← Pod Force One
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- [00:01]
Miranda Devine
Hello and welcome back to PodForce One. I'm Miranda Devine, and today I'm coming to you from my apartment in New York City because we are completely snowed in today. On the podcast, we're joined by bestselling author Peter Schweitzer, who just released a hit new book called the Invisible How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon. Thank you so much, Peter Schweitzer, for joining us on podforce One. And congratulations on your latest book, Invisible Coup, which is still on the New York Times bestseller list, I believe.
- [00:36]
Peter Schweitzer
Well, thank you. It's great to be with you, Miranda. I appreciate that very much.
- [00:40]
Miranda Devine
It's quite a coup, actually, even just getting on a New York Times bestseller list, which you've done multiple times. But you really have to sell a lot of books for them to recognize a book that's not sort of in their ideological wavelengths. So that is some feat. And it feels like this book is so timely and almost going to be a bigger hit than the others and also more impactful because I guess the premise of your book is that the invisible coup is the mass migration, particularly The Joe Biden 20 million illegal migrants that he ushered over the border. So just in a nutshell, how is that a coup?
- [01:26]
Peter Schweitzer
Well, I think because, you know, we've been having a great debate in this country about immigration, and that conversation's been mostly about wages and violence on our streets. But we need to remind ourselves that when people come to the United States, they not only bring themselves, their family members, they also bring political networks. And those political networks are quite active and in fact, are antithetical to those of the United States. So that's really where the coupart comes, comes in. The reality is that this is not the migration of 120 years ago when the Irish came or even 50 years ago when Mexican Americans came. This is weaponized migration that has a political purpose and a political direction and is organized. And it's not me saying that, Miranda. It's really people, foreign officials saying that's the purpose of this immigration. So that's where the coup comes in. People will push back and say it's not invisible. I see it everywhere. But I think the political part has been neglected. And that's what I try to highlight in the book. Whether it's Mexico, China, or the Muslim Brotherhood, the political networks that they have embedded inside the United States. That's really the focus of the book.
- [02:39]
Miranda Devine
Yeah, I mean, the real light bulb moment for me came reading the book when you started talking about the Mexican infiltration of Mexican embassies. And it made sense with the anti ICE protests and so on. It made sense. You know, you see sometimes in Times Square, a whole lot of protests going on with Mexican flags being flown. Tell us about that. And what is the purpose?
- [03:08]
Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, I mean, it's funny because when you say that Mexico has a strategy against the United States, people are like, really? The Mexican government has a strategy because we kind of view them as corrupt and hapless. And that's kind of true, but it's not completely true. They have a decidedly different view of mass migration than we do. Our view is that Mexico needs this as a safety valve. Mexico needs this because of remittances. You know, they get $60 billion sent back. But what we neglect is what Mexican officials themselves say. And if I could, I just want to read two quotes. I mean, I could literally read dozens of them in the book. This is how they explain mass migration to the United States. And it's very different. The first one is from a December 2024 report by President Sheinbaum's. One of our top aides, Gabriela Rodriguez, who said in December 2024, quote, we already know that the Mexican population in the United States reaches 39.9 million. We Mexicans are reclaiming our territory. Like, what are they talking about? Or this other one from a Mexican senator, Felix Salgado. He's on the National Defense Committee, which is the most powerful committee in the Senate. He's a member of the Marina Party, the ruling party. He said just a couple years ago, quote, mexicans are in our territory. California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming. We're going to take back the territory that was stolen from us. I mean, this sounds ridiculous, right? I mean, and yet when you realize that Mexico has actually erected a political infrastructure in the United States that is geared towards organizing those immigrants to serve Mexico's interests in very specific ways, and that this apparatus is organizing some of these anti ICE protests, and that this apparatus is meddling in our domestic politics. You realize that maybe we ought to give them a little more credit and not write them off as incompetent. And that's, I think, one of the most important, important conclusions of this book.
- [05:21]
Miranda Devine
And what's their aim? I mean, is it. Is it genuinely to take over parts of the country, or is it to influence politics so that there are more friendly policies towards Mexico?
