>>ā¦ The 2012 election happens, and the famous āautopsyāā >>Ooh! >>āthe autopsy which says, hey, you know, weāve got a problem here, because the numbers are changing, and the Republican Party is going to lose power if weāre not careful. So the Gang of Eight come together, and they sign and they pass in the Senate the reformāthe immigration reform bill. But there are some disagreements on that. Foxānot by Fox, not by [Sean] Hannity; theyāre in support of it. >>Correct! >>And there are some people, like [Steve] Bannon at Breitbart, and certainly Sessions, Sen. [Jeff] Sessions and [Stephen] Miller, who was working for Sessionsā >>I can tell you who was against the amnesty. And Bannon was stillānobody knew who Bannon was back in 2012. Good luck to you finding him anyplace. And Iām not criticizing him, but no, thatā no, it was Sen. Sessions; Stephen Miller, who worked for him; Mickey Kaus; me; Joyce Kaufman. I donāt think I can get up to 10 names who were opposed to that amnesty. ā¦ >>The fact is that it seems to be a done deal. There seems to be a waveāmaybe not a tidal wave, but a wave moving towards this. >>Very bad. >>But thereāsāthereāsāthereāsāwithin a small group, including yourself, thereās chipping away at sort of why weāre going down this route. And thereās an adjustment in the GOP at that point in time which is pretty radical. Immigration at that point in time starts becoming a much bigger issue with Republicans, and when [House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor losesā >>That was great. >>I mean, I know people go back and forth, but when Cantor loses, people all of a sudden say, āWait a minute.ā So take us to that moment. How does that happen? >>They were very dark days, and youāre giving too many people credit for this. It was 100% of the Democratic Party; 70% of the Republican Party; 90% of the 30% of the Republican Party pretending to be against amnesty. The entire conservative talk radio exceptāI mean, seriously, I could name like, three talk radio hosts, and they werenāt the big ones, who were against amnesty. One hundred percent Fox News was pedal to the metal to get this amnesty bill passed. They were very, very dark days. It wasnāt the GOP waking up. It was the elected Republicans and talk radio realizing that the people who vote for them and watch their media hated their guts, absolutely hated their guts. Iāve been talking about immigration since Bush first started to push it in 2006. Then [Sen. John] McCain pushed it. Then we had [Sen. Marco] Rubio and McCain pushing it again. Iāve been on the issueānot obsessivelyā I didnāt have a book about it until 2015ā but Iāve been pushing this since 2004, and what I would doāin fact, I gave lots of speeches to the Tea Parties. Theyād ask me to speak usually about Obamacare, often guns. Whatever the issues [were] in the news thenā letās say Obamacare, gunsāI would haveā Iād have the speech: OK, hereās Obamacare; hereās guns; and now Iām going to talk about immigration. And they werenāt hearing it from Fox News, and they werenāt hearing it from talk radio. When I got to immigration, the crowds went wild. I told [Mitt] Romney this. I told him: āI just came back from a speech. Nobody even asked me to speak about immigration. When I got to immigrationāā No, thatās always what the base was. How was amnesty stopped? Well, itās been stopped. Theyāve been trying to sneak it through Congress, both Republicans and Democrats. Theyāve tried to sneak it through at least a half dozen, maybe a dozen times in the past 20 years. The only way it has ever stoppedā itās not because of Fox News; itās not because of talk radioā is because somehow the word gets out, āTheyāre about to pass an amnesty,ā and regular Americans call in and shut down the congressional switchboard. It is such aāIāve never seen an issue where the elites are 100% on one side and the people are 100% on the other side. Not 100%, but 90/90. And Trump was the only guyā I mean, this is why I wrote In Trump We Trust. And donāt think I didnāt know what his disabilities were. Iād go out with my friends; theyād sit down and tell me, you know, that heās tacky and the gold all over, and he canāt put two sentencesā and Iād say Iām going into this totally, totally clear-eyed. But heās not a genius. Thereās a $1,000 bill laying on the ground, and he picked it up, and nobody else would pick it up. Does any other Republican want to run on a popular issue? Any of you guys? Anyone? Do we have any offers? You in the back? Nope! The Koch brothers and the chamber of commerce want their cheap labor, and they donāt care what kind of country this will become because of it. Well, the people do care. An awful lot of the people do care what kind of country this becomes. >>ā¦ So, one other thing. Talk about Miller. Did you know Miller back then? >>No. >>Who was he? Why does he become this rising star? Why does Trump turn to him? Heās an interesting guy. He alsoāhe starts out in talk radio in a way. Heās a student, and heās involved at Duke and everything else. So heās glommed onto it, and heās good on it, and so heās popular. But who is Miller? >>Heās very smart. Heās very patriotic. Heās never taken to heart the important Reagan slogan, thereās no end to what can be accomplished if you donāt care who gets the credit. Heās the one blocking a lot of the things in the Trump administration, like hiring anyone who knows how to get it done. >>I mean, heās also the last man standing. >>Heās arranged to be the last man standing. >>What do youāwhat do you mean? >>I mean, heās the one who blocked Kris Kobach. Heās the one whoās getting rid ofā I donāt know if you remember. There was one timeāspeaking of, you know, division in politics, there was one moment in the Trump years when the left and right came together in peace and unity. I get home the night Omarosa [Manigault Newman] was fired. CNN: Everybody hates Omarosa. MSNBC: Everybody hates Omarosa. Fox News: Everybody hates Omarosa. I thought, we finally did it. Thank you, Omarosa. But one of the things that came out in those interviews wereā people were sayingāthey were interviewing, I think it was on CNN, a lot of black Republicans, and the CNN anchor was saying, āWell, OK, but this is the only black Republican working in the Trump White House,ā and all the black Republicans said, āThatās because of Omarosa!