Speaker 1: Welcome back to a number's name of Brian Gressey. Thank
Speaker 1: you all for being here. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: something that's going on online that a lot of people
Speaker 1: are bringing up in the wake of the Minneapolis shooting.
Speaker 1: We're seeing a narrative kind of come out among progresses
Speaker 1: that I find truly baffling, and it's that Obama deported
Speaker 1: more people with less resources than President Trump. I guess
Speaker 1: to say that Obama was such a good president, look
Speaker 1: how Trump is really ineffective even on immigration. First of all,
Speaker 1: the left had berated Obama at the end of his
Speaker 1: presidency for his deportation numbers. They called him the deporter
Speaker 1: in chief. And that's why in the twenty twenty Democratic
Speaker 1: primary as it went on, so many Democratic candidates running
Speaker 1: for president really berated Obama and tried to hold Joe
Speaker 1: Biden responsible during that primary for Obama's deportation numbers. Then
Speaker 1: Senator Kamala Harris criticized Obama's Secure Communities program because it
Speaker 1: led to arrests in calahorning have billegal aliens who Julian
Speaker 1: Costro repeatedly criticized Biden, who was Vice president obviously under Obama,
Speaker 1: saying asking him to admit that it was a mistake
Speaker 1: to de poor people so to build a Blasio. So
Speaker 1: did Corey Booker Bernie Sanders do his credit started criticizing
Speaker 1: Obama back in twenty sixteen, so he just carried that
Speaker 1: on throughout twenty twenty. So when did Democrats all of
Speaker 1: a sudden come to the rush rushing back and sid
Speaker 1: there and saying, oh, no, we didn't mean any of
Speaker 1: those comments. Obama's deportation numbers were actually great. We love
Speaker 1: that he kicked out some of the illegals. When did
Speaker 1: that happen? It's truly insane. It's very baffling. And also
Speaker 1: the thing that I deal I'm the most frustrated with
Speaker 1: is that it's not true. So I think I've mentioned
Speaker 1: this in passing on this podcast, but I really wanted
Speaker 1: to dive into the numbers for everyone, because then this
Speaker 1: narrative needs to die out. This narrative is not true.
Speaker 1: Obama did not deport that many people. In fact, every
Speaker 1: year that he was president, fewer and fewer people were
Speaker 1: deported from the interior of our country. He slowly whittled
Speaker 1: away our interior enforcement, all while flooding swing states with
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of refugees that he hoped and many
Speaker 1: Democratic strategists hope, would eventually vote for Democrats. This is
Speaker 1: from the Los Angeles Times on April first, twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: It's by a writer named Brian Bennett. If you wanted
Speaker 1: to look it up, he says, quote the portrait of
Speaker 1: a steadily increasing number of deportations rest on statistics that
Speaker 1: conceal almost as much as they disclose. A close examination
Speaker 1: shows that immigrants living illegally most of the continental US
Speaker 1: are less likely deported today than before Obama came into office.
Speaker 1: According to immigration data, expulsions of people who are settled
Speaker 1: and working in the US have fallen steadily since his
Speaker 1: first year in office. They're down forty percent since two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine. On the other side of the ledge
Speaker 1: of the number of people deported at or near the
Speaker 1: border has gone up, primarily as a result of changing
Speaker 1: who gets counted by US immigration and Customs enforcement agencies
Speaker 1: as a deportation statistic. The vast majority of those border
Speaker 1: crossers would not have been treated as a formal deportation
Speaker 1: under previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the totals
Speaker 1: sent back to Mexico each year would have been far
Speaker 1: higher under previous administrations than is now. Obama changed the
Speaker 1: way deportations were accounted in order to juice up the numbers,
Speaker 1: the official numbers, the numbers everyone saw, all while refusing
Speaker 1: to carry out immigration enforcement within the interior of the country,
Speaker 1: All while making sure that illegal aliens who were here
Speaker 1: were not being deported. They were allowed to say, here
Speaker 1: are some numbers that I want you to pay attention to.
Speaker 1: Know I'm going to throw a bunch of them out
Speaker 1: of you, but just listen to what I'm saying. During
Speaker 1: George W. Bush's presidency, the one right before Obama, about
Speaker 1: two million people were deported. It started at one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty nine thousand removals in two thousand and one
Speaker 1: and increased to three hundred and sixty thousand in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, about a one hundred percent increased Throughoutsh's presidency.
Speaker 1: During Obama's presidency, according to official statistics, Obama deported three
Speaker 1: million people, starting at three hundred and eighty thousand in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, climbing to four hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: eight thousand and twenty thirteen, and then falling to three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty twenty twenty sixteen. In Trump's first term,
Speaker 1: he deported about one point two million, starting with two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty seven thousand, rising to three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty thousand about George W. Bush levels, before falling because
Speaker 1: of COVID to two hundred thousand. During Biden's all four years,
Speaker 1: he deported one million. In Trump's first year, he's deported
Speaker 1: about six hundred and twenty two thousand illegal aliens. So
Speaker 1: I know that I just gave you a lot of numbers,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure some of you are swirling, you arise
Speaker 1: and saying, what do you talk? What's the point that
Speaker 1: I'm going to summarize it. According to DHS statistics, Obama
Speaker 1: deported the most, followed by Bush, Trump term one, Biden,
Speaker 1: and then Trump term two. Obviously it's the lowest only
Speaker 1: been one year, so whatever. But when you look at
Speaker 1: interior deportations people who are actually living in the United
Speaker 1: States illegally, the numbers tell an entirely different story. This
Speaker 1: is not the people who were turned away at the border,
Speaker 1: which is not what anyone thinks that when they think
Speaker 1: of deportations, someone you know, coming into your house, knocking
Speaker 1: on the door, and you refuse them entry. Is not
Speaker 1: someone being kicked out of your home. They're being refused entry.
