Trump Doubles Down on Immigration Plans In Softball NBC Interview

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:00 Clip: You must never, ever give up or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. That is your calling. That is you mission. That is moral obligation. That is mandate. Get out there and do it. Get in the way. Change happens because people care. The people have the power to make this life free and beautiful. To make this live a wonderful adventure.

0:00:38 Clip: I still believe with all my heart, America can be a place where no child is left hungry, no community is left behind, and no one gets told they don't belong. Country is always worth it.

0:00:57 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1097. I'm your host Thomas Smith. That over there is real-life attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing, Matt?

0:01:06 Matt: I've just spent a lot of time listening to Stephen Miller talk, so I've been better. The

0:01:10 Thomas: So you need an ointment you need a you need need a topical xenophobia treatment stat. I think it's like, UV it's light. Like when he talks, it just, you you don't know it, Matt. You don't Know it, but it's, it is giving you cancer.

0:01:12 Matt: Things I do. Yeah. Well, sharing this misery. You're all going to have to hear his voice today. So yeah, let's do it.

0:01:29 Thomas: Well, okay. I, I think then we're going to need some reinforcements. What do you think? Let's bring in the big dogs.

0:01:36 Matt: The best we got.

0:01:37 Thomas: It's the best of the best with honors. It is Lydia Smith. How are you doing?

0:01:38 Matt: All

0:01:41 Lydia: Here I'm here. I've crossed the podcast border to join for this next uh I'm trying

0:01:47 Thomas: Okay, Okay, she's working on her tie -ins, Matt. You need to go to the Matt Cameron School for Episode Tie-ins. He's the master of it, and none be close.

0:01:51 Lydia: It's not good it's not good he is I've acknowledged it I

0:02:00 Thomas: There's I mean, I don't think there is.

0:02:01 Lydia: No reason to try. Even geez, okay. Well oh

0:02:06 Matt: That can't be outclassed, Donald Trump. There's a transition for you. The Best We Got. That's right. We got to talk about his interview today with Meet the Press and what it all means for the people he's appointing and what they're going to be doing with immigration. Let's

0:02:20 Thomas: It's all the news right now. I watched the whole thing, and obviously there's any number of things to talk about about it. But my biggest takeaway before we get to the meat of the issue is how absolutely screwed we are in terms of the media just bending over backwards for him. Like, it's just it is truly fawning. It's a fawning treatment. And this is oh, hey, lest you think this was a Fox News interview or OAN interview. Nope. It was NBC. Just NBC interview. Normal, outlet, you it was such a honor to speak to the great leader, dear leader. And she was bent bending over backwards for him in ways that it doesn't bode well. I think I think the message from this election for a lot of the media was, well, we tried the whole resisting thing. And now it's like since that didn't take, I guess just we're we'll just go with it. That's what it feels like anyway. We got some updates in terms of what, he plans to do. And of course we've got another staff infection.

0:02:47 Lydia: NBC. Mm-hmm.

0:03:04 Matt: Not doing that yep yep

0:03:17 Thomas: Yeah. Maybe the biggest one yet. So we'll get to all that after this break. Hey, uh, please support the show. Patreon .com slash law. And you don't have to hear the ads. Uh. And more importantly, make the show happen, which is, you know, pretty vital. NBC even is, uh. Bending over backwards for the dear leader. So if you want want more media that takes an actual sober analysis of he's claiming based on facts and expertise maybe uh go to patreon .com slash law support your local podcast all after this break we'll get to it what

0:03:17 Matt: We ever one

0:03:49 Thomas: We're not going to listen to this entire interview, uh, which is an hour plus of just, I mean, Trump truly at his ADHD-ist. Um, not for nothing, by the way, seemed pretty sharp and on it. Um, another example of, um, don't want to be in our shells. We don't want to be on our copium. I saw a lot of those headlines about, oh, Trump's finally lost it during the campaign. He's a, he's out. He's out and he was exhausted. He's 1 million years old, but unfortunately he seems pretty with it to me after watching all that up he doesn't have to know what he's met.

0:04:14 Matt: Well, he still doesn't know what he's talking about, just to be clear. Yeah,

0:04:18 Thomas: He doesn't Have to know What he's talking about.

0:04:19 Matt: Want to be sure everyone understands that.

0:04:20 Thomas: Oh yeah, no, it is a lot harder. You know, it's true. True. We never got the apples to apples comparison of, hey, Joe Biden, just spew any information like at all.

0:04:29 Matt: Right. Start talking.

0:04:30 Lydia: Ice cream information.

0:04:31 Matt: See what happens.

0:04:31 Lydia: Just talk

0:04:32 Thomas: I'm talking about ice cream. Talk about and you can if you want, you can make ice cream be the reason that the country's failing. You know, they could take ice cream flavors.

0:04:40 Lydia: McDonald's machines.

0:04:40 Thomas: They can't. Yeah?

0:04:41 Lydia: Mm hm.

0:04:41 Thomas: Do whatever you want. Then it's true. It would have apples to apples. I'm anyway, point is, he did seem up to his usual 100 Lies Per Minute self, and the host barely tried to keep up with it, but we're going to play a little bit to hear some his latest claims on what he's going to do on immigration for what they're worth.

0:05:07 Clip: Tired, Gamers4DorknessFallsIsFilmingSoonHYPE, Jen K’berg, Stef, Liz M, Alex, the Sto-Vo-Cornetto Scoop, David Maas, Jensie Jaye Hudson, Steven Blanton-Ege, Mason Vines, Kail, Rachael Pavlik, Julie W, Dawn Leeper, Wesley Calloway. I Am so Tired. I Am Sorry. I Am Very Tired I Am Not Tired I Am Every Day Tired I Am Any Day Tried I Am Everyday Tired The people that have been treated very unfairly are the people that have been in line for 10 years to come into the country.

0:05:28 Thomas: I agree.