ā Same thing with Stephen Miller. >>Smart guy. Realizing that heās been pushing something for a long time thatās been being ignored except by people like Sessions, he is going to push this thing through in any way possible, and a lot of the other people out there donāt haveā have never had their hearts in it, and heādā >>Theyāre absolutely against it. And there are plenty of people who could be hiredā and by the way, Iām not applying for a job; I absolutely do not want a jobā but until he unfortunately passed away last year, Pat Caddell, Mickey Kaus, Kris Kobachā youāve got Harvard-Yale-Oxford. He wrote E-Verify! He wrote the Arizona law [SB 1070] that was upheld by the Supreme Court, denounced as āpapers, please.ā Yeah, that was upheld. So screw you, MSNBC. Heās the one who came up withā I mean, Romney called it āself-deportationāā the argument that we donāt have to deport anyone. We enforce E-Verify; they go home the same way they came. We didnāt round them up to bring them here; we donāt have to round them up to bring them home. Itās a lot easier going back the same way. All of these were Kris Kobachās ideas. I mean, Trump will never get done what he promised to get done if heās not going to hire the people who know how to do it. >>ā¦ So letās get to Trump. So, you know, the escalator speech. He comes down the escalator. His message resonates with the forgotten. He is channeling you, your book. Heās like reading directly from your book. Youāre watching this thing. Have you been talking to him? What are you seeing, and why does it resonate, and why did nobody else understand that this wasā the establishment basically said this guy is done the first day he announces. Whatās going on? >>He didāI tried to get a copy of Adios, America to several Republicans running for president, and the Koch brothers. Post-it-noted just a few pages theyād need to read. Iām FedExing it off. Iām contacting my friends who know one or the other candidate, begging them to take up this issue, begging them! No, Trump just saw me onāa week before the book came out, I did an interview with Jorge Ramos. It winds up on Drudge. It goes viral. Iām on my way to the airport later that day, and I get an email fromāI recalled it being him, but it was probably Corey Lewandowski, saying, āCould you please FedEx a copy of your book to us?ā And yes, Trump got a lot of the very important points and correct points from Adios, America. He put them perhaps a little more aggressively than I would have. When I first saw the escalator speech, I was a little nervous by it, because it was more kind of, well, not the way I would have put it. Agreed with the underlying points, but maybe, maybe a littleā a little honey in your presentation. ā¦ But my mainā And the concern was that he would end up undermining the issues that were so important and so popular by stating them a teensy bit too aggressively. So it actually took me a couple of weeks. I also expected he was going to back down. ā¦ So I was waiting for Trump to take it back and say: āOh, no, no, I didnāt mean that Mexicoās sending rapists. Theyāre sending Rhodes Scholars. Theyāre so much better than we are.ā And damned if he never took it back! So two weeks later, I had to say, OK, Iām forāIām for this guy. >>Why does it resonate with a population, certainly your audience, other people out there? What is going on that the establishment doesnāt understand? >>Well, two things. One is the issue itself. And I think that reallyāthat has always been lost with Trump. I mean, the mainstream mediaās narrative is that, you know, all the people who voted for Trump are just, you know, three-fingered troglodytes who hate minorities and hate the other. ā¦ No! No. Could you please notice that heās the only one who has allowed us to vote on this basket of issues? ... The trade, immigration and no more pointless wars, all of which serves, you know, Boeing, Raytheon, the cheap labor. The globalism serves Wall Street; they get to do the contracts. What do they care about America? They are globalists. Whether theyāre in Gstaad or Davos, what do they care about America? Normal Americans care about being Americans; itās one of our most precious possessions. And the fact that politicians have blown that off over and over and over again, even when Trump was winning on those issuesā I mean, would I have preferred someone who is a little more well-spoken? Yeah. I think I and all of my friends would have. ā¦ OK, thatās part one. Do not discount the issues. That is why people were voting for him. It was an advantage that he would double down when he was attacked. Why? Because it made him the molecular opposite of John McCain. Youāre not going to back down. Now, I wish since heās been president that he would do the punch-back even harder when heās being attacked for actually doing something, like building the wall, not for tweeting something. But a Republican who not only doesnāt back down but punches back harder, that independently, even