Speaker 1: That is an entirely different thing. Every person knows that, right, okay.
Speaker 1: According to Migration Policy Institute, over the course of Obama's administration,
Speaker 1: there was a pronounced shift from focus of removal of
Speaker 1: recent border crosses and criminals rather than ordinary status violators
Speaker 1: apprehended in the US interior people who were living here illegally,
Speaker 1: not people who were just crossing the border. The underlying
Speaker 1: reasoning was to deter illegal border crossings and remove unauthorized
Speaker 1: immigrants before they became integrated in US communities. But obviously
Speaker 1: once they were quote unquote integrated, just mean they were
Speaker 1: living here. They were not spoken English, might have been
Speaker 1: having jobs, whatever, they were basically safe. As shown in
Speaker 1: figure one, and I'm going to put this graphic on
Speaker 1: the YouTube page I showed him figure one. Interior removals
Speaker 1: decreased from one hundred and eighty one thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety eight in biscal year two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: to sixty five thousand, three hundred and thirty two in
Speaker 1: fiscal year twenty sixteen, while border removals stayed high. And
Speaker 1: increased from two hundred and seven thousand to two hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy nine thousand. During that period, all the deportation
Speaker 1: numbers come from people who try to flood the border
Speaker 1: because they knew it was safe to be in the
Speaker 1: United States illegally. Obama was sending mixed messages to human smugglers.
Speaker 1: He was saying, yes, we're going to try to apprehend
Speaker 1: you at the border, but if you're through the border,
Speaker 1: you're scot free. So it became even more of a
Speaker 1: mad dash to get illegal aliens into the country, into
Speaker 1: the interior, because they knew once they got inside it
Speaker 1: was almost impossible to get them outside unless they were
Speaker 1: arrested for a serious and then Obama did to port
Speaker 1: al out of them. Not to mention that the fact
Speaker 1: that under Obama's presidency, the immigration backlog of the people
Speaker 1: who are waiting to hear from a judge increased substantially
Speaker 1: from two hundred and twenty four thousand to four hundred
Speaker 1: and forty nine thousand, and the percentage of removal cases
Speaker 1: that resulted in people being allowed to stay went from
Speaker 1: twenty three point eight percent of cases to fifty one
Speaker 1: point six percent. Getting into the interior of the country
Speaker 1: was basically as safe as you possibly could under Obama,
Speaker 1: much more under George W. Bush. Obama's interior removals went
Speaker 1: from one hundred and eighty one thousand at the beginning
Speaker 1: of his presidency almost one hundred and eighty two thousand
Speaker 1: to sixty five thousand at the end of his administration.
Speaker 1: Here's the question, do you think President Trump has deported
Speaker 1: more or less than one hundred and eighty one thousand
Speaker 1: people this year? If it is less than one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty one thousand people, the top year for President Obama,
Speaker 1: then what are we even talking about given that there's
Speaker 1: ten to twelve million, Given there's so many, If he's
Speaker 1: supporting this few from the interior of the United States, is
Speaker 1: it this traconian, insane thing of why are we spending
Speaker 1: all this money? President Trump can't count on people crossing
Speaker 1: the border illegally? Why? Because he solved the border crisis.
Speaker 1: He didn't need an Act from Congress like Joe Biden
Speaker 1: said he did. He didn't need a bunch of new things.
Speaker 1: He just needed to enforce existing law, and he fixed
Speaker 1: the border crisis. We didn't need a new list of
Speaker 1: laws like James Langford, Republican James Langford, Oklahoma did to
Speaker 1: try to team up with Democrats. We just needed a
Speaker 1: new president. According to Migration Policy Institute, as of September,
Speaker 1: which was I believe when the fiscal year ended, right,
Speaker 1: So not October, November, December when they really ramped up up,
Speaker 1: but just January twentieth to September, President Trump deported two
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty four thousand illegal aliens from the interior
Speaker 1: of the United States. So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
Speaker 1: what's bigger two hundred and thirty four thousand or one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty one thousand. It's not even close. President
Speaker 1: Trump is doing fifty percent more interior to deportations in
Speaker 1: his first year than Obama during his first year, his
Speaker 1: first year of the second term, I should say, than
Speaker 1: Obama during his first year. It's not. It's so it's
Speaker 1: laughably bad. ICE is doing a fantastic job of working
Speaker 1: and doing what they can do to apprehend the illegal
Speaker 1: aliens and get them deported self. Deportations have spike. We've
Speaker 1: seen these numbers coming out of what many studies that
Speaker 1: are sitting there and saying that our fore and worn
Speaker 1: population is declining. Obviously, it's working. What President Trump's doing
Speaker 1: is working. It needs to be carried out. And considering
Speaker 1: how few times that the media, I mean, it's horrible
Speaker 1: when it happens, but how few times that liberal activists
Speaker 1: can point to this person of that person being injured
Speaker 1: because ICE is being too aggressive. How few times it's
Speaker 1: happening out of the hundreds of thousands of encounters are
Speaker 1: ICE is working with is pretty good. It's really honestly,
Speaker 1: very very good. If they would get out of the
Speaker 1: way and let ICE do its job, it would be
Speaker 1: better for the President's in the national garden, so ICE
Speaker 1: can make sure they could do their job one or
Speaker 1: the other. But the ICE is doing a fantastic job
Speaker 1: and we should be supporting him at this moment. Coming
Speaker 1: up next on my podcast is a guy who knows
Speaker 1: a lot I just head god as senator who knows
Speaker 1: a lot about immigration law and in great immigration enforcement
Speaker 1: and common sense immigration laws, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. That's
Speaker 1: coming up next to Stay two. My guest for today's
Speaker 1: episode is Senator Tom Cotton, who's represented the great state
Speaker 1: of Arkansas in the United States Senateence is twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: he chairs the Senate Republican Conference and Senate Intelligence Committee.
