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Speaker 1: Boston's Bulldozer never sleeps. The Kooner Report weekend edition on

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Speaker 1: the Voice of Boston WRKO.

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Speaker 2: Doctor Grace putting liberals in their place, Grace Vuoto. We

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Speaker 2: finally got her full disclosure. She's my better half, she

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Speaker 2: is my wife. Grace. How are you.

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Speaker 3: I am very well, Jess. Great to be with you.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so Grace.

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Speaker 2: I want to ask you. It's causing a lot of controversy.

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Speaker 2: President Trump his team, through the State Department, has now

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Speaker 2: put out a more guidelines, tougher criteria, not illegal immigration,

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Speaker 2: but legal immigration. And if you want to get a

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Speaker 2: visa to come into the United States, whether it's a

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Speaker 2: travel visa, tourist visa, student visa, work visa, and you know,

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Speaker 2: I was on one for years then we got a

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Speaker 2: green card. So even for work visas and to get

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Speaker 2: permanent residency, you have to show that you're financially able

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Speaker 2: to take care of yourself. You're not going to be

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Speaker 2: a burden to the taxpayers or to the state. But

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Speaker 2: they also now want to weed out people who have cancer,

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Speaker 2: who have respiratory diseases, people who may have severe mental illness.

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Speaker 2: In other words, people who are going to cost a

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Speaker 2: lot of money because they're going to be sick, They're

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Speaker 2: going to have to be treated hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 2: dollars and we just can't afford it. And one of

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Speaker 2: the criteria is obese, fat people, overly obese people, that

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Speaker 2: they will eventually develop heart issues type two diabetes, and

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Speaker 2: that this should be a factor in refusing entry into

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Speaker 2: the United States.

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Speaker 3: What say you, Jeff, You know, I think it's a

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Speaker 3: terrible idea. And I'll tell you why. Consider for a moment,

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Speaker 3: who that we actually know, based on this criteria of

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Speaker 3: obesity would be denied entry. I mean, some of the

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Speaker 3: hardest working people I know that were immigrants were you know,

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Speaker 3: they would fall through the cracks. Think of somebody like

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Speaker 3: my father who immigrated to Canada. He was a very

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Speaker 3: stocky guy, such a proud, hard working man. This guy

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Speaker 3: never never stopped working, even in his spare time, and

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Speaker 3: everything that he contributed to society far outweighed anything that

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Speaker 3: he took away from it. And think about somebody else

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Speaker 3: that we know that died during COVID, Nicola or Landscaper.

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Speaker 3: He was also an Italian immigrant into the United States,

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Speaker 3: a very stocky guy. This was one of the best

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Speaker 3: workers I've ever seen this person would be denied. Think

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Speaker 3: about my very best friend that I met in DC Angelica,

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Speaker 3: and she has risen to the highest ranks of her

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Speaker 3: profession as now the vice president of an arms company,

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Speaker 3: and she was stocky. And then think about Jeff Cooner who.

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Speaker 2: Entroduced well, she's a little more than a talking but

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Speaker 2: let that go. Let that go.

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Speaker 3: I think of Jeff Kooner who entered, who you're actually

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Speaker 3: slimmer now than when you entered. I think you're a

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Speaker 3: fantastic contributor to the society. But based on this criteria,

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Speaker 3: all of these incredible workers would be denied entry. So

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Speaker 3: this doesn't make sense to me. And also another thing

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Speaker 3: to consider, Jeff, is that weight is a fluid category.

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Speaker 3: So you might give entry to somebody who's skinny when

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Speaker 3: they come in, but within five years they're overweight, or

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Speaker 3: somebody who is overweight when they come in, but within

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Speaker 3: five years they're skinny. It's just a fluid category. So

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Speaker 3: I don't think it's a category that is substantial enough

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Speaker 3: as a criteria. So I think what we're doing is

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Speaker 3: we're now gyrating from one extreme to the other extreme.

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Speaker 3: So one extreme was the Democrats who are complete idiots

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Speaker 3: opened up on borders with no criteria whatsoever. And also,

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Speaker 3: we have a society that gives an abundance of benefits, right,

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Speaker 3: just just give everybody benefits and let everybody in. So

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Speaker 3: this is the problem we have, and now we're going

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Speaker 3: to go to the opposite extreme and create these categories

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Speaker 3: that don't make sense. Look, the only thing we have

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Speaker 3: to consider when we give somebody of visa, of course,

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Speaker 3: their criminal background. You know, obviously are they criminals or not?