- [05:35]
Peter Schweitzer
That's a great question, Miranda. I mean, I obviously can't look into their heads and know exactly what they mean. I'm kind of doubtful that they expect Nevada and Arizona to become Mexican states. But what they are doing is already exerting sovereignty inside, inside the US Borders, which ought to be alarming enough. You know, I briefed people at the White House, people on Capitol Hill on the book. None of them were aware of, and they were all shocked when I disclosed that Mexico right now has more than a dozen elected officials that live inside the United States. These are Mexican senators and Mexican congressmen or member of their chambers of Deputies. They live in the United States, and their job is to represent Mexican migrants in our country before the Mexican government, which is a massive invasion of our sovereignty. We also know that these officials, I name them in the book, are organizing anti Trump protests, which they should not be meddling in our politics. So I think their goal is to exert sovereignty and political influence in our country. There was a conversation. I got a copy of the transcript, a conversation, a meeting of Mexican consular officials in May of 2024 in Oklahom City that included Democratic Party activists in the United States. And the discussion was about how they had helped turn states from red to blue and that they were hoping to do more of that in November of 2024, which they failed to do. So I think your point is quite right. They probably don't. I mean, who knows? They probably don't literally expect these states to become Mexican states, but they do want to become political kingmakers within our borders, and they are already trying to do that. I think they've had a lot of success already.
- [07:28]
Miranda Devine
And you would have to say that the cartels, which are almost indistinguishable from the Mexican government, would have to have a hand in that. And, I mean, for Donald Trump to stop the illegal migration across the border has been a great tragedy for their wallets.
- [07:48]
Peter Schweitzer
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think one of the biggest myths is that the drug cartels are primarily in the drug business. The fact is, during the Biden years, they made a lot more money in human smuggling across the border than they did selling drugs to Americans. So, yeah, this is their business model. They are joined at the hip with the Mexican government. We certainly saw the recent report where there was a cartel leader that was killed by Mexican forces, forces. The interesting thing I note in the book is that President Sheinbaum has what are believed to be close ties with a cartel, but it's the other cartel, it's the Sinaloa cartel, which she has failed to take aggressive action on. And she appointed as a senior police official first when she was mayor. Of Mexico City. And then when she became president, a gentleman who is known to be tied to the drug cartels. So, yes, this is a major problem. And I think that Trump's strategy of going after the drug cartels and forcing essentially the Mexican government to do so, it's going to be very, very interesting, because President Scheinbaum's going to have to choose who she wants to work with, the cartels or the United States government.
- [09:12]
Miranda Devine
And you have talked to the president and his team about the findings in your book. What kind of a reaction did you get from them?
- [09:21]
Peter Schweitzer
About a week before the book came in, I was asked to go and brief the president in the Oval Office. I'd shared the book with a mutual friend who thought it was worthwhile for him to listen. He actually asked for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant to join us for that meeting. So we were together for 55, five minutes, walked him through the situation in Mexico and also the issue of China and birthright citizenship. I was very encouraged. They're looking to take action, I think, particularly as it relates to China on birthright citizenship and some other issues. I think Mexico is obviously more complicated, because when you're trying to get the government's cooperation to deal with the drug cartels, that may not be the best time to start talking about closing down consulates. But that was certainly part of the conversation that I brought up. The fact that Mexico has a network of 53 consulates in the United States. The UK and China, I think, respectively, have six and seven, and that these consulates are involved in domestic American politics, which is totally not what diplomats are supposed to be doing. So I came away encouraged. I also had meetings with about half a dozen US Senators and people like our mutual friend James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee. And I expect that we'll see action on Capitol Hill. The biggest thing, Miranda, is getting our decision makers to realize there's a difference between having an immigration debate and having a weaponized immigration debate. I think we need to focus on the weaponization first, and then let's have the broader conversation about the level of legal immigration. My parents were immigrants to this country. I think it's a wonderful thing, but we can't really decide on how we want to do that and the level as long as we allow this other outrageous conduct to continue.
- [11:20]
Miranda Devine
And one of the most frightening revelations in your book was this birthright citizenship that's being weaponized by China. And tell us about these thousands of Chinese babies that are being born here. And then go home to China to be sort of brainwashed into their way of thinking, but just waiting to come back.