0:05:28 Clip: And we're going to make it very easy for people to come in, in terms of they have to pass the tests. They have to be able to tell you what the Statue of Liberty is. They have tell you a little bit about our country. They have love our country, they can't come out of prisons. We don't want people that are in for murder. So we had 11,000 and 13,000 different estimates, 13,099 murders released into our country over the last three years uh they're walking down the streets they're walking next to you and your family and they're very dangerous 13 000 figure I think goes back about three no it doesn't it's within the period it's during the biden time you know that is a fiction that they put that out this

0:05:33 Thomas: What? Does he think they can't currently do that yeah sure what what Matt oh

0:06:07 Clip: Was done by the border patrol it's 13,099 it's a story of the Biden period of time and these are murderers the

0:06:12 Matt: So, couple of things here.

0:06:14 Thomas: She tried guys so yeah you tried so I guess you're done

0:06:16 Matt: I mean, she's right. It was the last 40 years, not the last three years, but yeah, he's just steamrolling. As always, keep it going. I want to point out that the Statue of Liberty is not on the citizenship exam. He just threw that in for fun. Also, of course, as we talked about last week, the citizenship exam is the very end of the process, and none of these people that he's talking about have the option to take it or

0:06:21 Thomas: She tried but that's that's it oh okay yeah does he think they administer it like at the border like sort Sort of like in Monty Python, like, what is your favorite, the Statue of Liberty? Everyone's like, oh, that's really easy. That's all we have to do. It's one of those like, hey, if these people were at all honest, which obviously they're not, but if they were, it'd be like, Trump, I have some amazing news for you. You're not going to believe this. Not only is none of that true, there's no, there aren't that many murders. They do that test thing that's way harder than what is the Statute of Liberty before they're citizens. Like, you're not gonna believe this? It's all already like what you are, know, like it's like with the trans medicine thing. You're

0:06:41 Matt: The border. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

0:06:46 Lydia: Your quest?

0:07:15 Matt: And

0:07:15 Thomas: Not going to believe this. It's already tested and safe. Yeah, it's amazing.

0:07:17 Lydia: Set up that way. Yeah.

0:07:19 Thomas: Oh, we just shouldn't do some untested new stuff. Oh, I have the best news for you. It's not any of those things. Same thing.

0:07:19 Matt: Then, try to explain everything else that leads up to that.

0:07:26 Thomas: Yeah. It is the, yeah, obviously there's not that many murders. That'd be just impressive to find that many murderers. Like I, that would be hard.

0:07:32 Matt: Coordinated effort.

0:07:34 Thomas: Hard.

0:07:35 Matt: Yeah. Like a caravan of murderers.

0:07:37 Thomas: If put all of our American ingenuity and know-how behind getting 14,000 murderers to the border, you know, like within a however time period, I don't think we could do it. That

0:07:50 Matt: Movie, though. That sounds like a pretty good movie.

0:07:51 Thomas: Yeah. Fast and the Furious kind of, you getting the band back together except it's 13,000 murders and

0:07:58 Matt: Yeah, that's a series. So we should talk about what he's actually saying, though, because he's being asked, would you deport everybody? And then he's like, well, you got to do it. You got to do it, and then he talks about murderers, because she's asking the question that we all have, at least in my world, which is, and I think this is pretty clear from the way they've done things in the past, and we're going to be talking about this more, but he's going to start with people with serious records. He's going going to make an example of them and he's going to start equating people with serious records with everybody else so that by the time they get to everybody else we're kind of burned out and numb on the idea that these are sex offenders and drug dealers and wife beaters and so she's trying to ask him are you going to prioritize criminals criminal convictions first and he then he goes off on this thing about murderers and this happens again at 9 50 we should skip ahead just a quick uh clip

0:08:38 Clip: Logistics are complicated Okay, then you say to yourself, yeah, you need 24 times more ICE detention capacity just to deport one million people per year, not to mention more agents, more judges, more planes. Is it realistic to deport everyone who has no choice? First of all, of course, it was a fortune. But we're starting with the criminals, and we've got to do it. And then we're signing with others, and then we want to see how it goes.

0:08:56 Thomas: Choice wow and then we're

0:09:04 Clip: Who are the others? Others are other people outside of criminals. We have convicted murders. And we don't mean people that are even on trial. We have people that have murdered numerous people on our streets and in our farms. And we have to get them out of our country. What about Jesus?

0:09:04 Thomas: Starting with others in

0:09:04 Matt: Here comes the others wait for this

0:09:18 Thomas: Our farms farms. Well, I mean, if they're doing good work, like what's a little murder compared to good farming labor is all I'm saying.

0:09:23 Matt: We gotta stop there it's too much rehabilitated on our farms yeah so she's asking what about the others that don't have records and he's like oh yeah we could take the others the others being more murderers that's all he can think about it's just real one -track interview here

0:09:38 Thomas: Do you mean the additional murders? Yes. How

0:09:44 Matt: The ones who weren't convicted apparently as

0:09:46 Thomas: I want to ask this guy. I wish I could. There's so many things I wish you could just like make him answer, you know. Hey, how many murders per day are there? Just like because like there's There's just too many murders in his like, oh, ontology, there's just two. There's too many murderers. There can't be that many murder.

0:09:57 Matt: I mean, this is a guy who came of age in New York when it's most dangerous. He just thinks everything's, you know, there's crime around every corner. But

0:10:08 Thomas: Plus, you can't. Yeah. You can't even count like the Chicago murders because those are black people, obviously, in his view. You know, it's like, well, don't even get to count those. Where are you getting all these murders, Trump?

0:10:14 Lydia: Crazy

0:10:19 Matt: And I'm not trying to make excuses for him. He's a fascist, obviously. He knows this works. This is what we have been doing. So we're going to talk about the people who are actually going to enforce this. But before we do that, I wanted to play very quickly a clip of Stephen Miller who we'll be talking about at the end. But Stephen Miller will just lay out exactly what what Trump is trying to say, allegedly, because this is the guy who's going to be doing the actual work. So I've got a clip there, and it's pretty clear when he lays it out what he's looking for.