Speaker 1: Senator Cotton, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Back on Ryan, So, I wanted to talk to you
Speaker 1: about the situation in Minneapolis. Obviously is of every tense situation.
Speaker 1: Progressives are training their most dieheard activists to really try
Speaker 1: to stop ICE agents from doing their jobs. And there
Speaker 1: are a series of methods, but noticeably there's been a
Speaker 1: massive spike in the number of people using vehicles to
Speaker 1: ram ICE agents. In the New York City, we saw
Speaker 1: thousands of activists and they're trying to stop ICE agents
Speaker 1: from their job. In twenty twenty, you are at the
Speaker 1: op ed and response to the Floyd ransaying sending the
Speaker 1: troops to stop civil unrest. What kind of response would
Speaker 1: be appropriate and effective to make sure ICE agents can
Speaker 1: do their job now from the federal.
Speaker 2: Government, well, we cannot allow local authorities to interfere with
Speaker 2: the proper exercise of federal power. That's been a constitutional
Speaker 2: guiding principle for over two hundred years, and I believe
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump feels the same way. So if necessary,
Speaker 2: as we've seen in some other cities, we may have
Speaker 2: to use National Guard troops under federal authorities or potentially
Speaker 2: even active duty troops to allow federal law enforcement authorities
Speaker 2: to conduct their proper activities. And of course, it is
Speaker 2: the proper jurisdiction and responsibility of Immigrations and Customs enforcement
Speaker 2: officers to find, apprehend, and deport illegal aliens, in particular
Speaker 2: violent and criminal illegal aliens, of which there are apparently
Speaker 2: quite a few in the Minneapolis area. If you look
Speaker 2: at the widespread fraud that has been going on, and
Speaker 2: I understand that there's a bunch of liberals in the
Speaker 2: Twin Cities and elsewhere who don't like Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: who don't like ICE. However, there are ways to register
Speaker 2: their displeasure without putting their own lives at risk, without
Speaker 2: interfering with federal authority, and unfortunately that's happened in this
Speaker 2: terrible tragedy last week. I know the ICE officer and
Speaker 2: the other officers involved there feel terribly that this woman
Speaker 2: lost her life. But whenever federal for that matter, any police,
Speaker 2: local police too are engaged in law enforcement activities, you
Speaker 2: shouldn't interfere with them. It's not just unlawful, but it's
Speaker 2: dangerous as well, as we saw last week. And if
Speaker 2: we're going to have roving bands of liberal activists following
Speaker 2: around ICE agents blowing whistles to alert illegal aliens of
Speaker 2: their presence, trying to find out what hotels are staying in,
Speaker 2: and then banging pots and pans outside of those hotels.
Speaker 2: Then yes, we may need to use additional forces to
Speaker 2: protect our ICE agents as they're conducting they're desperately needed
Speaker 2: activities to get illegal, violent, criminal aliens out.
Speaker 1: Of our country. Now, the number of raming attacks is
Speaker 1: up thirty two hundred percent a year to year. If
Speaker 1: NGOs are training activists to use cars as a way
Speaker 1: to assault, is there a way to investigate NGOs or
Speaker 1: go after NGOs and specific because they can't just all
Speaker 1: be these rand people randomly. We're like, hey, let's use
Speaker 1: our cars and figure out different ways to sit. They're
Speaker 1: on stop by. Someone must be organizing someone somewhere, I.
Speaker 2: Would think, so, Ryan, I'm not a prosecutor and I'm
Speaker 2: not deeply steeping these laws. But again, like you, it's
Speaker 2: my intuition that the Department of Justice should be able
Speaker 2: to investigate and probably bring to justice anyone who is
Speaker 2: coordinating such activities, who's funding them, And we know there's
Speaker 2: a large network of very deep pocketed liberal NGOs that
Speaker 2: are funding all of these big left wing protests and activities.
Speaker 2: I think the No Kings movement just released their financial
Speaker 2: disclosure forum and received that they've got tens of billions
Speaker 2: of dollars from left wing foundations like the Ford Foundation
Speaker 2: or Arabella or Warren Buffett or what have you. So,
Speaker 2: just as we saw with Antifa riots on the streets
Speaker 2: six years ago, it may be the fact that these
Speaker 2: so called legal observers or ice Watch or whatever kind
Speaker 2: of crazy names I have for themselves are just the
Speaker 2: visible tip of the iceberg, and that there's a much
Speaker 2: deeper network of training and coordination and funding that the
Speaker 2: Department of Justice should pursue.
Speaker 1: Now, the focus on Minneapolis is specifically about the Somali
Speaker 1: fraud case, where billions of dollars of taxpayer money was
Speaker 1: being used to basically be robbed, and a lot of
Speaker 1: it in fact to Somalia. You've recently co authored a
Speaker 1: bill in the Senate along with Senator's corn and Blackburn
Speaker 1: and bud to denationalize those who are in the fraud scheme.