- [11:47]
Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, this is probably the biggest surprise in the book. Obviously, a lot of people familiar with birthright citizenship, the notion that the 14th Amendment says if your mother happens to be inside the United States when she gives birth, you are automatically granted U.S. citizenship. And I was not really exercised that much about this issue until I realized the sort of industrial scale exploitation of it by the Chinese. You know, beginning in 2011, 2012, the People's Daily, which is the major mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, started running articles to the elites of their own country saying you can go to the United States and get citizenship for your children by doing this. And they've allowed in the years since then to flourish this so called birth tourism industry, where there are literally thousands of Chinese companies that Chinese elites pay maybe eighty, a hundred thousand dollars to fly their pregnant wives or girlfriends to the United States. They give birth here. As soon as the child is able to travel on an airplane again, they fly back to China. But they carry with them a birth certificate and the ability to declare themselves an American citizen at any time. Now, our government literally has no idea how many people have done this because we don't track it. Birth certificates do not list the nationality of the parents. But the Chinese government has looked into this and Chinese research firms have, and the numbers are eye popping. Their estimates are that every year over the last 13 years, roughly 100,000 Chinese babies have been born in the United States or our territories. That includes Saipan, places like Guam, et cetera. That is included in birthright citizenship. And as you correctly point out, the problem is these are quote unquote U.S. citizens, more than a million of them who've never lived here, that have no connection to the country whatsoever, who've been raised in an elite society of the ccp. Because the people that are doing this in China are military officers, intelligence officers, CCP officials. So this is a massive problem because remember, US Citizen doesn't matter if you're living full time in China, you can still vote. You can vote in American elections. We're looking at a more than a million of them there. And that 2016 election when Trump beat Hillary Clinton was settled by roughly 72,000 votes. So this is a massive, massive vulnerability.
- [14:30]
Miranda Devine
So how do you guard against that? If President Xi wanted to, he could mobilize those 1 million Chinese US citizens to vote against Donald Trump. That's a nice weapon to have in your knapsack.
- [14:44]
Peter Schweitzer
It absolutely is. It's strange because China officially says no dual citizenship, and yet they've encouraged this behavior, and they allow this industry that creates dual citizenship to flourish. So I think there is absolutely a strategic component to this. Remember, Hong Kong used to have basically birthright citizenship, and they ended that in 2010 because there were so many people from mainland China coming to have children that the Hong Kong government at that time declared that this was a subversive act. Now, we are bigger than Hong Kong, obviously. But to your point, you can literally mobilize more than a million voters in a few years. That could be enormously important for an election. And you know, you've done a lot of coverage on voter fraud in elections. It's not that difficult to establish residency in the United States. All you need to do is put your name on a lease agreement at an apartment in Tempe, Arizona, or whatever state you want, and essentially you can vote absentee from overseas. There are lots of American expatriates that are living overseas that vote by mail overseas. There's no reason why these individuals could not do the same thing.
- [16:01]
Miranda Devine
It's frightening. And the other frightening revelation in your book is the Chinese pilots learning to fly in American flying schools. You would think that we might have learned after 911 what's going on there.
- [16:16]
Peter Schweitzer
You're right. I mean, we all remember 911 and the terrorists that learned to train in flight schools and didn't want to learn how to land. These trainees from China do want to learn how to land because many of them are going to end up flying for the People's Liberation Army Air Force and squaring off against our pilots. And this is sort of a legacy of 9 11. We passed a law after 911 that said if you come from a terrorist sponsoring country, you cannot go to flight schools in the United States. But that did not include China. And China has a pilot problem. They estimate, according to their literature, they need about 5,000 new pilots a year. They can only train about 1250 because the military has tight restrictions on airspace. So what they do is come to flight schools in the United States and say, we will pay the full freight of tuition. Meaning the Chinese government, it's $90,000 a year. And these flight schools are glad to take it. But you look at there's a flight school outside of Merced, California, for example. Over 90% of the people learning to fly there are Chinese nationals. And then what happens is when they go back to China, the best pilots will then go on for advanced military training in China. So it's a huge national security vulnerability. It's not something that I think we should be even remotely doing. And I'm hoping that that's an area we're going to see some action. It's probably gonna require legislation from Congress is my understanding. Curiously, Miranda, in both of these issues we've talked about birthright citizenship and flight training. The epicenter in both instances is the state of California. And California is a state that, as we both have experienced, has so much regulation on so many things, except they do not have any regulations on Berke tourism and they do not have any regulations on training pilots from China, which are areas where they actually have regulatory control. So you really have to wonder what is the play here for California political officials?