0:10:42 Clip: I think the plan is to put both on a fast track. First, you can get, John Thune and Lindsey Graham have promised that they can get a full funding package for the border, the most significant border security investment in American history, which would be the biggest domestic policy win in at least 50 years, to the president's desk in January or early February. That would mean a massive increase in ICE officers working on the deportation operation that Tom Holman just laid out. That would means a historic increase in border agents, a pay raise for both, full funding for military operations, full funding for ice beds, full funding for air and marine operations, full funding for all of the barriers and technology that you need to ensure there's never another gotaway entering this country. Now, President Trump, regardless, on day one is going to issue a series of executive orders that seal the borders shut and begin the largest deportation

0:11:24 Matt: I got away. Yeah, we can stop there. Yeah.

0:11:23 Thomas: What? Another gotaway. That some new fascist lingo? I haven't kept up with my xenophobic...

0:11:31 Matt: That's CBP fascist lingo. They've been using that one for a while.

0:11:34 Thomas: Because you wouldn't want it to refer to it as a human. It has to be like an object that's only, you meaning is in what it's done to us as a country. A gotaway. Okay, cool.

0:11:45 Matt: That sounds like an escaped cow or something.

0:11:45 Thomas: Dehumanizing. Yeah.

0:11:47 Matt: I just want to contrast those because you've got Trump sort of blathering on about whatever, and then you've Miller with laser precision telling exactly what he's going to do. Because it is Stephen Miller who will be doing it, as we'll be talking about. But let's take it down the list here. We're just going to go from the top down to talk about who's going be doing all of this. So Lydia, you want to start with the top of the pile?

0:12:06 Lydia: Very briefly we'll probably talk about um a little bit more on a different episode um there was a replacement for attorney general and they are involved in some um uh enforcement activities so just very very briefly

0:12:18 Thomas: Why? Was something happened to the first Attorney General? Was he sick or something? Got COVID?

0:12:23 Lydia: Matt gates bye -bye um so trump nominated pam bondy in matt gates's place um she is the former attorney general for florida uh her ba in criminal justice from the university of florida her jd from stetson and surprise surprise she also I don't know I'm not from the country like you yeah

0:12:39 Thomas: Cowboy cowboy hat maker. Stetsin? That's the.

0:12:43 Matt: Was once told it's the Harvard of Florida, that somebody actually said that out loud to me who went there so yeah

0:12:47 Lydia: Stetson uh surprise surprise she's has also served as a defense lawyer for Trump at one point in time it was during his first impeachment um that she was helping him out she ran the legal arm of the America First Policy Institute which is the non -profit that was started by Brooke Rollins and Larry Kudlow um has a bunch of Trump Trump nominees that are coming from it. Lee Zeldin is affiliated with them. Doug Collins, John Ratcliffe, Keith Kellogg, Lyndon McMahon. Riley Gaines also serves as the vice chair for America First Athletes Coalition with this group.

0:13:16 Thomas: I was going to say she's not a lawyer, right? Oh,

0:13:18 Lydia: Not. No. So they just have kind of like the who's who of all these different things. Pam Bondi is some of the things that she's known for is like back in 2016, she's one of the folks that began to lead the law corrupt chants at the the RNC. So, you know, she has that going for her.

0:13:32 Thomas: Her little claim to fame.

0:13:34 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Like I said, we'll get into a lot of other information about her later. But just want to leave it at after she was the AG for Florida, she worked for Ballard Partners and registered actually as a foreign agent for Cutter. So that'll be an interesting, actually registered.

0:13:48 Thomas: So actually registered. She's like, fine, if a bunch of people are going to get in trouble for this.

0:13:53 Lydia: Just kind of of an interesting little tidbit there.

0:13:54 Thomas: That is interesting.

0:13:56 Lydia: Yeah. Talk today more specifically, though, about Homeland Security. We dive into the people specifically, I do just want to lay some some information regarding Project 2025 out there. I know we've been trying to tie it back to things there. Was written by Ken Cuccinelli, who Project 2025 chapter on Homeland Security.

0:14:11 Thomas: What was written by Kinkage? Oh yeah,

0:14:15 Lydia: Yep. I'm sure, Matt, you are very familiar with Cuccinelli.

0:14:18 Matt: The cooch as we know him yep

0:14:20 Lydia: He was the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security from 2019 to 2021. He served as the principal deputy of USCIS. If you're like, what does that position mean? Principal deputy? Like, what isthat? It was actually a newly created position for him. And Trump did it so he could be the acting director under Federal Vacancies Reform Act because the senators all said, we're not going to confirm him permanently. And so Trump created a position, placed him in it, and then tried to use the Vacancies Act to get him to serve in that. It ended up being deemed unlawful by the courts and all of his policies and directives were, yeah, were rescinded, thankfully.

0:14:57 Thomas: That's right. Matt, I know you keep promising, but we do need a deep dive on the on the vacancies act because it's yeah, it's going going to be like to his entire administration

0:15:03 Matt: We're getting there before january we'll talk about it awesome to understanding the whole thing yep exactly yep

0:15:10 Lydia: So, man, when they asked him, you know, he was trying to say, like, we should be able to deny folks from getting green cards and visas if we think it's likely they'll need benefits like food stamps, and when asked about that, they're like, well, what about the, you know, the poem on the Statue of Liberty? He said, it should say, give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.