if heās not always right, even if he said something stupid, the fact that he doesnāt back down to the hysteria from the left, that is a quality in and of itself. >>ā¦. The Access Hollywood moment is I think an example of what youāre talking about, is the fact thatā and youāve written about itāthat he can kind of doā get way with a lot because people see him as telling the truth on the points that theyāre mostly interested in. Define what was going on. How is it possible that he was able to maneuver around the Access Hollywood tape using techniques like going into the debate the next nightā >>That was great! >>āand sort of going after Bill Clinton. I mean, what was going on? >>First, I donāt think anything could have stopped Trump at that point when the Access Hollywood tape came out. People wanted to vote on immigration. Every time it has been put to a vote since 1994, they have voted to end illegal immigration. Can you get a clue, politicians? They were voting for Trump. And as I think it was Josh Barroā I forget who the reporter was, but I think it was Josh Barroā went out to Iowa before the Iowa caucuses, and he said heās interviewing people. He tweeted this out and said something like, āYou know, Iām asking voters, āBut what about his attack on John McCain?ā Who cares? The wall. You know, next question: āHow about the fact that he used to be a Democrat?ā Who cares? The wall.ā Thatās what people were voting on. He promised to build a wall. There was such a hard-core element of support. I mean, it may not be every single voter, but I think it was an awful lot of them. I mean, in my circle, that was whatā it was voting on the wall and illegal immigration. And Iām talking about, you know, doctors and lawyers and Hollywood people who arenāt forgotten. What do we get out of this? We get the cheap labor, too, but we want to save America, and we care about our fellow Americans. So I donāt think anything could have stopped Trump at that point. ā¦ And I have to say, my face apparently turned white when I first heard about the Access Hollywood tape at Breitbart offices in L.A. And we just sat and we watched every network playing it, and I just didnāt say anything. I sent a few tweets. By that nightāthis is what has happened over and over again in the Trump era. Even when thereās something bad about Trump that would kill anyone else, the media so overplays their hand. They canāt help themselves. And when I saw Lawrence OāDonnell weeping about the horror of this tape, oh, give me a break! I mean, Hollywood is constantly putting all this schlock in prime time, but, oh, now theyāre suddenly fainting Victorian virgins? As usual, the media so overplayed their hand that even besides the fact that a, nothing could have stopped Trump, the media made sure the Access Hollywood tape wasnāt going to stop Trump. And then c, it was great when he brought the women that Bill Clinton had molested to the next debate. That was magnificent. But that was icing on the cake. >>ā¦ His relationship with, you know, now that heās president, and during the campaign to some extent, with friendly media, with Fox and conservative radio and Breitbart and all isāthereās a simpatico there. Thereās a back-and-forth. Thereās Hannity coming up and giving speeches. Thereās a connection there that he seems to depend upon. He retweets the stuff that heās getting from people. ā¦ The fact of whether heās quoting from you or heās, you know, heās having conversations with Hannity and then repeating the same thing the next day in a speech or in a tweet, whatāsāwhatās going on with that relationship, and how different is that than any other president has ever had? >>Well, Iām not a Democrat, so I canāt speak to the loyalty of Democrats, but my impressionistic view is that Trump is the most disloyal person Iāve ever seen. No, in fact, he doesnāt give interviews to Breitbart, the website that supported him when Fox News was bashing him night after night after night. He does not give interviews to Daily Caller. He has absolutely no loyalty to anyone but himself. And if you happen to be a TVāa TV talk host whoās going to stick your nose up his butt every night, yes, heāll pat you on the head and give you interviews. But in terms of rewarding the media that supported him? Oh, my gosh, heās disloyal. He calls Maggie Haberman of The New York Times every day. Why was he giving that interview to Lester Holt where he said, āI was going to fire [James] Comey anywayā? Why are you talking to Lester Holt? All he wants is for the mainstream media to love him. Itās kind of cross-messaging when youāre telling your supporters itās fake news, itās fake news, itās fake news, and all you want is praise from them, other than Hannity and Fox & Friends. ā¦ >>So he hasāvery early on he basically takes over the messaging, very early. In February heās calling the mainstream media the āenemy of the people.ā >>I think itās a great message. I wish he wouldnātā >>Itās in your books as well. You agree with him about the media. So explain what is going on with that part of the relationship. ā¦ But whatās going on with the message, taking over the message, battering the media constantly, and what are the consequences of that? >>I donāt think any progress can be made on anything in America until the media is destroyed and replaced by something with integrity. I mean, Trump, as usual, his actions are not consistent with his words, which is to say he denounces New York Times and, you know, ABC, NBC, CBS as āfake news,ā but oh, does he suck up to them; thatās all he wants, the interviewā āOh, clear my schedule, Maggie Habermanās coming ināā and then totally disses Breitbart. So kind of, like with the wall, we get great tweets on immigration, but heās not actually doing it. But I do think the words heās saying, at least weāre getting that out of him. I was hoping for more, but at least weāre getting the words. And I think that is useful. One of theāone of the great things Trump has done is to give a word forāfor concepts. I mean, it was an important point George Orwell madeā I think it was Orwellā that until you have a word for something, you donāt understand it; that thereās no part of your brain thatā āthe swamp,ā āfake news.