- [18:31]
Miranda Devine
Well, I mean, you just have to look at Eric Swalwell and Fang Fang and you know, Gavin Newsom cozying up and Dianne Feinstein. There's a long history, isn't there, of China co opting California politicians?
- [18:45]
Peter Schweitzer
Yes, there absolutely is. So we need to be aware of these things and again realize weaponized immigration is what we're dealing with. And I'm optimistic and hopeful that we're going to get action on some of these areas.
- [18:59]
Miranda Devine
One thing that was noticeable in the floodgates that Joe Biden opened was the number of Chinese military aged males who seem to be flocking over very well built, flocking over the border and melting into the community. Do we know what happened to them and what their motives were?
- [19:21]
Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, that's a great question. We know that some of them ended up working for Chinese organized crime. And we know that because there have been a series of busts of illegal marijuana growth operations in the state of Maine. I know you have covered that and I've looked at that and it turns out that many of the people that are operating those facilities or those growth operations are people that are actually illegally in the country that snuck across the border. And this goes to something we talked about earlier, which is the fusion of organized crime networks with governments. That certainly applies in the state of Mexico. It also applies to the government of China. Chinese organized crime networks are very close to the ccp. We know that President Xi, when he was a rising CCP official, the area that he spent the most time in training was in Fujian Province. And Fujian Province is the epicenter of Chinese organized crime networks. So I think we have to acknowledge that when Chinese organized crime is operating in the United States or the cartels are operating in the United States, they are working as partners with their respective governments. That's I think the Approach and mindset, we have to say. So crossing the border illegally, these Chinese nationals ending up working with the cartels, you certainly have to believe that there is a Chinese government hand in those activities as well.
- [20:53]
Miranda Devine
You've done a lot of good work on Joe Biden and his family's enrichment by the ccp. Tens of millions of dollars that flowed to the family coffers via Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim Biden. Joe Biden seems to have sort of evaded Scot free any accountability for that. But during his presidency, you know, he certainly did appear to go soft on China. Maybe not so much he left the Trump tariffs in place, but things like espionage at our universities, he inexplicably dismantled that FBI program. Do you think that we are suffering now and into the future as a result of Joe Biden being co opted or somehow manipulated by China?
- [21:44]
Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, well, and Miranda, you've done a couple of excellent books on this topic as well. So yes, I do think there is a component, and it's particularly interesting to note, as I did in my book Blood Money, that there's this Chinese organized crime figure named White Wolf. He's actually originally from Taiwan, but he's pro ccp. And White Wolf was the head of the ubg, which is a Chinese organized crime gang that really introduced the Sinaloa cartel to the fentanyl trade. They actually went to the Sinaloa cartel and said, you know, look, we know you're making a lot of money on cocaine, but we can boost your, your profits tenfold. And instead of hauling these big, you know, shipments of cocaine, we can just give you these little packets of fentanyl that's potent. You're going to make a lot more money. That was White Wolf and the UBG that introduced the Sinalo cartel. So why is that interesting? Well, it turns out that one of White Wolf's business partners sent $5 million to the Biden family during, you know, Joe Biden's tenure as Vice president. So there are entanglements upon entanglements. And you know, I've noted this, you have noted this. All you have to do is look at Joe Biden's trajectory as a politician. He used to be very hawkish on China, very hawkish when China even wasn't the military threat that it is now. I mean, this is a guy who in the 1990s was holding hearings about, you know, the Chinese are involved in the heroin trade now. He has completely backed down when China has risen in power and strength and has risen the threat level to us as well. So I think the only conclusion you can come to is there is a relationship between the money that the Bidens made in China that they hope to make in China as well, and his softening of his position.
- [23:47]
Miranda Devine
And now you also talk about the Muslim Brotherhood and their malign influence on a lot of, I guess, Muslim migration, particularly the illegal migration that's come across the border under Biden. Tell us about why we should be worried about that.
