south of the border. Again, sheer happenstance of fate. If they can improve their lives by coming here, why shouldn't you let them, Mickey? Well, that logic leads relentlessly to open borders where 7 billion people decide to improve their lives and come to America. I believe in social equality, and I think it's easier to achieve social equality

one nation at a time rather than the whole world at once. So if those people stay in El Salvador, they can build El Salvador into a nice country, and they can have equality among themselves, judging them with respect to each other, and we judge ourselves with respect to each other, and we judge ourselves with respect to each other. And we're in a position where the bottom 10%, 20% of workers were making so little money they were in danger of dropping out of society, and not just ODing, but just not being able to live with respect. We need to raise the wages for unskilled basic work, and it's actually happening. And I think it'll continue to happen unless we let in a new wages for unskilled basic work and it's actually happening and i think it

will continue to happen unless we let in a new wave of unskilled immigrants to bid down the wages which is of course what any businessman want okay last question maybe i'll show actually either one of you because you i'm sure you both have thoughts on this we understand actually correct me if you think this is a misreading the democrats want immigration because they are bringing in voters we know that immigrants particularly from latin america they get here and for well they're still voting democratic maybe you know the argument is maybe they'll be like the italians and after three or four generations they'll start to vote who knows but the democrats for sure for the foresee, they'll start to vote. Who knows? But the Democrats, for sure, for the foreseeable future, immigrants tend to vote Democratic.

That's why they want them. Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, two Republican members of the Gang of Six. Why do Republicans want easier terms for immigrants? And the answer is because they have corporate sponsors. Republican donors want labor. Is that correct? Is that a fair assessment of the political pressures in favor of immigration, both of you? I think it's a simplification. I mean, I'm not saying it's not true. It is true. The Democrats do like the votes and not just votes,

but clients too for big government. And Republican interests do want cheap labor but you know most people do what they do because they think it's right as well yeah and um and i think there's just this sense that uh you know a sense of america's mission to let everybody in the world here and for some like uh flake uh and this was true with president George W. Bush, too, they've grown up with people who were immigrants, Mexicans especially. And that kind of then colors their whole view of the immigration issue, even though it's kind of simplistic. It's almost childish to think about it that way. Or Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush, likewise.

Experience is shaped by Miami. Miami has become, in effect, the financial capital of Latin America, and think, a distinct leftist slant to this, which says that if we do bring in people which change the compositions of neighborhoods and communities and whatnot, that's good because the composition is too monolithic. It's too old-style American and that it is not sufficiently diverse to reflect this imaginary rainbow of what the world should look like. So there's pleasure taken, I think, in the left, in taking communities that were monolithically old style. Soling, managing, supporting, and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate, the IT solutions people.

American communities and changing them by fiat, by force, by whatever means necessary. I think they like the dissolution of the traditional American community. Or am I wrong? No, no, I think you're completely right. I mean, what did Calvin Coolidge say in the 20s when he signed the immigration limitation bill? He said America must remain American. And basically the left is taking him up on that and saying, you're right, America must not remain American.

That's why they want immigration. In other words, Calvin Coolidge was basically foreshadowing what the left says, except they want the opposite policy, literally to make America less American. That is an objective good for a lot of the, I won't even say kooks, but a lot of the people on the harder left. So, I'll go to Mickey first, but of course back to you on this, Mark. What should happen and what do you think is likely to happen in Washington? I'm talking about specific next steps. Mickey? You know, reading Mark's Twitter feed this morning, it seemed like, and he'll correct me, it seemed like he, and he'll correct me, it seemed like he was thinking the Democrats had decided they'd rather have no deal than to give any ground to Trump. I tend to think as we get closer to the deadline, if Trump plays his cards right,

there'll be tremendous mounting pressure on the Democrats from the Dreamer constituency themselves. And we may see some progress toward a deal. Otherwise, you know, we'll end up with no deal. And then the question is, does Trump somehow come up with some way to protect the Dreamers after his so-called deadline passes? And I think chances are greater than 50, 50 that he will. Well, we all know the campaign camp, excuse me for a second. I just have to say that campaign promises, you know, we remember them, we hold them close to heart, but somehow they get lost in all of the scrum and all of the politics and the rest of it. If only we

could slap a tracker on a campaign promise and find out where that thing went. I have to tell you guys, uh, if, if, if, if you were losing things, Mickey, I believe you're in a hotel. You know what it's like when you lose your key and you've got to go down to the front door, get another one. It's a pain. Slap a tracker on that thing. Listen, eight years ago, Tracker changed everything. They released their first tracking device, and now they've done it again with the all-new Tracker Pixel.