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Speaker 3: And we just have to ask the key question, what

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Speaker 3: does our economy need? And does this immigrant have the

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Speaker 3: education and the skills to match what our economy needs,

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Speaker 3: you know, once you verify that they're not criminals. And

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Speaker 3: I think we've got to keep it simple. Otherwise you're

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Speaker 3: empowering bureaucrats to make decisions about what a person can

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Speaker 3: overall contribute based on a category that's not going to

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Speaker 3: give you that information. And I just want to make

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Speaker 3: one more point, Jeff, which is, think about the people

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Speaker 3: that are really overweight to say that our American citizens

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Speaker 3: that have made a huge contribution, right, think of someone

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Speaker 3: like Rush Limbaugh, Orson Wells, Babe Ruth Aresa, Franklin, George Forman,

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Speaker 3: Marlon Brando, Elvis who then became very very overweight, Alfred Hitchcock,

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Speaker 3: Oprah Winfrey. We got like big singers nowadays.

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Speaker 2: Oprah, I mean, Oprah. I don't know if that bolsters

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Speaker 2: your argument. But no, no, I hear what you're saying.

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Speaker 2: I hear what you're saying.

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Speaker 3: Wait, it's just it's just not a valid criteria to

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Speaker 3: determine the value that somebody is going to bring to

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Speaker 3: the workforce.

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Speaker 2: What about Okay, leave a side obesity and wait, yes,

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Speaker 2: if they have cancer, if they're you know, if they

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Speaker 2: have mental illness, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, if they have respiratory issues,

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Speaker 2: if you know, whatever, there's all kinds of health issues.

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Speaker 2: In other words, should we be allowing people to come

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Speaker 2: into our country that unless they can afford to pay

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Speaker 2: for their own health care, it's inevitable. We are going

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Speaker 2: to have to take care of these people, and they're

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Speaker 2: going to cost it's going to cost us a lot

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Speaker 2: of money. Should health be a consideration? I think it should.

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Speaker 2: I don't think we should be, you know, bringing in

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Speaker 2: people with leukemia. I'm not trying to see a heartless

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Speaker 2: but you know, if you got a brain tumor. I'm like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you're going to be in our hospitals very soon. Well

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Speaker 2: you know, we're not a charity for the world, but

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Speaker 2: I'm just curious, what say you.

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Speaker 3: Well, look, I think it is already part of the

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Speaker 3: screening that takes place. They have to make sure that

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Speaker 3: incoming immigrants have proper vaccination. And I do think, like

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Speaker 3: a general, a general health screening is a good idea.

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Speaker 3: But one of the problems with trying to make this

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Speaker 3: like a hard and fast criteria is that health two

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Speaker 3: just fluctuates, and it's like you can't really predict the future.

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Speaker 3: So somebody unless obviously it's a terminal illness, right, like

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Speaker 3: something we know is terminal, But sometimes people are ill

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Speaker 3: for a while. I mean, you just had a caller

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Speaker 3: on that was ill for a while and then she

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Speaker 3: turned her house around her vice versa. Someone that comes

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Speaker 3: in healthy suddenly becomes very, very sick. So I just think,

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Speaker 3: right now, we have to just keep the immigration process

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Speaker 3: much much simpler, strict but simple. That's the way to go.

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Speaker 3: And look, we've done this before. The immigrants that we

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Speaker 3: brought in for several decades were phenomenal, and we had

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Speaker 3: a great system until the Democrats messed it up. I

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Speaker 3: don't think we need to, you know, reinvent the wheel

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Speaker 3: on this one, grace.

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Speaker 2: What do you think about a moratorium? In general? We

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Speaker 2: have too many immigrants already illegal and legal, many non citizens,

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Speaker 2: many of them on food stamps, many of them public housing,

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Speaker 2: many of them ebt and on welfare. It is literally

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Speaker 2: bankrupting and bleeding our country dry. It is breaking the

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Speaker 2: back of our welfare system. Is it time to impose

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Speaker 2: a moratorium an embargo on all immigration? Not forever, not

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Speaker 2: even for twenty years or fifteen years or ten years,

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Speaker 2: but maybe for five years, so that way we can

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Speaker 2: deport all the illegals and b start to ask ourselves

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Speaker 2: as a country, do we want to have the melting pot?