- [24:06]
Peter Schweitzer
Well, I think for a couple of reasons. First, because they describe themselves how immigration is a weapon to be used. It is an extension of jihad. And again, this is what the mullahs and Muslim leaders say it is. And I think the second thing we have to do is be realistic about what their views are on penetration of the United States. You know, as I note in the book, back in 2021, there was a conversation with some Islamic leaders about how they only really needed to capture 10 or 11% of a local population to actually achieve political power because so few Americans vote in primaries. And if we go and win a primary with our guy, we can effectively pick who is going to be in political office, which is exactly what they did in New York City with Mamdani. So is to achieve political power. But the other thing that I would add to that is to understand, again, this is weaponized migration, not normal migration. So what do I mean by that? I'm going to read a couple of more quotes. Again, sorry to do this, too.
- [25:16]
Miranda Devine
Yeah, that's good.
- [25:17]
Peter Schweitzer
But I think it illustrates the point. These are just two quotes from officials with care, which is the Council on American Islamic Relations, you know, the big Islamist lobby group. This is how they describe the role of Muslims in the United States. The first one is from the Florida Care Director, Hassan Shibley in 2025, quote, I mean, why are we living here? Have we asked ourselves this question? Why are we living in the United States? The only answer I believe is excusable and justifiable is if we are living here to shift this country's political and spiritual direction together. Or one more quote. This is from Ilsan Bagby, who's a member of the board of directors of the National Care Organization. Again, from 2025. He said, ultimately, we can never be full citizens of this country because there's no way we can be fully committed to the institutions of this country. We can be citizens in the sense that we try to influence American policy. So they're not interested in becoming Americas. They're not interested in assimilating. The Islamists want to bring in people and then encourage people and pressure people not to assimilate because they want to use it as a weapon. They want weaponized immigration. And we need to recognize that, believe them in their own words. You know, I find it strange that the left doesn't want to listen to what they're actually saying, which means leads me to believe either A, they are in on it, or B, they are being incredibly insulting to these people and saying we don't really think they actually mean it. And I think they do mean it. It's pretty clear based on their actions, they mean it.
- [27:04]
Miranda Devine
And when you say they're in on it, I mean, clearly there was a reason that the Democrats, that Joe Biden deliberately opened the borders, deliberately made it easy for illegal migrants to come in, gave them Social Security numbers, created an app to make it so that they completely seamless turned a blind eye to the exploitation of children, the trafficking of women and children, sexual abuse. Real atrocities. What is that reason?
- [27:36]
Peter Schweitzer
I think it's raw political power. There are some true believers. There is this red green alliance between, you know, secular Marxist people of the left and the mullahs, for example. Odd alliance, but a real alliance. But I think primarily among Democrats. It's political. And I have an entire chapter on the book. It's called voter mills. And the phrase voter mills comes from an email in the White House where White House officials are talking about how they are abandoning or loosening citizenship requirements because they want to create as many new citizens as possible. Why? Because the Democrats decided in the 1990s research supported that 85% of new migrants vote Democratic. Now. That evens out over time. Over a 20 to 30 year trajectory, it gets closer to 50 50. But that advantage lasts for a couple of decades. So this is what they've done. Every president from Bill Clinton, Barack Obama to Joe Biden came in. They essentially got rid of criminal background check for new citizens. They got rid of the literacy requirements that you understand basic English. They got rid of any kind of civics test because they wanted to MIT new voters. And if you look at recent American history, the three biggest years for nationalizing new citizens were 1996, 2012 and 2024, which were all reelection years for Democratic presidents. But even if they don't want them to vote. Miranda, there's the issue of how we apportion congressional districts, right? The census determines that. The census counts people. It does not count citizens. California is estimated to have between four and seven more congressional seats than they ordinarily would simply because of the presence of illegals in the state of California. If you take just that conservative estimate of 4, that may not seem like a lot, but then consider the fact that those four that are representing illegals in California, that is a larger congressional delegation than 13 different American states. So this is hugely important politically for Democrats. And that's why they are fighting deportations even of rapists and criminals, because they realize that this sucks away at their political base.
- [30:05]
Miranda Devine
And I mean, when you say rapists and criminals, Donald Trump was sneered at for saying, you know, they're not sending their best. They've opened their prisons and their lunatic asylums and are sending their people. But that's exactly what happened, wasn't it?
- [30:20]
Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, it's exactly what happened.
- [30:22]
Miranda Devine
It's a disproportionate number.