With Tracker Pixel, you'll never have to worry about losing your things again because Tracker Pixel is the lightest Bluetooth tracking device on the market, period. Place Tracker Pixel on whatever you tend to lose, your keys, your wallets, your anything. It's small enough to fit anywhere. When you misplace the item that has a Tracker Pixel attached, use your smartphone and a 90-decibel alert will help you find it in seconds. It even has powerful LED lights so you can find it in the dark. Hey, did you lose your phone?

Well, just press the button on your tracker pixel, and your phone rings, even if it's on silent. You can even locate your item if it's miles away, because every tracker user is part of the largest crowd-locate network in the world. It's cool to see. There's a little map right there on your app that tells you all the people around where your thing might be. Well, it's like Waze, for example, that app, except for finding your things. And Tracker's 30-day money-back guarantee means you really don't have anything to lose.

So I had one on my keys because I had lost my keys. And if you ever lose your keys downtown, it is bad because they might be picked up. They might go down a sewer drain. They might be like, I was able to find it in the course of walking half a block just by pushing the tracker button on my app. It was great. And it saved me going from lobby to lobby to lobby to say, anybody turn in my keys? You can be like me, lose things and then find them.

Special offer for the listener of the Ricochet podcast. Go to thetracker.com slash ricochet to get 20% off any order. That's spelled T-H-E-T-R-A-C-K-R.com forward slash ricochet for 20% off. That's thetracker.com slash ricochet. And our thanks to Tracker for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. All right. I interrupted somebody. Yes, you interrupted me. That's all right. Sounds like a great product, but that was kind of a weak segue, James. I interrupted somebody. is too optimistic. I mean, I don't think that the least that the Republicans and the president can

accept, I don't think the Democrats can approach that because they are more than happy to throw the dreamers or the DACAs under the bus in order to preserve chain migration. I think that's pretty clear. And, you know, the DREAM Act in its original form, which Congress has rejected a couple of times, was never intended. Therefore, all 12 million illegal aliens need to have amnesty. That was the point of the DREAM Act. And so I think that's still what it is. And you add on top of that, the Democrats figure they're going to take the House anyway in November and they'll just write something they prefer then. So I am not optimistic there's going to be any deal. What is the status of the Purdue Cotton Act? Why don't Republicans introduce that? Because it's introduced in the Senate. It's just that the leadership hasn't.

There's no hearings or anything. And why is that? Because you've got no more than Tom Cotton and Sonny Perdue in favor or not. It's not Sonny Perdue. Whatever his name is. David Perdue. David Perdue. In other words, even among Republicans in the Senate, that thing does not have much support? Yeah, as I understand it, Senator Grassley is not opposed to it. He's the lot in there he likes. He's the one who would be scheduling hearings. They're going to have hearings at some point, but I think the whole

DACA thing is, you know, sucking all the oxygen out of the room. numbers of Americans feel more or less as the two of you feel about immigration. Why is it that Donald Trump and maybe David Perdue and Tom Cotton, but really Donald Trump is the only politician. He defeated 16 opponents for the Republican nomination, chiefly because of his position on immigration. Why has this not become the Republican position? Why isn't it politically potent enough for Republicans to cause them to embrace it? Mickey? Well, I have some heretical views on the RAISE Act. I mean, I like it because I think by eliminating chain migration, you can lower the number of unskilled people coming into the country

and competing with our unskilled people. It lowers the total number of immigrants coming into the country, I think by half eventually. The skilled part, I like getting skilled immigrants, but I have tremendous doubts that asking people for their college degrees will produce an influx of Einstein. It's much more likely to produce an influx of annoying meritocrats who are very good at networking and getting degrees, but aren't necessarily the best people we want. So, and I also, since a lot of the Trump,

you know, Trump election was a revolt against meritocracy. Yes. Hillary was the meritocrats candidate. Yes. I don't, Trump wildly overestimates the appeal of merit. He keeps going around saying merit, merit, merit, as if everybody's supposed to like stand and applaud.