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Speaker 2: Do we want a sponsor and push assimilation? Do we

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Speaker 2: what kind of an immigration policy do we want? Because

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Speaker 2: it seems to me I think right now fifteen percent

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Speaker 2: of the entire American population is foreign born. Never in

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Speaker 2: American history we've had so many foreign born people in

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Speaker 2: our country, and many of them are not learning English,

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Speaker 2: many of them are not assimilating. And all you've got

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Speaker 2: to do is look at what happened in New York

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Speaker 2: City with Mamdani. The foreign born population put Mumdanni over

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Speaker 2: the top because they brought in so many. Do we

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Speaker 2: now have too many immigrants legal or illegal? And is

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Speaker 2: it time for a moratorium so we can straighten all

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Speaker 2: this out and devise an immigration policy that puts America

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Speaker 2: and Americans first.

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Speaker 3: What say, you definitely need to pump the brakes right

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Speaker 3: now because we have to deal with the Democrats who

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Speaker 3: have created a lawless society. That's really what they've created

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Speaker 3: with this wide open border, and they've let just about

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Speaker 3: anybody in. And then also it's give benefits to just

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Speaker 3: about everybody. So these are the two huge problems that

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Speaker 3: have to be addressed before we can even really have

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Speaker 3: a properly functioning immigration system. But the problem we face is, yes,

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Speaker 3: we'd like to do Let's say, in an ideal world, right,

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Speaker 3: we would tell President Trump just stop every single immigrant

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Speaker 3: from coming in period, whether legal or illegal. One of

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Speaker 3: the problems is that we have some cute categories of

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Speaker 3: labor that we're in dire need for, like doctors, for example,

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Speaker 3: we have like a shortage of doctors in this country.

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Speaker 3: So what do we do with that problem? This is

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Speaker 3: so overall, I would say yes, but you have to

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Speaker 3: look very carefully at which industries would we also be

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Speaker 3: blocking that We're in dire need of grace.

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Speaker 2: We've got a minute left, so let me just ask

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Speaker 2: you this. Have we lost the melting pot? Have we

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Speaker 2: lost the sense in America of assimilation, of Americanization as

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Speaker 2: it used to be called, that if you're a forget illegal,

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Speaker 2: if you're a legal immigrant, that you really have to

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Speaker 2: learn English, you have to understand the Constitution, the Bill

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Speaker 2: of Rights and truly become an American citizen, not just

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Speaker 2: in name only, but truly culturally. You know in your

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Speaker 2: life personally that you come here to become an American.

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Speaker 2: Have we lost that?

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Speaker 3: We have comp completely lost that. And you've got to

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Speaker 3: consider that we're not only not teaching immigrants what it

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Speaker 3: is to be an American, We're not teaching our own

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Speaker 3: citizens what American history is, what the glories of the Constitution,

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Speaker 3: the Bill of Rights, what our revolution really really stands for,

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Speaker 3: it's historic impact, how original it was in its time.

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Speaker 3: We're not teaching the Great Books, we're not teaching the

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Speaker 3: value of Western civilization. So we're seeing this rot. Never

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Speaker 3: mind for the incoming immigrants, who, of course they won't

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Speaker 3: They won't know this if our own citizens don't even

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Speaker 3: know this. And this is a deliberate plan by the

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Speaker 3: left to take away our history so that we lose

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Speaker 3: our uniqueness. Our history informs us as to what makes

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Speaker 3: us unique in this world. And it is decades that

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Speaker 3: they've been working hard.

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Speaker 2: Hard to destroy our identity. You're right, our national identity

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Speaker 2: are a national culture, our national unity what binds us

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Speaker 2: as a people and as a country. Grace as always,

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Speaker 2: dynamite stuff. Agree, disagree all of your calls. I promise next.

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Speaker 1: If Jeff doesn't get a day off. This request came

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Speaker 1: from his wife. The Kuner Report weekend edition on the

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Speaker 1: Boys of Boston WRKO