ā What are some of the other ones? āLow energyā was a good one; that was a really good one. ā¦ But the āfake newsā one, I mean, that could be the only thing we get out of this presidency, to run downāand boy, the media sure isnāt giving him any pushback on this. ā¦ ABC, NBC, CBS, they are embarrassing themselves over and over and over again. >>ā¦ The first week he comes out with the executive orders and the travel ban immediately. So whatās your view of that? And on the other side of it is, one of the seven executive orders that had been written up was on DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], and that one doesnāt show up. So whatās your overview of those initial executive orders, and, you know, what are the results? Whatās at stake here? >>Well, the country is whatās at stake. The first few weeks were good is myāis my conclusion. I mean, the Muslim ban, as itās called, it was upheld by the Supreme Court. And as some of us said, it always would be. Ooh, wow, you wouldnāt know that, speaking of fake news, from reading The New York Times, from watching ABC. And ooh, itās the most [unconstitutional]āheās like Hitler! Upheld by the Supreme Court. >>The third version. >>Any of them would have been. Read the opinion. Itās in the Constitution. Itās in statutory law. The president can exclude [Congress]āI mean, there are laws on the books that were passed by both Republicans and Democrats in banging out compromises. And we agree to a bill, and we send it up, and the president gets it signed, and itās been on the books for decades, and it says the president can exclude any immigrants for any reasons in the best interest of the United States. >>And the message sent with that coming out as quickly as it did? ... >>It wasāI think it was justā I think probably for the first few weeks of his presidency, he had some vague idea of keeping his promises. That was abandoned very quickly. Decided itās more fun just to tweet and promote Ivanka [Trump]ās shoe company or something. But yeah, itās an easy promise. Frankly, all of his promisesā among the brilliant things about his campaign, and it was a magnificent campaign, and I write in In Trump We Trust again, all of his immigration promises, he doesnāt need Congress for. As I wrote in In Trump We Trust, what was so clever about it was, a lot of it is just enforcing laws on the books. A lot of it is up to the president as commander in chief. The only thing he needed Congress for of his central campaign promises was overturning Obamacare. So Iām sick of hearing the 3D chess crowd say, āOh, he canāt because of Congress.ā No, read In Trump We Trust! That was the brilliance of his campaign. He is the commander in chief; his number one duty is to protect the borders of the United States. For 200 years thatās what our military did. We built fortresses along the border. There are Treasury regulations. Heās head of the executive branch. He could tax remittances, the billions of dollars being sent mostly by illegal aliens from this country back to Mexico. Tax the remittances. I donāt even know whoās against that. Doesnāt Wall Street make some money onā are they the ones against this? Thatās how Mexico pays for the wall. You put a 10% tax on I think itāsā I think itās something like $20 billion is sent every year. Itās an astonishing amount that gets sent out of here. You put a small tax on that, Mexicoās paying for the wall! You keep a promise. And there are Treasury regulations passed after 9/11 that allowāallow the Treasury Department by itself to putā to put regulations on transactions. So he could do that without Congress. He can overturn the unconstitutional āIām going to give amnesty to āDreamersāā thing that Obama passed after sayingā for six years, for seven years, Obama is telling Hispanic groups, āI donāt have the constitutional authority to pass this law or to issue an executive order; I need Congress.ā Congress doesnāt pass it, and then he says, āIām going to do it.ā So we have it on the authority of constitutional law professor Barack Obama that his DACA executive order is unconstitutional. Trump canāt even write an executive order ending it? >>Why? Why didnāt the executive orderā certainly Sessions and Miller are in there pushing big time. Bannon as well, supposedly. What was going on there? What was the view of your audience to that? >>Well, some of us are a little upset that he hasnāt kept his promises, more than I think you will hear from publicly, because the media has made itself the enemy of the people. And I thinkāand look, I understand this. I think somebodyās got to try to hold his feet to the fire. We have a few months left to getā to get anything out of this guy. I mean, even if he wins reelection, is he more or less likely to keep his promises when he isnāt facing another election? ā¦ Iāll fall on my sword and keep attacking him for not keeping his promises, but I must say I understand the feeling of theāI mean, I donāt think I could debase myself enough to start claiming heās playing 3D chess. No, heās not playing 3D chess. Heās lazy, narcissistic. I donāt know what the