And the American people don't stand and applaud. They didn't stand and applaud in Novembermber right everybody everybody at some level is sick of the class president type right and we have tremendous doubts about meritocracy meritocracy is turning us into a caste society we don't like that right yeah i mean i don't just i don't disagree with mickey but uh you know and frankly i would, I would raise act is not the bill that I would write myself from scratch in every respect. But, you know, honestly, I'll take what I can get. And it doesn't reduce the number of these employment or skills based immigrants, but it does make the way we pick them less absurd. And so, yeah, you know, I mean, on balance, I think it's, I mean, I'm all for it, but I, it's not going anywhere in its current form.

What do we mean? I mean, don't we also mean people who have technical skills that they can use not to impose some sort of technocratic law with the rest of us, but that they know how to code, they know how to fix things. They're doctors. I don't think that people, I don't think people see merit as meeting somebody who just got a social science degree in Bangladesh and is coming here to run an HR program. No, not – was that a segue?

No, not everything I say, Mark, is a segue. Are you going on the next cruise? Because if so, let's have a conversation right by the railing. I am going to be on the post-election cruise, actually. That's why a lot of these proposals, I don't think the RAISE Act does this specifically, but other legislation does, they try to they give points for fields of study so that you don't have the gender studies Ph.D. getting the same credit as a chemical engineering Ph.D. So, boys, you both seem to be telling us to prepare ourselves for stalemate. The Democrats, when it comes down to it, are not going to want a deal because what they really want

to do is run against Donald Trump and the Republicans in 2018 and again in 2020 as heartless and crude and unfeeling. And a deal would make the Democrats complicit with the Republicans. They just don't want that. And the Republicans, this is what I was probing for a little bit. The Republicans don't have the votes to pass the, even the raise act, let alone the kinds of, to vote the funds for a wall. It's just, we're stuck with this. We thought, we thought Donald Trump was actually going to be able to solve the problem. The wall street journal had an editorial the other day, Trump, of course, they don't take your view of immigration. They called people such as you restrictionists. But the Wall Street Journal was saying Trump has created a political opening here. He may be able to get something done. And the two of you are saying,

nah, don't think so. Is that correct? Mickey, go ahead. I'm less stalemate-oriented than Mark. It seems to me, I don't quite understand what happens to the Dreamers after this deadline passes. Maybe Congress passes some stopgap bill offering them protection for three more months, so it becomes like the government shutdown. Every three months, we have another crisis. I also don't understand the Dreamers. Chain migration was chosen as the issue because it's the sweet spot. It doesn't really annoy the dreamers if people can't bring in their brothers and adult children.

The thing that really terrifies them is more ICE patrolmen. So I don't quite, I still see some possibility that as the deadline approaches, the Democrats give more on chain migration and the Republicans declare victory. So you'd say within the next period of weeks, not months, you'd say there's going to – better than 50-50, there will be an actual deal. Mickey? Months, not weeks. It's going to drag on all until summer, I would think. But Mark knows more about Congress than I do, so I defer to him. I mean, you know, I hope Mickey is right because I really see this as an opportunity.

I mean, the people on the left are saying the demands that Republicans are making are just poison pills intended to sabotage any deal. And I don't know, maybe that's true of other people, but, I mean, it's not true of me. And I've spoken with people in the White House, too. I actually want a deal. I'm happy to give the DACAs green cards. But let's, you know, make sure that we do it in such a way that we limit the damage, we limit the fallout by getting rid of chain migration, having some real enforcement measures.

So I want a deal. I just don't see how it happens. I think the two parties have become much too far apart on the issue, mainly because the Democrats have become really maximalist on legal immigration and minimalist on enforcement. I mean, Hillary's position was wet foot, dry foot for the entire world. Any illegal immigrant who could step foot in the United States got to stay. And we're going to end up having, I think, have to have another couple of elections before we get to a point where we can come up with consensus immigration policy. If ever. I mean, if the next election is President Oprah, it's going to be, I've got amnesty for you, and you get amnesty, and you get amnesty, because Oprah is part of the, you know,

Oprah and the rest of the entertainment industry is part of the empathy industrial complex. There are people who significantly signify their virtue by being compassionate to all and identifying those people who want to change our current immigration situation as heartless racists. And the more that that comes to characterize everybody who doesn't agree with unlimited immigration and chain migration, the more difficult it is to move the middle of the culture away from that idea. I mean, if you can't get it done with this combination of elements, the House, the Senate and the president, it would seem that this moment, this window is going to close and there's not going to be a wall. There's not going to be much of a change and we're going to struggle on again and again and again. I think they win this one, unfortunately. But that's just me sitting here in Minnesota. What do I know?