Speaker 1: Can you tell my audience about the bill specifically?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's part of a long standing traditional print full
Speaker 2: of immigration laws. You can't come to our country, either
Speaker 2: on a visa or a green car, to ultimately become
Speaker 2: a citizen, committing fraud, lying about why you're here, who
Speaker 2: you are, what you've done, and expect us just to
Speaker 2: look the other way and say, well, you've got citizenship now,
Speaker 2: so there's nothing we can do about it. Of course, we,
Speaker 2: like any other nation state, reserves the prerogative to denaturalize
Speaker 2: immigrants who have come here and lie to us to
Speaker 2: get citizenships. So it would make it very clear that
Speaker 2: we can do that in this case. And I feel
Speaker 2: like something a bit of an expert on the Somali
Speaker 2: community in Minnesota and the threats they pose there. My
Speaker 2: wife's parents have lived outside the Twin Cities for the
Speaker 2: last several years, so I've been there a lot. I've
Speaker 2: gone to the local FBI office to get classified briefings.
Speaker 2: And when we're on an extended break, say like in
Speaker 2: the August recess, and I'm up there for a weekend
Speaker 2: to visit my in laws and take the kids to
Speaker 2: see them, and this is a long bonding trip. Well
Speaker 2: it's a little bit cooler in Minnesota in August than
Speaker 2: it was in Arkansas, I'll grant you that. But you know,
Speaker 2: anytime I'm away from Washington for an extended period, especially
Speaker 2: for August or the Christmas holidays, I'll try to use
Speaker 2: the FBI office in Little Rock, and occasionally if I'm
Speaker 2: in other places like Minnesota in particular, to get up
Speaker 2: today on what's happening to do my work as a
Speaker 2: member and now chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the FBI.
Speaker 2: There has been worried for many years about the threats
Speaker 2: posed by this large, unassimilated Somali community. If you call
Speaker 2: Ryan Oh, maybe eight or ten years ago, there's this
Speaker 2: spate of so called Minnesota men, as the Star Tribune
Speaker 2: referred to them, who kept getting arrested for trying to
Speaker 2: go to Syria and fight with ISIS. And of course
Speaker 2: the so called Minnesota men were always Somali immigrants. It's
Speaker 2: much like the illegal alien from Maryland was always referred
Speaker 2: to as a Maryland man right year in the news,
Speaker 2: you know, And I remember asking the FBI agents there,
Speaker 2: It's like, well, why are they going to Syria to
Speaker 2: fight when they could simply, you know, go to the
Speaker 2: Mall of America or any other large public gathering in
Speaker 2: the MINUTESDA area and commit an act of terrorism, as
Speaker 2: we've seen sadly in places like Orlando and San Bernardino,
Speaker 2: And the FBI office there said, well, what's happened here, Senator,
Speaker 2: is that the Somali community has really recreated the clan
Speaker 2: and tribal structure that they had in Somalia here in
Speaker 2: the Twin Cities. So they have very strong tribal and
Speaker 2: clan leadership, and the tribal and clan leaders basically tell
Speaker 2: young men who are radicalized, if you want to fight
Speaker 2: in the name of radical Islam, that's fine, But we've
Speaker 2: got a pretty good gig going here. We're living in
Speaker 2: the West, We're making lots of money. Apparently, what we
Speaker 2: now know, a lot of these Somalis have defrauded the
Speaker 2: taxpayer of mine. That's how they're making it. So if
Speaker 2: you want to fight, go overseas, don't do it here
Speaker 2: in the Twin Cities. So this has been something that's
Speaker 2: been on our government's radar from a national security threat
Speaker 2: for a long time. It just doesn't seem like it
Speaker 2: was on Tim Waltz's radar as a fraud threat, or
Speaker 2: maybe it wasn't as radar, and he simply didn't want
Speaker 2: to do anything about it because it was an old
Speaker 2: fashioned patron machine for the Minnesota Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Right well, Tim Walls also gave the Refugee of the
Speaker 1: Year award to one of the women who were scamming
Speaker 1: taxpayer or so he was not really having his finger
Speaker 1: on the pulls. You've been one of the most realistic
Speaker 1: voices when it comes to immigration for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and you don't have a wide eye emotional idea that
Speaker 1: everyone in the world should come here and that they
Speaker 1: all bring the same level of value, right, that every
Speaker 1: immigrant is equal. As far as what they turn out,
Speaker 1: that is a fairy tale that the people who say
Speaker 1: that we have a magic dirt theories tell themselves. Some
Speaker 1: immigrant groups are very expensive for taxpayers. Somollians are one
Speaker 1: of the most expensive immigrant groups there are, which is
Speaker 1: true for people out a high school diploma, people who
Speaker 1: don't speak English. During Trump's first term, you put together
Speaker 1: something called the Rays Act to put a point system
Speaker 1: in and it didn't, unfortunately pass. Why is there anyone
Speaker 1: in Congress now who says there and says we should
Speaker 1: have some kind of point system where people who have
Speaker 1: degrees and speak English and have the ability to provide
Speaker 1: for themselves, should get advanced placement as far as immigrants go,
Speaker 1: as opposed to just being related to somebody, which is
Speaker 1: how most immigration is currently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ran, as you say, I've always had a kind
Speaker 2: of hard nosed and clear eyed American centric view of immigration.