0:15:29 Thomas: That that was just sasha baron cohen doing a character I couldn't even believe it I was actually going to make that joke earlier when you talked about they need to know what the statue of liberty says you know it's like well I don't think the republicans do give me your nobody is what they think it says give me Your Trophy Wives and that's it oh

0:15:40 Lydia: Yeah, I know. I a where there is woke tie and he had ordered ordered the intelligence branch at DHS to modify assessments of intelligence to downplay the threat posed by white supremacy groups and instead focus on left wing groups like Antifa. And this is specifically tied to when he sent federal agents to Portland and started loading up protesters and unmarked vehicles. And the intelligence arm was also compiling reports on journalists who were covering that deployment of federal agents. So I'm talking about that John Ronson, the episode tie -in. He was directly involved with of those calls. He the Attorney General prior to all that for Virginia and 2010 To 2014 he's made his positions on a variety of things incredibly clear he is an immigration hardliner he wants to repeal birthright citizenship that's something he's been talking about for a very long time. When he was in serving the public there, he tried to introduce a bill to force employees to speak English in the workplace. He wanted to prohibit undocumented folks.

0:16:48 Thomas: Literal freedom of speech like issue.

0:16:50 Lydia: Yeah. And prohibit undocumented folks from attending university. University.

0:16:53 Thomas: Can they attend you? I guess with DACA or something.

0:16:56 Matt: Can afford it yeah plenty of undocumented people do sure I

0:16:59 Thomas: Cool. I didn't know that. Well, that's good. I just weren't sure.

0:17:02 Lydia: Primary recommendation that he sets forth in Project 2025's chapter on Homeland Security is actually to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security.

0:17:09 Matt: Was gonna say first sentence, I'm with him.

0:17:11 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. However, then he goes on to say, no, we're just going to reorganize all the different areas so things are aligned more mission similar.

0:17:21 Thomas: Fascistically.

0:17:21 Lydia: Yeah. So the new New department, essentially, that would be focused is the Customs and Border Protection combined with ICE, USCIS, the Office of Refugee Resettlement would come from Health and Human Services, the Immigration Review and Immigration Litigation Offices would come from DOJ, and then all of these things would be at this new department, would be at the cabinet level, and would have more than 100 ,000 employees by their estimation, which would make it the third largest department at that point. Cybersecurity they wants to get rid of it he says oh that should go

0:17:21 Thomas: Oh, get rid

0:17:53 Lydia: To he says it should go the department of transportation why is that a homeland security issue I don't know why it's a transportation issue yeah

0:17:53 Thomas: Of it because of the security part. Part I mean I I don't want to be too simplistic but security is in the name did

0:18:04 Lydia: Uh wants fema to go to the department of interior the coast guard to go either to doj or the department OF DEFENSE yeah

0:18:12 Matt: That makes sense, I have to say.

0:18:12 Thomas: He do like the weirdest mary f kill but with like different departments he's like look it's just because otherwise I'm gonna be I'm going to be having sex with the department of agriculture if I don t do that you know that

0:18:23 Lydia: Yeah. And then one of the other more notable things that is outlined in Project 2025 is dividing the Secret Service into that the protective element would live with the Department of Justice and the financial enforcement duties of the Secret Secret Service would be with the Department of Treasury.

0:18:38 Thomas: Honestly makes sense yeah it's

0:18:38 Matt: Which makes sense. Yeah.

0:18:40 Lydia: Think I that there probably is something where like, you this is kind of key in a lot of the Project 2025 chapters where it's like things start and this ist just the nature of government, right? Things start with like this particular idea in mind, but then things change over time. And so then you start adding to things or like combining things in weird ways to make sense with this infrastructure you have. Already And you don't always take the time to like reevaluate and say, does this still make sense? I think that is a fair question for people to have about the various departments in state, local, federal government. I think that's perfectly reasonable.

0:18:41 Thomas: Fine geez

0:19:12 Matt: And particularly with DHS, I just want to say, because when it was created in 2003, it was the largest reorganization of any government ever in the world history. And it was a terrible experiment. They were actually going to put even more agencies in until I think it was Susan Rice pointed out to George W. Bush that they're essentially modeling the Nazi law enforcement agency by putting all of their things in one place.

0:19:31 Matt: She's actually a student of the Third Reich. And no, I've always wanted to dismantle it. It is too big. It is too inhumane. It needs to be split up. There's no reason the Coast Guard needs to be in with the same agency as the TSA and the Secret Service and FEMA. I mean, it's just too much. I mean I can't argue with the reorganization part, but my concern is when I see in Project 2025 they want to put CBP at the top.

0:19:53 Matt: That you a lot. CBP and ICE are running the show. That's not, yeah. When you look at the order of events here, yeah,

0:19:54 Thomas: Now what would that matter is that like does that have actual effects or is that just the top in their chart you know like what does that mean oh

0:20:06 Matt: Really, if in terms of the culture and in terms OF what they think their mission is and how they carry things out, if your primary mission, I mean, of course, obviously it's in the name is Homeland Security, but they have a pretty diverse portfolio right now. And if you're narrowing down on immigration enforcement and then you're putting USCIS in that bucket, which it already is right now, USCIS is the immigration agency that processes visas and does what we'd call the legal immigration. Under Trump, they really politicized it. And I know no question they'll do that again. One of the issues that Susan Rice pointed out, is you can't put the immigration court in the same agency that is prosecuting the deportation cases, and that's what he's proposing to do. And that is the worst part of all of this. I should have said that up front.

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0:22:11 Lydia: Then of of course, none of this is complete without, quote, DHS has also suffered from the left's wokeness and weaponization against Americans whom the left perceives as its political opponents. So yeah, another key priority. Agenda 47 is a lot of the same kind of stuff, but just in Trump rhetoric. So seal the border, stop the migrant invasion, carry out the largest deportation operation in American history, stopthe migrant crime epidemic, demolish the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence I know

0:22:17 Thomas: I bet yeah sure really

0:22:18 Matt: You're welcome.