Boys, boys, one last cue, if I may, here. One last question for both of you. Is this a really last question? No, this really is a really last question. Yeah, I never believe him. Mickey, you're going to go first, and then Mark. Gary Kasparov has just tweeted a quotation from ronald reagan reagan a quote excerpt from reagan's speech in 1980 at the republican national convention

accepting the republican nomination kasparov says a few were looking for reliable it solutions for your business at innovate we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland. From network security to cloud productivity, we handle it all. Installing, managing, supporting and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate, the IT solutions people.

...from 1980 when the Republican Party had a brain and a soul and a heart. And here is the Reagan quotation. Can we doubt that only a divine providence would have placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely. Jews and Christians enduring persecution behind the Iron Curtain, the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba, of Haiti, the victims of drought and famine in Africa, the freedom fighters of Afghanistan, and our own countrymen held in savage captivity. Close quote. Gee, that sounds like Emma Lazarus, send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It's just plain part of being

American to hold your arms open for immigrants. What a rhino. Reagan and name only going. Mickey, how do you answer that? I have a soft spot for Emma Lazarus. Mark does not. It's a numbers problem. We have, there's going to be 2 billion people in Africa who qualify for this exemption. Do 2 billion people get to come here? It seems to me we take as many as we can while maintaining the essential quality of American society that we, you know, that's what

we're trying to preserve. So that maybe that means in the future, we will take more evidence, maybe less, but it has to be controlled by Democrats, by Americans themselves, democratically. Mark? Yeah. See, I yield to no one in my respect for President Reagan. He was the first person I ever voted for. And I voted for him the second time from the Soviet Union itself by absentee ballot, although it didn't get there, didn't get back. But the president grew up when immigration was over. The immigration phase in our national life when President Reagan was growing up was seen explicitly as having ended, just like the pioneers in the covered wagons. And so that lends itself to a sentimentalist

view of immigration. And the fact is, that's not the way it is anymore. The world has shrunk. There are 5 billion people in the world poorer than the average Mexican, and they can all get here in a few hours if we permit it. And we live in a different world. Lincoln said, you know, different circumstances require us to disenthrall ourselves of our old ideas and our old sentiments, and that's what's necessary here. As Lincoln said, we must disenthrall ourselves and we can save our country. Well, Emma wasn't really speaking for herself when she said bring me your tired, poor, your huddled masses. She didn't mean bring them to my house, essentially. Take them to James.

Maybe Irma Lazarus said, Dad, take them to Emma's house. She's got an extra room. She's always got an extra plate at the table. Hey, guys, thanks a lot. We'll talk to you again as the immigration debate staggers on and disappoints and thrills and reaches no conclusion. But the grinding process goes on. We'll talk again in 3, 6, 12, 18 months, whenever.

And remember, Mark, I need to talk to you on the ship. I'll see you in November, James. And Mickey and Mark mark keep tweeting i don't i i think there must be a lot of people who feel the way i feel which is really if you want to follow the issue from people who are studying it and who will tell you the unvarnished truth the twitter feeds of mickey cows and mark ricorian are invaluable keep it remember well my twitter handle mark s as in steven mark s ricorian because there's another mark ricorian who's a are invaluable. Keep it up, boys. Remember, my Twitter handle, Mark S as in Stephen, Mark S. Krikorian, because there's another Mark Krikorian

who's a soccer coach. All right, guys, talk to you later. Take care, boys. Of course, you can find both those guys on the web, in print, elsewhere. I run into Mark from time to time in the National Review cruises. By the way, this year year it's not in November

it's in December it's a post election cruise but it's sort of more wither conservatism now but it's always lots of fun of course they're not paying for an ad so I'm not going to give them one however Texture is and I'm happy to tell you and I'm glad Mark's gone so he can't ding me for that one but listen Texture

have you heard of this app because it's incredible if you're looking for dependable political reporting, high-quality storytelling, or the latest in culture and entertainment, magazines deliver them all. We think that magazines are as vital as ever. And dare I say they're better than a lot of websites. Why? High-quality writing that's been edited, beautiful photography, great layout. Magazines are a thing of joy to peruse. And now you can get all of your magazines in one place with Texture.