Speaker 2: Of course, most people around the world would like to
Speaker 2: come to America. It would benefit them, certainly, most people
Speaker 2: from the third world. The question is does it benefit
Speaker 2: the United States. I get that from our founder's views,
Speaker 2: from the Declaration from the Constitution. That's where we should
Speaker 2: look for guidance about immigration policy. A poem on the
Speaker 2: Statute of Liberty is not a guiding policy document for immigration.
Speaker 2: And as you said, and things have changed throughout time
Speaker 2: as well. You know, there's times in the eighteenth and
Speaker 2: nineteenth century when we needed a lot of immigrants, and
Speaker 2: we got a lot of immigrants, and we basically had
Speaker 2: no immigration law. I mean, if you got here and
Speaker 2: you didn't have a communicable disease and you weren't going
Speaker 2: to be a public charge was very relevant today, then
Speaker 2: we would let you in. We had an entire continent
Speaker 2: to settle. But it's not the it's not the case
Speaker 2: that our history is just more and more immigration marching
Speaker 2: throughout time. There have been ebbs and flows at various
Speaker 2: times for various reasons. And the simple fact is we
Speaker 2: don't need as many immigrants today as we once needed
Speaker 2: to populate an entire continent or run vast factories at
Speaker 2: the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and we should be
Speaker 2: asking who are the best immigrants for us to bring here.
Speaker 2: The Raise Act, as you mentioned, is not about immigrant visa.
Speaker 2: It's you know they're in the news lot H one
Speaker 2: b H two ah two B. It's about the most
Speaker 2: fundamental question we have for immigrants, like who do we
Speaker 2: want to come here to get a green card? Because
Speaker 2: a green card is one step away from citizenship. And
Speaker 2: I simply said we should bring the people here are
Speaker 2: citizens who are going to contribute the most. So I
Speaker 2: cut away all these categories, like as you said, family reunion,
Speaker 2: which is a vast, vast number of green cards, which
Speaker 2: is the diversity lottery. Really, family reunion is just the
Speaker 2: diversity lottery. Did you have someone lucky enough to get
Speaker 2: here ten or twenty years ago and bring you here?
Speaker 2: All kinds of set asides and quotas for random industries.
Speaker 2: I mean, we had set asides for green cards for lawyers,
Speaker 2: no offense. I don't think we need more lawyers, especially
Speaker 2: foreign lawyers, in the country. So I said, let's just
Speaker 2: look at some factors here that lead to immigrant success
Speaker 2: in our country, for both the immigrant and our country.
Speaker 2: What is the ability to speak English as soon as
Speaker 2: you get here. Two is age, the younger you are
Speaker 2: where you can contribute before you get to your retirement ages.
Speaker 2: Three is education level. What kind of education do you
Speaker 2: have that can help you get a good job. So
Speaker 2: both the level of education is a high school, college graduate,
Speaker 2: postgraduate and the field is it in engineering and computer
Speaker 2: science or is it in gender studies? Obviously some accounting
Speaker 2: for exceptional abilities. Obviously we have a lot of great
Speaker 2: for instance, baseball players from Latin America. You know, we
Speaker 2: want the world's best baseball players from the Dominican or
Speaker 2: Venezuela for that matter, like Shoheo Tani or Joshinobi Yamamoto
Speaker 2: from Japan to come here.
Speaker 1: Are you an.
Speaker 2: Incredible concert pianist? Are you world class AI expert or
Speaker 2: data scientists? So you put all those in the hopper.
Speaker 2: You run a simple formula. You give people points, and
Speaker 2: the people with the most points are going to get
Speaker 2: the first green cards. Very little appetite for that eight
Speaker 2: years ago, early in Donald Trump's first term, even though
Speaker 2: he endorsed it, the Democrats were uniformly opposed, and frankly,
Speaker 2: as you said, a lot of Republicans were reposed. Well,
Speaker 2: I like to think through some small measure of my
Speaker 2: advocacy over the years, and I know through some big
Speaker 2: measure of Donald Trump's work, a lot more Republicans see
Speaker 2: the world as as we see it. There's a lot
Speaker 2: more support for that kind of policy. Still a lot
Speaker 2: of resistance from the Democrats, though, Well, I want to.
Speaker 1: Bring out to my audiences some numbers. According to the
Speaker 1: Manhatt Institute, ending cham migration would save American tax dollars
Speaker 1: one point four or five trillion dollars over thirty years.
Speaker 1: English proficiency and high school diplomba would save them two
Speaker 1: point four trillion, and deporting ten million illegal aliens would
Speaker 1: save one point six trillion. You know, you've been in
Speaker 1: Congress before you were in the Senate, but you've been
Speaker 1: down there for a while. I'm sure it was much
Speaker 1: different back like around twenty thirteen. What was how Republican
Speaker 1: leadership like there were you pushed to support amnesty at
Speaker 1: any point, like from Paul Ryan or anybody.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, very much so Ryan. You know, I was
Speaker 2: not a big letter writer when I was a private
Speaker 2: citizen to my elected officials. I was busy first with
Speaker 2: school and the army. I think the only time I
Speaker 2: ever wrote a letter to my senators and congressman was
Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven or eight, maybe when John
Speaker 2: McCain and Ted Kennedy were pushing a big amnesty bill.
Speaker 2: I think remember the z visa. They were going to
Speaker 2: be a visa in twenty four hours. Fortunately un failed.
Speaker 2: But after the twenty twelve election, in particular, there was
Speaker 2: a sense among a lot of Republicans in the establishment that,
Speaker 2: you know, we lost because of this emerging democratic majority.