0:22:36 Thomas: Is amazing that we've gotten to the point where with the fascist administration it's like yeah and then yada yada like I'm yada yada yachting the fascism like the different yeah and the round up the people blah blah blah god it's such a bad sign was

0:22:43 Lydia: I know but to kind of also talk about um the reorganization of this whole thing with cbp on top and like just to kind of like piggyback off of matt's insights there I think it also gives us a lot of information about why the picks are the way they are for these people. Right. So let's dive in first with the the Secretary of Homeland Safety, Kristi Noem. A lot of people are probably like, why? Why Kristi Noem? Sure is. Anyone who doesn't know, she's the South Dakota governor. She's been in that position since 2019. to that, she served in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019. And she actually didn't get her college degree until 2012 while she was in the house of representatives. She got intern credits while she Was in thehouseofrepresentatives. Majored in political science from South Dakota State. The reason she didn't Get her bachelor's, this is just kind of like a fun fact on the side. Didn't get her bachelor's until 2012 was because she left college early in 1994 to run the family farm. And she ran the family firm because her dad died in a farm machinery accident.

0:23:10 Thomas: The dog killer oh god are you sure it wasn't one of the migrant murderers the third 14 000 murderers on our farms and in our streets and our beds

0:23:49 Lydia: I yeah, who knows what kind of revisionist, you know, personal history is going on there. But was also born that same year. And just, don't know if anyone had ever come across this before, but she daughter was trying to get a real estate license and didn't get it. And so Kristi Noem called in like estate, you know, commission board or whatever director and kind of grilled her a little bit about like what happened like about her daughter specifically and had like legal counsel there from the state, like all these various things, just advocating for her daughter in like a really uncomfortable way. Then that individual that ended up losing their job and they agreed

0:23:56 Thomas: That farm equipment wow uh

0:24:27 Lydia: To like a settlement of said it was like age discrimination, why she was kicked out. So really, really messy there. But, you know, I'm like, you Know, she's going to stand up for her daughter, I guess. Specifically at at what kind of competencies and experience you'd be looking for someone in this kind of position, secretary of Homeland Security. Security Paul Rosenzweig at the bulwark looked at 16 what he believes are key competencies for this position and he's done this with previous appointments as well so

0:24:53 Thomas: Sorry in real life or in for trump's purposes

0:24:55 Lydia: Real life in real life but I think it's worthwhile talking about right so border security no experience trade experience virtually none you know South Dakota does have exports but it's basically just to Canada, and it's basically just agriculture products. So kind of an easy market. Transportation security, none. Immigration, none, uh, none law enforcement. Some, there are 3000 law enforcement employees in South Dakota, but not all of those are sworn officers. And their largest agency for South Dakota for law enforcement officers is the highway patrol. And they have 172. DHS has 80,000.

0:25:28 Thomas: All for the one highway they had no I'm just kidding they're

0:25:32 Lydia: Grants experience some, obviously, in state government.

0:25:35 Thomas: Just lined up on the sides of the one highway they have what

0:25:38 Lydia: International relations, virtually none. But she says, hey, I'm experienced here because when I was in the House, I was in a congressional delegation that met with foreign leaders. So I have international experience.

0:25:48 Matt: Did she lie about meeting Kim Jong -un?

0:25:50 Lydia: Did She lie about that. That and the dog are like kind of of the two things people call out

0:25:54 Matt: She couldn't even come up with a world leader she'd actually met it's a weird one to lie about

0:25:57 Thomas: Like lied that she did meet with him why yeah why pick that one oh I need to bolster my it's like I need a bolster of my resume uh well I was a hitman for 12 years like pick be a banker I don't know be do something why would you pick the dictator that is amazing maybe they're like because they're not going to confirm it it's not like what do you do on your resume you pick a job of a restaurant that's gone out of business you know it's like that well try to ask him you know what's

0:25:59 Matt: That she met a dictator international relations yeah I'm

0:26:27 Lydia: Cyber security she does have some experience here but it is limited um she actually has said that cyber security is what she thinks the next big industry in South Dakota will be but in 2023 she did she did She they. So, yes.

0:26:38 Matt: Sorry she didn't say that

0:26:41 Thomas: The current one right now it's

0:26:45 Lydia: Farming.

0:26:46 Thomas: Horseshoes but

0:26:47 Matt: It under attack by hackers well

0:26:48 Lydia: Well, so she wants to, like, build up programs at South Dakota State.

0:26:52 Thomas: She's like as soon as we get the internet that's gonna be yeah

0:26:57 Lydia: But was actually the only governor in the country to reject DHS cyber grants in 2023 and said that it was wasteful spending. It's going to be the next big industry in South Dakota, but we're not going to accept any any grant money for this. And then, of course, you know, she'd be that overseeing grant as well, stepping into this position. She's also very anti -TikTok, by the way. Then emergency preparedness and management. Bulwark says, yes, she is qualified. But I want to talk about this for a second, because under what we think is going to be the structure of homeland security with, you and the border issues kind of being pulled out from under Kristi Noem, FEMA is kind of the big thing that like people are focusing on saying like, well, you know, she'd be overseeing FEMA. And, you know, as governor, you have like, of how that works, etc. Washington Post ran a piece fairly recently after the big floods that happened in June of this year through the Big Sioux River. And they talked to people who were impacted by those floods. Those people said that the response from the government in South Dakota was disorganized, delayed, and often non -existent. Noem had urged people in some areas to move to safety, but she didn't order or suggest that residents in the specific area near McCook Lake to evacuate, even though they built an emergency levee that would direct water towards McCook Lake. They were hoping it would end up in the Missouri River. It overwhelmed the lake and the alert system wasn't working. All of a sudden, you know, kids people were playing out in the backyard because they thought they were safe. And then a gush of water just Just kind of started

0:27:06 Thomas: But you wouldn't want any money for it yeah what wow

0:28:31 Lydia: Coming through. Yeah. Yeah, destroyed homes, like the earth like some of the pictures that they have. It's just like, yeah, it's like huge chunks of earth like that water just pushed down and like made these like almost. She was happy to send the National Guard from South Dakota to the Mexico border on multiple occasions. I

0:28:32 Thomas: Gouged the earth that's

0:28:51 Matt: South dakota does border mexico all right I'm pretty sure so I mean it's very important I actually I had to check it's 884 miles from mexico so

0:28:59 Lydia: Yeah and you know there was pushback because people are like we don't want our money taxpayer money going towards the travel of South Dakota National Guard to go to Mexico and some folks stepped in and they were like we're fund it and it was like private donors but there there are laws regarding crossing

0:29:00 Thomas: A long way Yeah, you're not allowed to do that, are you?