- [30:23]
Peter Schweitzer
Yes, exactly right. And this is kind of a replay of the Mariel boat lift, you know, which was in 1980, where Fidel Castro emptied up, emptied out his prisons. You know, Jimmy Carter said, we're going to welcome the refugees with open arms. And Fidel Castro told his aides, well, then we're going to fill his arms with human action. Excrement. He used a stronger word than that. And that was the strategy. And it's interesting when he carried that out. Our federal government did a study in the late 2000s and said the three biggest, most successful attacks on the United States in our history were 9 11, Pearl harbor and the Mariel Boat Lift in terms of the effect on Americans. And look at those three attacks after 9 11, we destroyed Al Qaeda. After Pearl harbor, we destroyed the Japanese Empire. After the Mario boat lift, nothing. And this is why weaponized immigration is such a powerful tool. Who do you attack? Who do you invade? Where do you send the Marines? So when Fidel Castro did this in 1980, he took a trip to Managua, Nicaragua, where he met with Daniel Ortega, who had just taken power in Nicaragua. And one of the people that was there was a Brazilian leader named Lula. Lula is now the president of Brazil, and Daniel Ortega is still the leader of Nicaragua. They saw the lessons of the Mariel boatlift. And so when Joe Biden opened up the gates, they immediately went about sending as many people as possible, people with mental problems, people with criminal pasts. It was a replay of the Marriott boatlift, but on a massive scale. Marriott boatlift was 125,000 people. We don't know, some estimates are 20 million came across the border. So it was on a thermonuclear scale.
- [32:14]
Miranda Devine
So really, Joe Biden's border invasion is the fourth Big attack on the United States, maybe the worst of all.
- [32:22]
Peter Schweitzer
Yes, I think it probably, you know, if they were to do that study now, it would probably surpass the Mario boat lift. When you look in terms of the violent crime it's caused the criminal networks that have been in our country. Fidel Castro got organized crime networks and drug cartels in the United States. Certainly that happened during Joe Biden's watch. So I would say it's probably right up there with 9, 11 and with Pearl Harbor. It doesn't have the buildings collapsing, it doesn't have the American soldiers being killed, but it is a kinetic attack. And the problem again with this kind of weaponized immigration is, is it's a lot harder to deal with. You cannot destroy an enemy military infrastructure and declare victory. That's why we have to be in tune, on guard, what's going on. And we also have to call out those sort of domestic collaborators who've gone along with this and are fighting tooth and nail out of their own political self interest to prevent our federal government from dealing with this problem.
- [33:25]
Miranda Devine
And so I mean, the collaborators are the Democrats. Are there any who are the worst, if you had to name names?
- [33:32]
Peter Schweitzer
Well, I would say there's a couple of elements. There's the Democratic Party establishment that sees the obvious electoral advantage. Then you have progressives within the Democratic Party, which are obviously the most powerful element in that party. But the progressives see mass migration not just as a political winner. They see it as transformative to the country. That's the language that they use. That's why the left part of the Democratic Party, which is of course the most important component these days, is particularly keen on fighting this because they see it as not only helping Democratic electoral chances, but they also believe that it shifts the United States politically to the left. And if you look at the polling that has been done by reputable polling organizations, immigrants that are coming from the developing world are much more trusting of government authority. They don't want to challenge government authority. They want much more government collectivist action. They're much less individualistic in their orientation. They're more concerned about so called collective rights than they are individual rights. If this is all sounding familiar, it should. That's essentially what aoc Craig Cesar, Bernie Sanders want. And this is why Bernie Sanders and others have really shifted their position over the last 10 years from earlier on being closed the borders to now welcoming them in because it is a means by which they can change the population and the political mood in the country.
- [35:10]
Miranda Devine
So Donald Trump has managed to close the border very effectively. But his deportation efforts are really hitting heavy weather and there's concern within the Republican Party that it's going to damage them. Them coming up to the midterms, what's your feeling about it? What would be if you were asked your advice, what would be your advice to continue with the mass deportations or dial it back and pull out of Minnesota, for instance, as they did Minneapolis?