reasons were. Never believed it to begin with. Who knows? But heās not keeping his promises, and donāt tell me 3D chess. ā¦ >>So letās talk about the Dreamers. So Sessions sets a deadline. In Augustāit was August of ā17. ā¦ Trump seems to be torn on the Dreamers specifically on what should happen. And he goes back and forth, and everybody talks about, you know, the two sides of the White House pushing him in either direction. What was going on there? Why didnāt he act? Wasācould you tell from your conversations with people that there was a divide, an actual divide? ... >>For a president who knows things and has beliefs, like Ronald Reagan, he could surround himself with people who donāt believe the same things he does and still accomplish a lot. It would be harder, but he could do it. For a president who doesnāt know a lot about the subject and maybe doesnāt quite care so much, to surround himself with his kids and with the exact RNC [Republican National Committee] flacks he ran against and he beat and that the Republican Party base hates with the hot, hot hate of a thousand suns, youāre not going to get anything done. And thatās basically what weāve seen over and over again with Trump on the immigration issue. ā¦ And thereās no one in that immigration bureauā maybe thereās, you know, one, one person who agreed with Trump, but not the head of Homeland Security. >>Why is that? >>Trump hired these people. >>What does that mean? I mean, I thought Trump was the guyā this is what he promised to do. So why is he hiring people that disagree with what his tenets are? >>Why he surrounded himself by people actively opposed to his agenda and let Paul Ryan take over his agenda for the first two years when he had a Republican House and Republican Senate, "No, letās do all the stuff on the loser GOPās to-do list. Letās not do the popular stuff that won this very unlikely person the presidency." Why he did that, who knows? Who knows? He has surrounded himself with people who disagree with him. Why did he hire his kids? I mean, I donāt know. Does he believe any of it? Is he a con-man liar and this was just a good gig? Again, picked up the $1,000 bill lying on the ground because no other Republican was willing to run on popular issues. Or is he just lazy? Yeah, he does believe it, but if itās going to take a phone callā āI have to call [Sen.] Mitch McConnell? Nah, let them do whatever they want.ā Could be laziness. Could be narcissism: āThey love me for me!ā Who knows? But he has surrounded himself by people who donāt agree with his agenda, and thatās why very, very, very little is getting done. >>So letās go the Jan. 9 meeting. So this is Trump, [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosiās in the room, other Democratic leaders. And heās talking about, letās figure out a way to deal with the Dreamer issue. [If] you come up with something good, Iām going to sign it. And itās all recorded because he wants the cameras in the room. >>Yep! >>You came out very strongly at this point condemning this DACA love fest. Whatāwhat did you see going on, and the significance of it and your attitude on it, and your audienceās attitude on it? >>It was unbelievable. I mean, the one saving grace at the time, which is why I think the 3D chess crowd really ought to shut up and join me in our last few months to save the nation, he said a lot of dumb stuff during the campaign, too. I donāt know if you remember. I think it was the first debate, second debate. He was to Marco Rubioās left on how heās going to bring in all these H-1B workers and give Mark Zuckerberg whatever he wants. So back then, things were runningā being run by people who a, know something about politics as opposed to marketing shoes; b, actually care about the issues that Trump was pushing and knew they were popularā Corey Lewandowski, Stephen Miller, moi. By the end of the debate, Trump put out a statement retracting what he had said about the H-1B visa. His immigration policy paper was magnificent. Did he write it? No, but he read it, I assume. He kept saying the same things over and over in speeches. Youād think at some point that would kind of stick in his brain. So thatās why weāwe, Iāpunch back whenever he does something stupid, because heāsā heās done stupid stuff before, but then he gets back on track. He got back on track a lot faster during the 2016 campaign because he cared about being elected. Again, I say to the 3D chess crowd, whatās the incentive in a second term? You think youāre going to get the wall then? >>So what happened in that meeting that you were watching and couldnāt believe orā or were punching back about? >>I donāt really remember distinctly. I just remember him saying he wanted to give amnesty to Dreamers. How many times do we have to win this fight?! Itās the craziest thing! Over and over and over again. And you know, I was saying in Adios, America, this is what Bush said about the terrorists: We have to win every time; they only have to win once, and the country is over. >>You called it the lowest day in his presidency. >>Yeah, until he signed the third omnibus bill not providing funding for the wall. Little did I know there was lower to come. >>Thenāthat was Tuesday. Then Thursday, the Thursday Trump. Tuesday Trump, Thursday Trump. [Sen. Dick] Durbin and [Sen. Lindsey] Graham come into the White House thinking, well, weāve gotā weāve got some plans for an immigration deal; weāve gotāweāve got possibilities here. Meanwhile, Miller, the way the story is told is Miller and with others involved sort of realized that this is a problem here; weāre going down the wrong track. And he makes some phone calls. I assume