0:29:16 Matt: It's

0:29:16 Lydia: State lines on under like private money in order to do something like that. So then they had to back out and the taxpayers continue to pay for that. But the National Guard was never deployed to help prepare for the flood or manage the aftermath, even though local officials in several places asked. And Kristi Noem said they didn't. She lied and said, no one asked me.

0:29:16 Matt: Ridiculous yeah maybe

0:29:34 Thomas: It's because there's only one flood, the flood of migrants coming in our border.

0:29:39 Lydia: She also waited more than a month after this flood to ask Biden for a disaster declaration. So all of those victims didn't have access to any federal assistance for what is the worst part of this entire thing for rebuilding and trying to check on their homes and their valuables. Um like despite how how horrific this was thankfully only one fatality was associated with with this flood

0:30:02 Thomas: But on a per capita basis, that would be like a million here. Like a hundred thousand Californians.

0:30:04 Lydia: Unknown how many cows died yeah yeah um know it's all of these things people um were like where our government like I thought I could rely on

0:30:14 Thomas: Wait, I thought you didn't like your government. Why yeah I want my government exactly when it directly benefits me but anyone else getting a benefit should never happen they should just die

0:30:16 Lydia: I know I know yeah question mark there yeah um but christy gnome during this time was actually out of state for a political conference a television interview and also a GOP gala in Tennessee instead of there while her constituents were really struggling. All of that in mind, again, the question is like, why Kristi Noem for this position? And I

0:30:43 Matt: Have an answer oh I'm sorry you probably do too

0:30:45 Lydia: One note, and maybe you have a better answer than me, but I had seen that there were two sources familiar with the selection process and said that Corey Lewandowski and Tom Homan actually advocated specifically for Kristi Noem. She and Corey Lewandowski have known each other for many, many years. In 2021, when there were those sexual harassment, assault allegations that came through about Corey LewANDowski, she did try to distance herself at that point in time, but they're kind of buddies again. So, you there are no consequences for anything. So yeah. And Matt, what did you find out? Yeah

0:31:13 Thomas: That's no okay

0:31:16 Matt: This was kind of what I was thinking, but it seems to have been confirmed by people who who I trust only in the sense that they are evil and want evil things to happen. So we have hardcore immigration restrictionists are happy about this because the perspective is she doesn't know anything about immigration. She's going to defer on immigration stuff to Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, who do know a lot about immigration, as we'll talk about. And I know if I want somebody who's necessarily an expert, like a Stephen Miller type running DHS, but it is concerning that you've got somebody who will presumably be a good figurehead. Well, maybe not even a good figure head if she's not that good at running South Dakota. I don't know. Depending on what DHS even looks like by the time we're done in four years, is somebody that I think she'll be taking orders directly from the White House and from Stephen Miller. I think that's my read on this. And I listened to some of her book just to get a sense of it. I always like to listen to these people's books when they have them. And she's pretty I'd say reluctant MAGA type. She's one of those that is like a traditional conservative Christian who just decided that Trump Donald was convenient. That's my read on her.

0:32:14 Matt: A lot of these people, but she's, I don't think she was ever really, but her, she made her name by COVID. That was her big thing was rejecting COVID in South Dakota.

0:32:21 Lydia: Mask mandates and the mayors were like like please mask and she was like no

0:32:27 Thomas: My theory since we're all positing theories my theory based on nothing is it's like trump he has a limited universe of people he knows and have pledged fealty to him and that's it he's going to choose everything there's not going to be like a person appointed that we haven't already heard of from some dumb crap like this like they already were in trump universe yeah

0:32:35 Matt: Yeah, that's and she looks good on TV and has been on TV a lot and that's a big qualification too.

0:32:46 Lydia: Mostly yeah yeah actually Tucker Carlson uh went after her when she wasn't signing a bill way back when, years ago, about protecting, quotes, women's sports, And right? Banning biological males from women's sports. And she didn't sign it. And on the right was like, what are you doing? And she said it wasn't a good enough bill or something like that. So there was some back and forth there. But that's kind of an interesting interesting dynamic, watching Tucker Carlson yell at Kristi Noem.

0:33:16 Thomas: Come up a few times in coverage where it's like we've seen him just bully someone usually I guess on Where There's Woke we see him just bully like a governor polit or some shit like a politician into something and they do it it just works incredible

0:33:29 Matt: Other big cause as the state governor was stopping marijuana. She tried very, very hard to stop marijuana. Her famous quote on that was, nobody gets smarter or more motivated by using dope. Speak for yourself.

0:33:40 Lydia: I actually was going to call that out too, Matt, and ask you your thoughts on it. That's funny. Yeah. And that is actually another common thread, I think, with a lot of these people, because Pam Bondi is also very, very, against marijuana. So again, we'll talk about her more when we get to our more overall law enforcement episode, because we got to talk about Kash Patel more.

0:34:01 Matt: Should point out very quickly, since you mentioned it, the difference between the Attorney General's immigration enforcement and DHS's immigration enforcement, because I think people don't really understand the blur here.

0:34:09 Thomas: I didn't know there was an attorney wow

0:34:11 Matt: So we have to talk about the AG, and we had to mention her at least, because the Attorney general runs the immigration courts. The immigration courts are inside the Attorney General's office. And that means the Attorney General can pluck any given immigration case at any time and write a decision on it, an Attorney General decision, as if they're a judge.