Speaker 2: As the thesis went at the time, we have to
Speaker 2: do more to appeal to minority voters, special Latinos. And
Speaker 2: the way to do that is have a massive amnesty
Speaker 2: and have huge new influxes of unskilled and low skilled immigrants.
Speaker 2: And that led to the so called Gang of Eight bill,
Speaker 2: if you recall, done in the Senate, jammed through I
Speaker 2: think right before one of the summer recesses and then
Speaker 2: coming our way in the House. I was in the
Speaker 2: House only six or seven months at that point. It
Speaker 2: was very clear that you know, we're coming back. I
Speaker 2: think it's probably fourth in July recess. Get the House
Speaker 2: back in July up against the August recess and compel
Speaker 2: us to pass it. And Paul Ryan has always been
Speaker 2: a lot more of what you might call the kind
Speaker 2: of traditional old establishment Republican view on immigration. More immigration,
Speaker 2: let's get more low skilled workers here. It's going to
Speaker 2: help American workers up the ladder, suffice to say, with
Speaker 2: very different views.
Speaker 1: I remember him.
Speaker 2: Telling me once that this was and you know, he
Speaker 2: had a lot of influence, and everybody liked Paul, and
Speaker 2: I like Paul. He was coming off his time as
Speaker 2: Vice president. He wasn't yet chairman of the Ways and
Speaker 2: Means Committee, if I remember, certainly, not speaker yet. But
Speaker 2: he said, you know, Tom, you know Americans won't do
Speaker 2: these jobs. I said, Paul, you've got a period at
Speaker 2: the end of that sentence. You need a comma at
Speaker 2: the end of the sentence, and after the comma it
Speaker 2: should say at current wages, they won't do somebody out
Speaker 2: bit of that. He just I think he rolled his
Speaker 2: eyes at me. You know, he has a very libertarian
Speaker 2: economic point of view, as a lot of Republicans do.
Speaker 2: And I'd seen that mass migration, both legal and the illegal,
Speaker 2: had suppressed working class wages for so long, and I
Speaker 2: think that's proven out in the first Trump term when
Speaker 2: you saw working class wages rising at their fastest rates ever.
Speaker 2: So there's a big push right as we got back
Speaker 2: from from that July fourth recess in twenty thirteen, and
Speaker 2: John Bayner, I think, had asked Paul to speak at
Speaker 2: one of our conferences about why thist bill was flawed, imperfect,
Speaker 2: but something we needed to move forward with. And even
Speaker 2: though I'd only been there for about six months, I
Speaker 2: jumped up and responded quickly, and fortunately we were able
Speaker 2: to stop the momentum it had that summer. Are you
Speaker 2: the first one to say, now what Paul spoke first
Speaker 2: in favor of it? I spoke first opposed to our conferences.
Speaker 2: So we, in our goal from a tactical just standpoint,
Speaker 2: think about how to stop this what I perceived to
Speaker 2: be a very bad bill was get beyond the July
Speaker 2: work period up in Washington, get in the August recess
Speaker 2: more of our members would hear back home that they
Speaker 2: were opposed this kind of massive amnesty bill and then
Speaker 2: get in the election year, and probably the Republican leadership
Speaker 2: at the time, I probably think it was too hot
Speaker 2: to bring back up. I think they might have brought
Speaker 2: it back up. Actually, But if your call in the
Speaker 2: spring of twenty fourteen is when Dave Bratt beat Eric
Speaker 2: Canner and immigration was a defining issue in that campaign,
Speaker 2: it was really the bill was really done after that point,
Speaker 2: and then you had Donald Trump running for office. He
Speaker 2: got elected, and he got elected in twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 2: then again in twenty twenty tenty four even more so
Speaker 2: on the strength of very very high Latino turnout and support,
Speaker 2: especially like just take some test cases in South Texas
Speaker 2: Get County's area that had been you know, ninety ten
Speaker 2: Democratic counties for a century, and Donald Trump won them
Speaker 2: in near Landslide territory by twenty twenty four And I
Speaker 2: think it proved out an argument I was making back
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, and that I think you've been making
Speaker 2: for some time too. The way to appeal to working
Speaker 2: class Latino voters is to appeal to working class voters.
Speaker 2: Don't treat them as Latinos who care about this one
Speaker 2: unique issue. Treat them as voters who need their government
Speaker 2: to look out for their interests, not to import massive
Speaker 2: numbers of people to compete with them. And especially if
Speaker 2: you're working class Latino voter, and by definition, you were
Speaker 2: a legal immigrant who came here, who got the right
Speaker 2: to vote, and now you're voting, and there's a good
Speaker 2: chance that illegal Latino immigration is probably going to settle
Speaker 2: in your community and compete with you. It's not going
Speaker 2: to go to communities that are ninety eight percent white
Speaker 2: somewhere else in the country. And I think that's born
Speaker 2: out in the election result when Donald Trump performed so
Speaker 2: well with working class Latino voters, is that they're voting
Speaker 2: like any American would do on a broad array of issues,
Speaker 2: most notably oftentimes on their pocketbook issues. Are probably even
Speaker 2: more turned off by the Democrats cultural fads and craziness
Speaker 2: than a lot of the rest.
