BUCK: Let’s just put this all into context before we get into what’s being done today and going forward about it. The Border Patrol believes they can handle — without really losing their ability to do the mission of border security, the national security mission, the humanitarian mission, they can handle — 5,000 apprehensions across the entirety of the U.S.-Mexico border every day.
The number’s already at about 8,000 apprehensions a day. So remember, 5,000 isn’t what they would like. That is their believed max capacity before they have portions of the border with no agents able to do any apprehensions. That’s where that fentanyl runs through, that’s where the cartels are focusing their operation — and it is believed that when Title 42 ends it will get up to about 18,000 a day, 18,000 illegal migrant crossings into the U.S., violating U.S. federal law, entering on U.S. soil by numbers that we have never seen before.
And this would be an all-time high. This is from Biden’s own DHS, mind you. This isn’t some partisan thing. It’s not some, you know, Republican member of Congress who’s making noise about this, although they’re doing that, too, but it’s not some fringe belief on the internet or anything like that. This is Biden’s own DHS. Obama’s former DHS chief, Jeh Johnson, is saying this is completely unsustainable. This is going to swamp, overwhelm the system.
So some governors are finally willing to do something about it, if nothing else, to raise the public’s mind-set, consciousness of this issue, because my baseline theory is the Biden administration and the Democrats don’t mind illegal immigration. They actually like illegal immigration. They view it as future Democrat voters. They also get to virtue signal on about how we’re “a nation of immigrants.”
Well, nation of illegal immigrants is what they mean, or what we’re talking about. And now we’re seeing that they’re gonna try to hide, I think, the flow coming into the country. And so that’s what they want to do. They’re gonna make the processing once Title 42 goes away streamlined so that people come in very quickly, are released in the interior very quickly.
They might even be transferring people to central hubs for illegals to then be dispersed, transferred from there. I’ve seen the facilities that exist along the border, Clay, like McAllen. It looks like a city. I mean, it’s just enormous facilities for processing immigrants.
They already have those set up. So the governor of Texas and the governor of Florida, both of them, Abbott and DeSantis, are taking action on this one. Here is Governor Greg Abbott of Texas announcing that the state of Texas will begin to send illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C., by charter bus.
ABBOTT: To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington, D.C. We are sending them to the United States Capitol where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.
BUCK: I like the messaging, Clay, but this is messaging, because the people have to actually agree to get on the buses. But he’s getting people talking about it; so I like that component.
CLAY: Well, there’s a fear that is rapidly spreading. We talked about this, Buck. I just don’t understand how the Biden administration can have reached this conclusion because already the border is one of their weakest polling points for not only Republicans and independents, but also Democrats, which is why, Buck, we have got Senators directly issuing in the Democratic Party statements saying they disagree with this.
Did you see Kyrsten Sinema just did it in Arizona? You’ve got Senator in New Hampshire, Hassan, who is on the ropes, potentially, depending on who the nominee is gonna be. Nevada, we know how tight that one is gonna be. Georgia, Warnock, the poll came out from The Hill yesterday that showed Herschel Walker if you’re listening to us right now in the state of Georgia, up 49-45 in that race.
By the way, Stacey Abrams down either five or seven points in that race, depending on who the gubernatorial nominee is going to end up being. Buck, it’s not just Republicans, to your earlier statement, that are pointing out what a disaster this is gonna be. It’s a bunch of Democratic Senators. And obviously a lot of those Senators who are up for reelection in purple states and swing states are saying:
The word is already spreading all throughout Latin America that this is the time to go for the American border, and we’re going to see a surge the likes of which we have never seen before ’cause you add in the covid issue that slowed down travel over the past couple of years, and this is a recipe for disaster at the border the likes of which we’ve never seen.
BUCK: Not just Governor Abbott of Texas. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida also saying that they’re gonna bus illegal immigrants that are dumped in Florida by the federal government to Biden’s home state of Delaware.
DESANTIS: If Biden is dumping people, which he has done — people they fly in at 2 in the morning, they haven’t done it lately but they did it month months ago — we now have money where we can reroute them to sanctuary cities like Delaware, and we’re gonna do that.
BUCK: Again, this is about optics, but optics influence politics and we are in a midterm election year. This will absolutely not — and, by the way, the governors Abbott and DeSantis don’t think this is going to do anything to stop illegal immigrants from coming into the country. They have to agree. It’s a voluntary transfer on the buses anyway. They’re not even in custody.
I don’t even know how many will go, to be honest with you, Clay. But it does get us and others at least talking about the issue and bringing up the hypocrisy here because we all know: Nancy Pelosi’s family is not going to deal with an influx of illegal immigrants into the community and all the needs and all the tax resources and everything that will go toward them.
It’s not gonna make a difference in the private schools that, you know, the Bidens or the Obamas or you name any Democrat royalty send their children to. But I think the American people will also feel — and this goes to your point about why are Democrat senators concerned about this, right? ‘Cause their party is all for it.
CLAY: Lots of them.