you might have been involved in the discussion that was going on. And all of a sudden youāve got in the White House a lot of very conservative legislators who are in the same room, and thereās a very different president there. Explain. Tell me that story. What happened on Thursday? >>Well, I wasnāt in the room. I havenāt worked in the White House, but it seems, I think, perfectly apparent to me and anyone else who observes this president, heāheās impulsive. He says things off the top of his head. He bears the impression of, like, a couch, bears the impression of the last person who sat on him. Itās just whoever gave him the last piece of advice, he goes out and says it, which is why itās kind of important who he surrounds himself with. >>ā¦ It sounds like youāre asking for some sort of reform that Congress might push through, because without that, you donāt accomplish anything without negotiation to find an agreement between the sides of government. And here you have this meeting which seemed to have blown that to smithereens. I mean, what were the results of that meeting, and is there a problemāhow does that define the problem in Washington to get anything done? >>No, I think the problem started sooner. Two things. Trump could put a pause on all immigration as we know from the Supreme Court ruling upholding the Muslim ban. Virtually all immigration. He could do it. Itās in the presidentās hands. Congress passed law putting that in the presidentās hands. And no, itās not good for this country, and itās not in the best interest of the country to be driving down wages more and more and more. That is not in the best interest of the country. I think that would be upheld by the Supreme Court. Point two: We had two years with a Republican House and a Republican Senate, and one of the things weāve seen, even when Trump saysā though I donāt particularly want to admit this to a Frontline audienceā but even when he tweets something that is rather stupid, you will notice Republicans in Congress wonāt attack him for it. Why? Because they know the Trump base will be angry at them if they attack him for saying something stupid. Think of the power he has! He couldnāt have gotten a Republican House and Republican Senate to vote for a moratorium on all immigration? Just a brief moratorium. We can assimilate the ones already here; we can get our books in order. The world isnāt going to fall apart, but you may have to pay your maid an extra couple of dollars. Sorry, Park Avenue! >>Letās move on to āzero tolerance.ā So then Sessions announces the zero tolerance policy. What was your audienceās view about zero tolerance? ... >>Yeah, thatās why we wanted a wall. A, it made me angry that he hasnāt started the wall yet. But as long as weāre not going to have a wall, yeah, of course youāve got to have zero tolerance policy. Weāve created a magnet. I mean, itās not like we havenāt done this before. Reagan passed an amnesty, and one amnesty begets another amnesty; it begets more and more. You are creating a magnet for more and more illegal aliens to pour in, as every country thatās ever tried an amnesty has discovered, and never done it again. We do it because we happen to have Latin America on our border as opposed to, you know, the Tatars or the Russians. Luckily, luckily for the left, oh, theyāre slightly beiger than we are so we can be accused of racism for not wanting illegal aliens pouring in. Well, weāre not vetting them. I donāt want them pouring in from Russia; I donāt want them pouring in from India; I donāt want them pouring in from Scotland, Japan or anyplace else. But oh, you get called a racist for wanting to stop illegal immigration. And thatās the only reason this is still a live issue in America. Every other country tries it and says, āOh, my gosh, this is insane.ā In fact, Spain famously asked the EU for help when they were having migrants just pouring in, pouring in. They said, āWe canātāwe canāt stop this.ā And the EU crossed its arms and said, āYou guys passed an amnesty a few years ago; you did this to yourselves.ā Well, we did it to ourselves. The only way toābefore you talk about anything thatās going to be ā¦ done with the Dreamers, you have to cut off the flow of the new ones coming more and more and more. And my gosh, if youāre giving them driverās licenses and, you know, free health care and amnestying themā it isnāt multicultural. We are getting one culture coming in. Bangladeshis donāt happen to live within walking distance. So liberals just say, āFine, screw themā? Theyāre not being vetted for crimes, for membership in gangs, for even, you know, at Ellis Island theyād slap you on the back, make you cough and see if you have tuberculosis. Now weāre getting all kinds of things coming in. We have no idea. ā¦ >>So why the executive order that the president then puts out that ends the system [of family separation]? >>Because Ivanka cried. >>Explain. >>I donāt know. Maybe he had to. I donāt think so. I think Americans are really fed up with this. I mean, Americans are the most generous people in the world. Itās manifest by their giving, private giving. Whenever thereās a tsunami, an earthquake, a warlord who is rushing in toāso Americans have very soft hearts. But when youāve been tapped on the shoulder over and over again, and it keeps turning out to be a con man, and theyāre moving in, and theyāre Gypsies, and theyāve taken over your house, at some point your patience wears out. And it doesnāt matter that the Gypsy has the crying baby, or the begging baby, I guess theyāre called in India. I think thereāthis was a politically engineered crisis. Storm the border so that we can get the