The Texture app gives you unlimited access to over 200 premium magazines. You can find the National Review. That's where my stuff runs. You can find other well-known titles like Time, The Atlantic, The New Yorker. The New Yorker. I mean, I love reading The New Yorker. Sometimes to get angry, sometimes to get enthralled, sometimes just to read the cartoons. And there it is. If you're looking for a break from news or politics, well, Textures got you covered there as well. Sports Illustrated, National Geographic,

Forbes, Better Homes and Garden, Food Network Magazine, Wired, and many, many others. 200, over 200 premium titles. One of the ones I like to come across is Entertainment Weekly. I used to subscribe to it once upon a time, and then it got expensive, and some of my favorite writers left, and then I fell away from it. But, you know, if you want to keep up on pop culture just to find out what your kids are doing or what other people are talking about, well, heck, there it is. Entertainment Weekly. Page through it. Learn something. Go on to the next step.

It's just great. Right now, you can experience Texture for free when you sign up at texture.com slash ricochet. Now, Texture is normally $9.99 a month, which is cheap when you compare it to 200 subscriptions to magazines. But you will get a 14-day free trial at texture.com slash ricochet. One more time, that's 14 days to try Texture for free when you go to texture.com slash ricochet. And our thanks to Texture for sponsoring when you go to texture.com slash ricochet. And our thanks to Texture for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And I didn't say shrash

because apparently I'm no longer sloshed and sloshing my hours like Foster Brooks at the beginning of this thing. But I have to tell you, one more point before we leave the whole immigration thing. Yes. And that's this.

When people talk, I mean, we've been talking about illegal immigration. That's what people are, say changes the character of California cultures and towns. That's what people say changes the character of California cultures and towns. That's what Victor talks about. Here in Minnesota, there was a recent survey that said the top three names of newborn boys in St. Cloud, Minnesota, it's like Cody, Sven, and Mohammed, which is interesting. No?

Because you don't think of St cloud minnesota as being you know that as being uh particularly islamic correct i i remand that issue to your own attention james you're in charge of minnesota i am well i i mean it's an interesting conversation to have with people because of their reaction to it. And the only thing that I like to ask some of my friends who are of a liberal persuasion is saying that, okay, well, so St. Cloud is becoming more Muslim. And is that – how does that change things? And generally they will tell you that it means absolutely nothing but if you ask them if you say for example all right well let's let's make a let's make a broad assumption and

you tell me how you would react let's say you are a gay atheist you have a choice of going to a country where the predominant name is char Charles or the predominant boy's name is Mohammed, which do you go knowing nothing else? Which do you go to? And it's uncomfortable for them to have to tease out of that the assumptions that they themselves privately make but cannot express because to do so is to be accused of a mental illness, a phobia. I just I find that fascinating.

So everybody just sort of dances away from any sort of intellectual, religious, theological stuff and just talks about how it's great because now we have diversity, which is seen as a prima facie good. It's a fascinating conversation that really nobody wants to have. They just don't want to have it. So, James, if I may, I return you to our opening conversation about Donald Trump. And I know that there is no way

I'm going to make you feel comfortable with Donald Trump, nor should I. I don't feel comfortable with a man myself. But you've just beautifully stated the reason so many people feel that Donald Trump is not just someone to be put up with, but in his own way, invaluable. He will say what political correctness makes millions of others feel inhibited from saying. Trump will just come out and say it. And it's very valuable to the country to have

somebody who feels completely unintimidated by the strictures of political correctness that you just described. Right? You'll give him that much, right? Yes and no. I mean, I don't want to say no just to be mulish because I'm not one of those people who says I can't say anything good about this guy. That would be stupid. And while I agree that it's good to have somebody who can break through the adamantine who seems unable to articulate and develop the issues beyond the simple statement of a blunt, what he regards to be truth or fact. That's what bothers me because we don't end up having the conversation about these things once the taboos have been shattered. We react to – I'll even – to that point. To that point, Trump – we were talking about this earlier with Mark particularly that Trump held a meeting in the White House in the cabinet room on Tuesday.