0:34:26 Matt: And then that just becomes binding. Andthat's what Jeff Sessions did to end domestic violence as a basis for asylum, among other things, along with some other very serious...

0:34:26 Thomas: My god wow okay I don't like that matt I think

0:34:34 Matt: No, it's terrible.

0:34:34 Thomas: Feel feel like I should have known about this. I don't remember hearing about this, so that could be just how they deal with a lot of stuff, right,

0:34:35 Lydia: That's very scary.

0:34:38 Matt: Yeah, it's really... Yeah. Could have Fiat basically just writing Attorney General cases, and they're equivalent to precedent, and that's how they work. But also, they also from immigration court cases. They go up to actual federal courts, how they manage those appeals and the tax they decide to take and which ones they think are worth pursuing. Stuff That is all really up to the attorney general. So it's a lot of power. They also hire and fire immigration judges. And Jeff Sessions previously set the record for hiring immigration judges, fortunately, Biden has done very well. And I really have been liking his picks. I'm sure we'll be counterbalancing that soon enough.

0:35:16 Lydia: With that, should we dig into the people who are actually going to be doing the work?

0:35:20 Matt: Let's look at the actual people who know something about immigration. We haven't hit any of those yet. So the immigration episode, talk about Thomas Homan. The

0:35:27 Lydia: Appointed border czar. Previously with the Trump administration, in the first administration, he was the acting director of ICE workplace from January 2017 to June 2018. He actually retired in June 2018 with the reason of family and personal considerations. Was after the family separation policy that he was a big proponent of and a big executor of. But yeah, yeah. His office was like, you know, adamant that he had these plans to retire like when he came in to join the Trump administration Had nothing to do with, you know, situations like that. But who knows? That's their job to say that he now he's back. Yes.

0:35:49 Matt: Architect gets used a lot,

0:36:01 Thomas: He had plans to retire, but now his unretire is back

0:36:04 Lydia: Yeah. And I'll get to that. Yeah, so he's been involved with things at the border for a very long time. He actually started as an agent in 1984, and he was appointed by Obama as the ICE Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations in 2013. As early as 2014, Tom Homan has argued that separating children from caregivers would be effective to discourage border crossings. 2015, despite saying that that would be an effective strategy, Obama awarded him with a presidential rank award. And the Washington Post wrote about it and said Thomas Homan deports people and he's really good at it. Yeah, great. That's Great. After he left the first Trump administration, he actually joined the Heritage Foundation in February 2022. He is listed as a contributor to Project 2025. He didn't write any of the specific chapters. But Ken Cuccinelli, who wrote the Homeland Security one, did that author's note in the same way that, you know, when we talked about when we talked previously about like, you Know, not wanting any.

0:37:05 Thomas: The author's like, nobody gets credit for this at at all

0:37:07 Lydia: Every a lot of people contributed to this. No statement can be, you you know, contributed to one particular person. Yeah. The other things that he's been doing since leaving the Trump administration and retiring was he started a nonprofit organization called Border 911. And it's made up of purported border experts. And this name might sound familiar to some people if they're, you know kind of following a lot of of the right wing stuff. America Project is an organization that's led by Patrick Byrne and Michael Flynn, the Michael Flynn. And they had a part of their organization called Border 911, but they gifted it, the intellectual property rights, to Tom Homan so he could start his own nonprofit organization based off of that.

0:37:10 Thomas: I no I didn't fascism there imagine dedicating this much of your life and energy to just hating people that have nothing like what kind of life is that if

0:37:58 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, Mike Lindell was listed as one One of their partners on their website, you know, like with an ad with MyPillow, like really focused on, you know, cracking down on immigration and also Buy My Pillows a yeah, exactly. Again, this is a 501c3 organization, right? They decided to travel to swing states and try and message, you as the better candidate. And that is illegal for a nonprofit organization as a 501c3 to be, you either overtly or advocating for any, you they they have like really pushed back on it and said it was like inadvertent, you know, that's not what what we mean to do or anything like that. They had on their online store with Border 911 that was available for a while and eventually it was pulled down. But it said, comes back, I come come back, we fix this. S word, I think, just as expletive, because this is ABC News.

0:38:11 Thomas: You want to be energized for a hard day's deporting you need to get a good night's sleep and then Then they were all thrown in jail. The end.

0:39:05 Lydia: And it's one of those things where like, people started calling them out on this stuff, like, hey, this is illegal. Really funny that like, you're so concerned with the legality of immigration. And you know, you can't even follow the law when it comes to nonprofit organizations. And so then they were like, oh, we didn't mean to, we don't mean too. However, they They held their gala at Mar -a -Lago in April 2024. And Donald Trump was a speaker there and attended and was advertised as being part of that.

0:39:30 Thomas: Well, just as long as noone has hollowed out our government and its ability to enforce anything on corrupt people. As as that hasn't happened, they're going to be in deep crap.

0:39:39 Lydia: Yeah. And they say, hey, there's going to be a 501c4 eventually. And that's the other pushback.

0:39:44 Thomas: So that's fine.

0:39:45 Lydia: Yeah. We are going to do that.

0:39:47 Thomas: Even though it would be a different entity, but you know. Eventually we will do the paperwork. Let's do whatever. Is

0:39:54 Matt: That's how that works. So

0:39:56 Lydia: What's this guy going to have to do? What's this dude going to want to be doing? Well

0:39:58 Matt: Will be the border czar. And I will say that that has been a real thing. No, it wasn't actually.

0:40:00 Thomas: A real thing? No it was I thought that was a myth that was

0:40:04 Matt: Yeah, that's what they called her.