And the attitude of the federal government, the Biden administration to illegal immigrants is, “How can we make this process as easy possible, as beneficial as possible. Let’s give them Obamacare access. Let’s give them in-state tuition. Let’s do all these things.” People who are working hard to try to pay their bills, of all backgrounds, by the way, you look at different ethnicities in the polling, you look at African-Americans, Latinos, you know, and everybody else, and illegal immigration is not popular with the American people.
Illegal immigration is not popular. Why should people get away with cutting through the legal immigration line and then demanding more and more additional benefits when their whole status in this country’s illegal in the first place? People recognize there’s something really bothersome about this, especially when folks are struggling to pay for the gas in their cars and the food on their table.
CLAY: Pretend you’re in the Biden White House, Buck. You’ve got Democratic senators that are in swing states — Nevada, Georgia, New Hampshire — places where there really could be losses — Arizona — all saying that they don’t support the repeal of Title 42. What in the world is the Biden White House thinking, doing this? And we talked about the hypocrisy associated with the Biden White House is continuing to mandate that people wear masks on planes.
So arguing, “Oh, covid policy needs to be changed because we’re not as dangerous a place with covid for the border,” while not changing the policy for airplanes doesn’t make any sense. What could they be thinking here? I’m trying to contemplate, with the midterms almost exactly seven months away from today.
You are going to, right in the middle of the summer, basically, end of May as we poise to get into the summer, you’re gonna change the law at the border such that almost immediately the border, which has been mostly ignored. It’s gonna be impossible to ignore this surge, I really do think. I think even media that doesn’t want to cover is going to have to cover it. What could they be thinking that this makes political sense for them at all? I really legitimately cannot even conceptualize of what they are gaining by doing this at this time.
It’s also a lot of where their donor money comes from. And I think, Clay, on this one, the only way to stop this would be to show the political will to uphold the rule of law, to turn people back — and also, to do interior enforcement which means, you’re going to have to deport people who don’t show up to their hearings or don’t get asylum. Think about what that looks like to the activist, identity politics left.
The Biden administration is gonna be deporting people? The Biden administration is going to change the incentive structure? So they can’t… To your point, there is no upside to this. But to them it’s the destruction of the base that they’re gonna need to even hold on to pretty blue seats in this midterm; they won’t have base turnout where they need it to be if they did what’s necessary to stop the flow.
And I think they’re gonna play a lot of games with hiding this. They’re gonna send people — they’re gonna change the process so they can change they’re adhering to the rule of law, when really they have turned the pathway for illegals at our southern border to a conveyor belt at high speed, as many as possible into the country.
“Oh, we had a front-line asylum officer do make a five-minute question and answer so, yeah, sure they can come into the country!” DHS is already trying to figure out a way in the rules to do this, Clay. So they’re gonna say they’re adhering to the rule of law, and then they’re just gonna hope people don’t pay attention to the numbers.
CLAY: Have they already recognized that they’re going to lose the House and the Senate and they’re just trying to get things through while they can, and then they’re just recognizing that nothing’s happening the next two years because they’re not gonna have the ability to control the House and the Senate? Just tossing it out there to think about. There has been this argument, “Well, they’re gonna try to rush toward the middle.”
Have the numbers gotten so bad in White House polling that instead of rushing towards the middle in advance of the midterm, has the Biden White House recognized there’s going to be a red tide onslaught and so their only play is, “Whatever we’re gonna try to get done for the next four years has to happen in the next few months,” and they’re not even gonna try to stem that tide anymore? I think it’s an interesting point to think about because that’s the only way that this rationalization makes any sense to me at all.
BUCK: I do think there’s a possibility you could have a Biden White House that, after an annihilation in the midterms, turns around and says, “Hey, so we’ve done some checking on this, and it’s really more like 15 or 20 million illegals in the country, guys; so we really gotta get an amnesty here.” And I know that sounds like a crazy position to a lot of people who are saying, “Wait, but the American people aren’t with them on this.”
CLAY: Maybe that’s it, or maybe they’re just, like I said, recognizing they’re gonna get crushed and this is the last six months that Biden’s gonna have any power at all, and anything that they want to get done has to get down now and they don’t have any hope of stemming that tide.
BUCK: I mean, what are they even gonna get done? What are they gonna get done?
CLAY: Maybe they get a tax increase. Maybe they get part of Build Back Better, they get the border gets opened back up. It’s an intriguing question — and if they are making that calculus, then they’re just throwing all these guys in swing states like New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia. They’re just throwing them to the wolves and saying, “Hey, we’re not gonna be able to stop the tide anyway. Let’s try to get done what we can.” Just think about that a little bit ’cause it doesn’t make logical sense.
Berenson on the RFK Jr. nomination and whether he'd sign up to join him in…
Another day, another Trump cabinet choice that's making Washington heads explode.
When and how did Democrats become the party of conspiracy crackpots?
Clay meets two legends -- Elon Musk and Sylvester Stallone.
Clay and Tammy Bruce discussed Trump's flurry of nominations.