And it seems to be the point of that meeting to have demonstrated to the press, which remained in the room for 45 or 50 minutes as long as the meeting lasted, that Donald Trump was not crazy. It was to refute this book by Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury. And he did such a good job that Dan Henninger devoted his column in the Wall Street Journal to that very meeting the next day. And 48 hours later, Trump makes his now infamous asshole comment and undoes all the work that he himself had done 48 hours before. Even no matter how much sympathy I feel for the man and I feel a lot for the reasons I've described over the past weeks. Good Lord.

He can't get something right without within 48 hours. Mucking it up. Well, given this, I thought actually the asshole comment was a tweet. When I first when I opened up Twitter and I saw what was going on, I thought, oh, Lord, oh, no. And it wasn't a tweet. It was a statement made at this meeting, et cetera. It will be a tweet perhaps someday, perhaps not. Like I said, I thought the London provococation was a little bit more, uh, eye raising, but I see what you mean. I get what you mean. Um, but even if that was the, even if that was the case, it, it worries me. And again, the Wolf book, the idea that he held this public meeting in order to get that out,

to get craziness off the table. I think they did. I think it worked. I think people looked at it. Yes, it did. Yeah. Say, well, he's not's not you know but i never thought the issue was that trump was crazy i never thought he was crazy been watching this guy for years it's just that his particular amount of what and i'm doing you know amateur analysis here but his his self-regard uh he's bound to self-regard and a sort of uh you know, pitcher from Queens trying to get the attention and respect of the high-hat white shoe crowd in Manhattan. The combination of all that, the combination of having a great regard for his own ability to figure things out without actually having to read or study, that's what bothers me. Whatever else he is, he's not Minnesota nice.

Well, and I, you know, okay, fine. And that's great. You know, Garrison Keillor supposedly was Minnesota nice. And I can tell you that ain't the case either. Sometimes that just masks an extreme amount of loathsome self passive aggressiveness that hides a nasty person. So, I mean, he's out. He says what he says. That's great but like i said the inability to go beyond that and start the

conversation and work the intellectually through it in a way to to have these talks with the american people that that gives people the verbal intellectual ammunition to be able to talk and address and argue about it instead it just comes down to well he said that it was blunt it needed to be said he's right and that's and that's it and then we argue about trump instead of arguing about the issues that trump are bringing is bringing up i mean some people do some people say he does start that conversation scott adams will tell you he's a genius because we end up talking about these things but it always always always circles back to him and that's how he likes it that's how wants it. He wants it always to be about him, says me.

Now, that sort of narcissism is not unusual in politicians and Lord knows Obama had it in spades. But there's a difference in what we have now and I just wish that there was a little bit more intellectual depth and breadth. That's all I'm saying. Well, so do I. But that's what Ricochet is here for. Indeed. So we should get out of here and let people just start flaying me alive like the picture of some medieval saint on the coals who's having his flesh ripped off and stuck in a little relic box somewhere. Peter, I'll see you in the comments because I'm going to be flayed as well, James, I'm sure.

All right. You owe it to everyone to go down there. I'm tired. I will. Toiling in the boiler rooms, shoving the coal in, or actually, no, trying to shut the dampers because we hit the iceberg. Folks, we want to thank The Great Courses Plus, Tracker, that's T-A-R-C-K-R, and Texture. Please support them for supporting us. And if you enjoyed the show, and of course you did, come on, Mickey, Mark, Peter, how could you not? Take a minute to review on iTunes. And those reviews, of course, they'll be five stars, right?

They'll let other new listeners discover us and it keeps the show going. And of course, what else keeps the show going? Money. Money. Money makes the world go around. You know that $2.50 a month? What? That's ridiculous. But that's what the podcast listener tier is, and you can join today.

$2.50 a month. Cheap. Thank you, Peter. Thanks to our guests. Thanks to our sponsors, and thanks to everyone for listening to this, the Ricochet Podcast. And we'll see you in the comments at 3.0. Thanks, James. Next week.

Dreamer. You know you are a dreamer. Thanks, James. I said, fuck. What a day, a year, a life it is. You know. Well, you know you had it coming to you. Now there's not a lot I can do. Dreamer. You're still a little dreamer.

So now you put your head in your hands, oh no. Woo! I said fuck! What a day, a year, a life it is You know Well, you know, you had it coming to you Now there's not a lot I can do Ricochet Join the conversation If I could see something You can see anything you want, boy Join the conversation. If I could do anything I'd do something out of the world