0:40:01 Lydia: That was kamala's oh oh yeah

0:40:05 Thomas: That was what they tried to say she was

0:40:08 Matt: I will Say I went back and looked at the history of this position. So you might remember Barack Obama really liked czars. He had had like 45 of them. And it's not a new thing. So of border czar was first used in 1998, was a Clinton appointee, just to kind of coordinate the different aspects of government. Because at the time, obviously before DHS, you had Immigration and Nationality Services running immigration enforcement. Was a lot of unregulated immigration coming over the border at that time. That was actually pretty much the peak, and it it still remains the peak around 99 -2000 when the economy was very good. Had just unprecedented numbers, and so they were looking at that. Then Obama had one, and then Trump informally called Homan his border czar at some point, but never actually made an official job. He just sort of referred him to that way he liked him. I will point out that enforcement and removal operations, which was the Department of ICE that Homan was in charge of, is just what it sounds like. It is the enforcement wing of DHS. It's the enforcement ring of ICE. It has the people you think of when you think of ICE. There are two major branches of ICE, the other one is Homeland Security Investigations, HSI was so annoyed with the way that ICE was handling things under Trump that they asked for a divorce. They actually wrote a letter formally to DHS asking if they could leave DHS because

0:40:13 Thomas: He's a communist well

0:41:13 Matt: The state and local governments didn't want to cooperate with them, and they're doing pretty standard investigations of cybersecurity and art theft and stuff. I never really understood why they need their own investigative thing, but that's another thing. Honestly, this is really all FBI work. But, yeah, so this border czar position, obviously, is going to be to try to unify the immigration enforcement. And if you're going to Be talking about a mass deportation operation, whatever that actually means, whatever it looks like, you're gonna have to have CBP and ICE working pretty closely together. You're gonna Have to have a lot of policies syncing up a lot Of memos going around. And Stephen Miller can't do it all himself. So now you got this guy. And I don't really want to subject anybody to his voice. But he looks and sounds exactly like a cop. He looks and Sounds exactly like you would think. Looks like the DEA agent on Breaking Bad, right? And he's got that look, the big bullet head. This is his deal. Like Thomas said, he's just an expert on deportation. Listened to a couple of interviews with him just to kind of get a sense of where he's at. Charlie Kirk calls him a total beast, which isn't great. And he overall seems be pretty serious about this. And I don't think, I should say this pretty clearly, I don't think that Thomas Homan or Stephen Miller are particularly interesting people. They're both very predictable. They're Both bullies. They're BOTH cops. But one interesting thing about Hohmann is that he was perfectly happy to serve Barack Obama doing the same thing.

0:42:26 Matt: And Obama made a mandate of deportations, although, yeah,

0:42:27 Thomas: Yeah you said he gave him an award or something well

0:42:29 Lydia: He got an award

0:42:31 Matt: Very exclusive award. And yeah, no, he had good things to say about him. Yeah.

0:42:34 Thomas: All that moderation on the border surely enabled democrats to win elections from then on out though so

0:42:39 Lydia: Here's the thing though I think like like has happened to a lot of folks where you know like if you go back looking at the internet archive right and like this time he served on on a panel C -SPAN has it archived. That he's talking in that panel is like, you disagree, but he comes forth as like, you know reasonable. He just has a different opinion that you know I don't agree with at all. And But then he like ends it with you know like I imagine I'll get a lot of questions and I welcome them. Contrast the way that he approaches that, you back in like 2016 with this post -Trump era and how he reacts now where he's kind of like just shouting when he gets interviewed a lot of times and like the expletives that come through, like none of that is there in his early interviews. And so, yeah, it's just really interesting watching that evolution of people because Matt Gaetz is a similar evolution too. Like it's, it'S just so interesting. I don't know.

0:43:24 Matt: He's gone MAGA for sure. Yeah.

0:43:32 Thomas: Who knows it could be like careerist it couldbe people who um when it seemed like society obama it really felt for a minute like okay we're going to be kind of more like cool in general and maybe they would keep it uh like that yeah moderate themselves and then realize they don't have to anymore so

0:43:46 Lydia: Moderating themselves a little bit. Yeah. Yeah,

0:43:50 Matt: Yeah. Well, under Obama, he was enforcing pretty reasonable enforcement priorities. There was actually a very structured set of priorities. And then as soon as Trump came in, they removed those and they just started going after everybody. And he just kind of changed the tone he had to, but he didn't really change anything else. He just kind of switched over on a dime and he's just doing the different thing. He is doing what he's told. I'm more concerned about Stephen Miller overall. But, you know, this is not great. This is not a good thing.

0:44:13 Thomas: Are you saying just following orders sometimes dictatorships isn't a good thing like that doesn't yeah

0:44:18 Matt: A job qualification. The fact that he could be just as happy. Well, I don't know about just as heavy. Just the fact he did just fine running Barack Obama's ERO and Trump's ERO. I think that is really telling. It says a lot about Obama too, frankly, but that's another conversation.

0:44:24 Thomas: Very weird

0:44:30 Lydia: Yeah that's fair.

0:44:32 Thomas: Right. Well, there's a lot of staff infection to fit in and we're going to have to save maybe the worst, the worst for Wednesday. Folks, Uh, we're gonna have to, uh, call it there for today. And on Wednesday before T3BE, we're going to talk about the, how do you, how Do you even tease the, just the, the abomination that is Steven Miller? I mean, it's just, it's folks, I gotta tell you, maybe maybe you think, you know, Stephen Miller, and maybe you do, but no matter how bad you think it is, it's worse. Like I can't, I cannot, we got it on Wednesday. You got to listen because this makes this guy, like what makes a guy like this is a question that many people have wondered. And the answer is nothing that anyone can even understand. You'll have to, you'll have hear on Wednesday, so thanks so much, Lydia. Thanks so much Matt for staff infection five. We're going to have to do staff. You know what? That fits. Stephen Miller is his own infection.

0:45:17 Lydia: Five

0:45:27 Thomas: Infection six by himself. So thanks.

0:45:26 Lydia: Thanks

0:45:31 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

0:45:48 Thomas: Yada yada yachting the fascism like me Your Trophy Wives and that's it oh