Speaker 1: Of our contra identify as latin X at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, I mean, yeah, only some white liberal in
Speaker 2: Washington would come up with the idea that we need
Speaker 2: to call them latin X because Latina or Latino would
Speaker 2: be offensive to them. So I think again that having
Speaker 2: stopped that bill in twenty thirteen and then seeing President
Speaker 2: Trump's rise to the White House in fifteen and sixteen,
Speaker 2: we've kind of, at least it for the time being,
Speaker 2: stopped any kind of momentum in the Republican Party for
Speaker 2: that kind of massive amnesty, mass immigration bill.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Lindsay Graham's still saws that night the just
Speaker 1: kidding these are, colleague, But I want to ask you
Speaker 1: one of the quick questions about Venezuela specifically you're on
Speaker 1: the Intelligence Committee. What part of the thing that no
Speaker 1: one every time about the oil, which I understand why
Speaker 1: they would, but part of the thing that no one's
Speaker 1: talked about so far in Venezuela is the amount of
Speaker 1: human smugglers that operate out of Venezuela and have brought
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people here. Is there any conversation
Speaker 1: about bringing those people to justice. They've made billions off
Speaker 1: of human smuggling at the detriment of our country, sometimes
Speaker 1: with criminisms. That seems like it should be a part
Speaker 1: of the component of bringing certain criminal structures in Venezuela
Speaker 1: down because it would end the illegal immigration in a
Speaker 1: large part, no matter who's the next president.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, absolutely, Ryan, We've heard a lot about drug traffiing.
Speaker 2: Nicholas Maduro was a dited drug trafficker in the US court,
Speaker 2: so it's one of the reasons why he's sitting in
Speaker 2: a jail now in New York City and not sitting
Speaker 2: in a palace in Venezuela. But that wasn't the only
Speaker 2: kind of trafficking out of Venezuela. You had weapons trafficking
Speaker 2: as well, and you had human trafficking. As you said,
Speaker 2: Venezuela is really the epicenter in the Western hemisphere for
Speaker 2: so many of the threats that we face, most notably drugs,
Speaker 2: but not just drugs, the weapons trafficking and human trafficking.
Speaker 2: It's a playground and a crossroads for every American enemy
Speaker 2: around the world, Iran, Cuba, China, Russia, even Islamic terrists
Speaker 2: like Hesbela, and they're doing a lot of that trafficking.
Speaker 2: And Maduro himself in part viewed it as a way
Speaker 2: to put pressure on the United States, especially under the
Speaker 2: Biden administration, to send these flows of what Donald Trump
Speaker 2: might cause some bad ombrace in the direction of the
Speaker 2: United States, like tdaight cartel members, and you saw in
Speaker 2: the first year of President Trump's second term some small
Speaker 2: glimmers of cooperation from Maduro to accept flights of illegal
Speaker 2: Venezuelan aliens back into the country. That was really, I
Speaker 2: think just to placate the president. I don't think he
Speaker 2: was serious about doing it in large scale. I know
Speaker 2: the administration is putting a lot of pressure on Delsi Rodriguez,
Speaker 2: who's in charge of the interim authorities in Venezuela, not
Speaker 2: just to stop the drug trafficking and cut off the
Speaker 2: Cubans and the Iranians at Hesbela and the least political prisoners,
Speaker 2: but to start taking at large number illegal Venezuelan aliens
Speaker 2: back into their country. Moreover, and it's not just illegal aliens.
Speaker 2: I mean, Venezuela has produced seven or eight million refugees
Speaker 2: in the Western Hemisphere or some of though they're here
Speaker 2: in the United States, many others or in other countries
Speaker 2: that our friends, if we're successful, if President Trump is
Speaker 2: successful in returning Venezuela to a normal, stable, pro American country,
Speaker 2: that pressure on our country and our friends in our
Speaker 2: backyard will be diminished as well. Those Venezuelans can go
Speaker 2: back to their homes and they don't have to live
Speaker 2: in other countries. And finally, you still have a lot
Speaker 2: of Venezuelans in the United States on's so called temporary
Speaker 2: protective status. It's often just referred to as TBS because
Speaker 2: the media and the Democrats don't want you to know
Speaker 2: the T stands for temporary and just has to go home.
Speaker 2: There's a major, of course, major disasters over the last
Speaker 2: twenty five years under Hugoshabez and Nicholas Maduro, and that's
Speaker 2: an example of why we give TPS status an addition
Speaker 2: to thing like natural disasters. But the goal of the
Speaker 2: program is to get people back to their home to
Speaker 2: contribute to their own country. So there's three different ways
Speaker 2: in which apprehending Maduro and applying the pressure we are
Speaker 2: right now to the interim authorities in Venezuela should reduce
Speaker 2: the pressure on our own country from Venezuelan migration to America,
Speaker 2: but also help But his way, look at it back
Speaker 2: on his feet, all right.
Speaker 1: Senator contin Where people go to read what you're working
Speaker 1: on in the Senen, what you're coming out with, what
Speaker 1: bills you're supporting.
Speaker 2: By the simplest place, it was like a clearinghouse would
Speaker 2: be on my website, Cotton dot send It dot GUV.
Speaker 2: We obviously put a lot down on social media, but
Speaker 2: we have all the links there, whether it's X or
Speaker 2: Facebook or YouTube or what have you. Just go to
Speaker 2: Cotton dot send it dot gov. You can see what
Speaker 2: we're up to in the Senate.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on this podcast. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ryan. Now it's time for Ask Me Anything.