pictures. And I think enough Americans understand that. >>And your attitude about the presidentās decision? >>No strong position. Build the wall. Build the wall. >>But Iām talking about here. >>I know you are. Iām saying build the wall. You can try to get me to say something else. I donāt really have a position on what you asked me about. The only position I have is build the wall. You wouldnāt have to go through this if you had kept your number one campaign promise. Build the wall. >>So he then says heās going to. So the fight over theāin December 2018, the fight over the budget, and heās, you know, demanding the $5 billion for the wall, and itās not going to be in the funding bill. >>For the third time. >>For the third time. But heās waffling about it. But then thereās pressure brought by Freedom Caucus and others, the press and other advisers, like Miller. >>No, Miller let three omnibus bills be signed. Stop acting like heās, you know, the [first grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition TomĆ”s de] Torquemada of immigration. All of this happened on his watch. >>But Fox and youā >>Nope! Not Fox! >>Not Fox? >>Do not be confused by that. Absolutely not. >>Explain. >>It was Drudge Report and Drudge Report alone that alertedāI know it alerted me, and I think it alerted Rush Limbaugh. It was a Tuesday. Drudge Report headlineāyou ought to get that headlineā āPresident to sign bill with no wall funding.ā I wrote the column that night when I was flying. And when I arrivedāI never watched Fox News, but I thought, you know, because they really, really, really want amnesty, really want to fling open the border, maids arenāt cheap enough, I watched to see how was this going to be covered on prime time. Not mentioned. Nope, not Tuesday night. Rush, God bless him, railed about it on radio the next day. I donāt think it was mentioned in Fox prime time until Thursday. Well, it was over by then. Between my column, put that at number 1,000, between Drudge and Rush, and Drudge did link to my column, so that upped it from 1,000 to having some influence on it. Oh, no, Fox News was silent. Didnāt mention it. There was other news. Didnāt mention it. >>And the results were? The government closes down. >>Yeah. >>So yourāyour view of that and how long it goes on and the results. >>The results were terrible. It couldnāt have been worse. So you shut down the government for no reason, and then you get, ooh, scared because the media is saying, oh, everybodyās going to be so mad at you. And by the way, the government didnāt shut down. That shows you if only Trump had someone, someone in administration who knew something about the government. Almost every department was already funded. I mean, the hard-luck stories, they were, you know, scraping the bottom of the barrel for on MSNBC were a joke. Theyāre goingāevery government official is goingā not official; it was, I think it was only support staff, but every major department was funded. Essential employees stay on duty during government shutdowns. ā¦ But theyāre all terrified. They were all, āOoh, Iām going to have to have a garage sale.ā Oh, you are not. You get a free vacation, government gift shop worker. Free vacation, and you get full back pay. You always have. It will always work that way. But ooh, they freak out in the White House, and the deal Trump ended up making was even worse. >>Mistake? >>Yeah, of course it was a mistake. I mean, what Trump provedā I donāt know why he canāt learn from his own campaign. He ran a beautiful campaign, and what he should have learned from his campaign was, number one, donāt listen to donors. They hate America. You donāt need their money. Number two, donāt freak out and become a scaredy cat when the media attacks you! Itās good for you! It helps you! And they freaked out in the White House. >>ā¦ So, weāll come up to the present, move closer to the present now. So by March of 2019, the border crisis is getting worse, and the arrests are at a two-year high. Your view of why itās grown to this extent, why the crisis has become worse and worse during this period of time. Is itāis any of this due to Trump? >>Itās allāwell, you canāt say itās all due to Trump, but none of this would exist if Trump had simply hired some people who knew how to keep his promises. Whether thatās because he doesnāt care about his promises or heās just a lazy narcissist, who knows? But thatās the fact. He didnāt hire the people who can get it done. And itās not getting done. And yes, itās worse than itās ever been. Itās worse than it would have been under Hillary; Hillary would know she couldnāt get away with this. Itās worse than it was under Obama. Itās an absolute disaster. And he seems to have no interestāhe, the presidentā no interest in finding out how to make it any better. As long as he goes out and says something wild about the press and gets unfairly attacked, unfairly attacked by all the Democrats, unfairly attacked by the media, lied about in the media, thatās going to keep bringing the base back. And I think we should support him when heās unfairly attacked. I would just like it to be him being unfairly attacked for doing something and not tweeting something. >>The level of frustration is very high in the White House at this point. Heās very frustrated. His anger is growing at the people around him. This is when youāre also attacking the DHS leadership. And he eventually comes around to firing [Secretary Kirstjen] Nielsen, firing others involved in DHS and trying toāI assume this is his answer to trying to do the next thing, trying to do something. He wants tougher people. He wants tougher policies. He wants people to do what he says he wants them to do. >>Talk, talk, talk. Thatās what he says. Doesnāt do anything that would accomplish that. He puts something in charge whoās as bad as Nielsen. So you got rid of one bad and absolutely idiotic choice for the single most important department in your administration, Department of Homeland Security, and replaced her with someone equally bad. Way to go, Mr. President! >>And the answer would have been? >>Kris Kobach, as it would have been from day one. Iāve got to tell you, you can look back at my columns a month after his election, during the transition, when he did not immediately announce that it was going to be Kris Kobach, I said this isāI predicted ball and pocket what was going to happen if you donāt surround yourself with people who know how to get this done. Youāre going to be lied to. You will have bureaucrats saying, āOh, you canāt do that.ā Theyāll make the wrong arguments in court. Theyāll make the wrong arguments on TV, and you wonāt get any of it done. Hire Kris Kobach. He never hired Kris Kobach. ā¦ No, Kobach is a lovely person. There is notāhe is rhetorically the molecular opposite of Donald Trump. He is the Marshall Scholar version of someone who loves our country. He understands the policies. There would be nothing being, you know, running roughshod over the law or immigrants. Heās a kind person. ā¦ >>And the argument made by Nielsen and others in the DHS was they were attempting to do the things that the president wanted, but they werenāt able to do it because of legalities, and they were trying to slow things down so they would take place in a way that would hold up in the courts. >>Thatās almost verbatim what I predicted would happen if he didnāt hire the right people. This is what theyāll tell you, Mr. President: āOh, we canāt; thereās a court ruling against that.ā Oh, my gosh. It is so easy to stop something if you donāt want it done, and the entire bureaucracy doesnāt want it done. Like I say, it would be tough even for Reagan to accomplish his agenda if he didnāt surround himself with people who knew what they were doing. Tough, but possible. With someone who himself has no idea whatās going on and no particular strong beliefs that it should be done? Not a chance. >>ā¦ So you kind of discountāthe way that itās reported in a lot of places is that Miller is really the one behind it. >>Yes, the media has that 100% wrong. >>Tell me one more time. A lot of people say right now heās the one that got Nielsen fired; heās the one that is pushing forward these much more aggressive policies than anybody else. And so heās the guy whoās the last man standing. >>The media have this totally wrong. Itās hilarious. Iām sure heās enjoying it. No, heās the one who kept immigration patriots out of the White House because he wants to be the only one; he wants the full credit, and he wants Trump to only check with him. By the way, where was he when his old boss Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, was being humiliated day after day after day by the president? Was he going in, slapping president on the back, āNice job, yeah. That Sessions, youāre right. Heāsāā? And furthermore, there was only lonely voice in the woods who said that Sessions should not be AG. I wanted himāI said put him in immigration; put him in Homeland. And I was told, āOh, heās always wanted to be attorney general.ā I said, āWeāve got 10 seconds on the clock to save the nation. This isnāt Make-a-Wish Foundation. Donāt put him there.ā I mean, he was great. He did more than anybody else in the administration. But I mean, I would have put [William] Barr. Heās veryāthe attorney general does have to do things other than immigration. Barr is very smart, very good, has worked in Department of Justice before. We should have keptā I would have kept Sessions in the Senate. Weāve lost a senator. Now he was replaced by a Democrat because of more idiocy from the White House, endorsing the establishment, pro-amnesty candidate because Mitch McConnell asked him to. And then we end up with Roy Moore instead of just endorsing Mo Brooks to begin with. No, no! Canāt do that! Because that would be a good idea. >>Why does Trump do that? >>The story was that McConnell told [Jared] Kushner that he wanted Trump to endorse Luther Strange, the pro-amnesty Republican. Good thinking. That was a good move. >>But then eventuallyā >>Well, Strange, of course, lost. >>Right, and then eventually Trump supports Moore. But at that pointā >>What else are you going to do? Thatās against the Democrat. So in the most conservative state in the union, we now have a Democratic senator because of the genius machinations of Jared Kushner and Mitch McConnell. So good, you know, to have people who know what theyāre doing. Trumpās like the guy who, you know, breaks up a marriage and then refuses to marry theāmarry the wife. He gets Sessions out of the Senate and then blows the Senate seat. >>Just to finalize on Sessions and whatever Miller does or does not do, Bannon, who is involved with them in the very beginning on these issues on immigration, how much do they actually get done in the end? Did they accomplishāhow many of the goals that Sessions specifically was trying to accomplish? >>Sessions did some stuff. IāIāIām not sure. Sessions did some things; it would be hard to quantify that. It was the only place, pretty much, that anything was being done on Trumpās promises. So it was really fun to watch Trump humiliating Sessions every day on Twitter, the one guy keeping your promises. But look, itās all about personnel. Itās all about personnel. If he cared, heād hire the right people.
Oof, no, we can do better guys