Speaker 1: If you want to be part of the Ask Me
Speaker 1: Anything segment, email me Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast dot com,
Speaker 1: Ryan at Numbers Plural Numbers gamepodcast dot com. I answer
Speaker 1: all these emails either privately or on the show. I
Speaker 1: look forward and they make such a great part of
Speaker 1: the show. This question comes from Holly. She writes, Hi,
Speaker 1: Ryan loved the show. I'm excited that you're on three
Speaker 1: times a week. In twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: Clay and Buck had a guest on their show. I'm
Speaker 1: almost sure it was you, and I'm embarrassed if it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I've done that so many times, Holly, where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: you did so and so and it's completely wrong. Person
Speaker 1: who talked about physical health of Red states versus Blue states,
Speaker 1: and Red staters were dying at a faster rate like
Speaker 1: heart disease, diabetes, and obesity related issues and blue states.
Speaker 1: Is there any indication that Red state governments are addressing
Speaker 1: this or that the MAHA movement is having an effect
Speaker 1: in these states. So we're going to have to wait
Speaker 1: a little longer on official data. It takes a year
Speaker 1: to compile, so twenty twenty five data really won't be
Speaker 1: ready until the end of twenty twenty six. It takes
Speaker 1: a long time for the CDC to really compile a
Speaker 1: lot of information. It was definitely, by the way who
Speaker 1: said this, because I've been obsessed with for a while,
Speaker 1: and it's not even red state or blue state. Red
Speaker 1: counties like in West Texas die a lot faster than
Speaker 1: places like Austin. So it's like red County, blue County,
Speaker 1: I mean. And there's a number of reasons for it, right,
Speaker 1: There's the jobs they do, it's a lifestyle of food
Speaker 1: they eat, how much cigarettes they smoke, and it's obesity
Speaker 1: is a lot of it. Obesity is a major major
Speaker 1: factor in rural America. So the good news is that
Speaker 1: life expectancy has trended up in the last year, overdoses
Speaker 1: from fetnah and other drugs is down, and I think
Speaker 1: it's down honestly because narcans over the counter. But most importantly,
Speaker 1: obesity is down. And I would love to say that
Speaker 1: it's because people like to, you know, go and jogs
Speaker 1: and eat kale, but that's not it. It's because of
Speaker 1: ozembic and the GLP one drugs, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people have a lot of feelings on those drugs, but
Speaker 1: they are doing the job of reducing obesity. According to Gallup,
Speaker 1: obese in the US is down from forty percent in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two to thirty seven percent twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: That is not a small feat. Even though it's a
Speaker 1: small percentage, a total of sixteen states. This is where
Speaker 1: I'm going to go into government policy. A total of
Speaker 1: sixteen states have decided to make GLP one for OBEs
Speaker 1: covered by Medicaid, allowing poorer states to poorer people to
Speaker 1: get hold of it. Poor people in this country tend
Speaker 1: to be the ones who have the largest obesity problems,
Speaker 1: among also Latinos and Blacks who have enormously high OBC levels,
Speaker 1: but even poor whites have large OBC levels. Those states
Speaker 1: include Mississippi, which is the fattest state in the Union.
Speaker 1: It is a Republican run governorship and legislature. They were
Speaker 1: the only red state to sit there and do the words.
Speaker 1: A full red state government Republican government. They made GLP
Speaker 1: one drugs available for medicaid to reduce obesity in that state.
Speaker 1: Kansas and North Carolina have Democratic governors but Republican legislators.
Speaker 1: They've also agree to it. South Carolina did it for
Speaker 1: two years they have an all Republican legislator and governor,
Speaker 1: but they had to repeal it because of the costs
Speaker 1: were too high. So yeah, some states are do They
Speaker 1: still do it for diabetes. By the way, Texas and
Speaker 1: a few other states do it for diabetes at Trump
Speaker 1: won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Sorry, actually, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin do it
Speaker 1: for obesity too. Texas, Louisiana, and North Dakota and South
Speaker 1: Carolina do it for diabetes. States that Trump won include Mississippi, Kansas,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan all do it for
Speaker 1: obesity as well. So yeah, I mean GLP one is
Speaker 1: if you could choose, I guess which way you'd rather
Speaker 1: have weight loss happen. I'm sure you'd rather people just
Speaker 1: run and or the gym and eat well, but I
Speaker 1: kind of at this point OBC is so bad that
Speaker 1: any which way you can do it, do it. And
Speaker 1: according to the Gal Gallop data, the OBC rate has
Speaker 1: declined largest for people between the ages of forty to
Speaker 1: forty nine percent, it is down by four point three percent.
Speaker 1: It was at almost at fifty percent, it's at forty
Speaker 1: three percent now, and among people fifty to sixty four
Speaker 1: it's down five percent to forty two point eight from
Speaker 1: forty seven point eight, So almost fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: country was obese in those demographics. That is wild. It's
Speaker 1: also down one percent for eighteen to twenty nine year
Speaker 1: olds and two point two percent for thirty to thirty
Speaker 1: nine year olds. Sixty five and over it's up by
Speaker 1: point eight percent to thirty three point four. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that if there's any government policy that is
Speaker 1: the fastest answer to this specific thing of why people
Speaker 1: are dying young, OBEC has to do a lot with it.
Speaker 1: Heart disease and a mirroad of other issues chronic health
Speaker 1: issues and GLP one is the fastest solution. A lot
Speaker 1: of Republicans are still just you know, like we can't
Speaker 1: touch people's liberty to make bad choices, which I get.
Speaker 1: I understand that concept. So making GLP one drugs affordable
Speaker 1: and easy for poor people to get, I think is
Speaker 1: their solution, and so far it's port favor. Anyway, thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to this podcast episode. I appreciate every
Speaker 1: single one of you. If you like this podcast, please
Speaker 1: like and subscribe to the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, YouTube,
Speaker 1: wherever you get podcasts, and I will be back on Friday.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you guys then