- [35:40]
Peter Schweitzer
Well, it's a great question, Miranda. I think the deportations need to continue. I think Tom Holman will probably have a more deft hand at it than has been done in the past. But look, at the end of the day, this is a fundamental question of sovereignty. You know, this word that gets tossed around. But let's really consider what's going on here. We have federal laws that are clear cut. Nobody's challenged them. Federal laws that say we have a right, federal authorities have a right to deport people that are illegally in the country. We had an election on this very issue. Donald Trump did not hide the fact of what his plans were. He won the election. And now you have state and local officials in California and Minnesota saying, well, we don't like that federal law, so we're going to interfere and prevent you from enforcing federal law. Last time I remember this happening in the United States was in the 1960s in Mississippi and Alabama over issues of segregation. And that took the National Guard. I'm not saying we need to send the National Guard, but this is a fundamental issue of does the federal government have sovereignty in these areas? And I think if you back down and you allow these states to win, not only does it lock in their political advantage. Right. Because their migrant population remains the same, but it also sends the message that now, if you are of the progressive left and you don't like certain federal laws, you can just interfere and ignore them. Get cooperation from local authorities and you're good. And I don't think that's the kind of country we want to live in. Certainly I don't think we wanted that in 1960s Alabama, and I don't think we want it now.
- [37:24]
Miranda Devine
I totally agree. And I think the Trump administration has a couple of sort of options they can go with to solve some of the problems. For instance, getting through the Save America Voter ID Election Integrity act, if the Senate will wake up, and then also to change the way the census is held, isn't that right, that if they only count citizens, that should remove some of the incentives for the Democrats?
- [37:56]
Peter Schweitzer
Yes, I think that's exactly right. The other thing I would say is, and this is certainly the message I delivered in Washington is we need to shut down these foreign government networks, political networks in our country that are organizing and fanning the flames of these protests, these anti ICE operations. There are Mexican government officials living in our country, you know, saying, we are part of the permanent resistance. We're going to organize the militancy against Trump. They're meeting with antifa groups. You have Mexican government officials that are fanning the flames. I'm sorry, that should not be tolerated. There has certainly been reporting the New York Post has done it. We have certainly done it about groups like FRSO and psl, you know, these hardcore left wing groups that are bent on causing violent confrontations that have extensive China ties. Again, there is no reason we should be tolerating it. And I think even if you found somebody who is a liberal Democrat who does not like Donald Trump, if you said, are you in favor of foreign governments stoking protests in the United States, I would imagine a fair number of them would say no. This is a family feud. This is a family squabble. Let us resolve it. But we don't want foreign nationals. I think this would be an 8020 issue for Donald Trump. So I'm hoping that they will look at and there are some very specific actions they could take to shut down these foreign political networks that are causing agitation on our streets.
- [39:29]
VRBO Representative
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- [40:00]
Miranda Devine
So, Peter, you're writing a. A crucial bestseller pretty much every couple of years. How do you do that? And I know you've got a team behind you, but what's your background and how did you get to have that sort of eye for what's important to write about?
- [40:18]
Peter Schweitzer
Well, you know, Miranda, I think the first time I met you was at a Gatestone event in New York. And I think you asked me a similar question and I said, well, Miranda, I have to write something interesting every two years. You have to do it two or three times a week. So. So I'm blessed in the fact that the format that I use, which is books, really gives me a lot of time to dig deep. And I don't have, you know, I don't have to feed the beast, so to speak. I don't have to be constantly generating things. So that helps a lot. I consider myself more a researcher than a writer. I actually hate writing. I love researching.
- [40:54]
Miranda Devine
I think we all do.
- [40:55]
Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- [40:57]
Miranda Devine
It's hard work.
- [40:58]
Peter Schweitzer
I don't know many professional writers that enjoy it, but. But I love finding the nuggets. So, you know, I. I started working on this book in February of 2024, so I essentially had two years. Probably 75% of that is researching. And if you do your research job well, then I think the writing comes pretty easy. So I'm fortunate in doing that. And it's just sort of my, you know, my natural, I think, curiosity. I love digging. I've got a guy on staff who's fluent in Chinese, who's very helpful. But I love the hunt. I love finding, and I love looking at what is the big story? And immigration, of course, was a big story. And the question was, is there anything new to say on immigration? And I sort of took that as a challenge. So I feel very blessed with the team I have with what the expectations for me in terms of the time constraints, and I love what I do. And I would say the biggest challenge we all face is not too little information out there. It's too much. It's being able to sift through all the stuff and figure out what's valuable, and that's what time allows me to
- [42:10]
Miranda Devine
do, because there are so many enormous stories that seem to sort of flood through the social media and through the floodgates every day, and, you know, no one really has time to grab all of them and turn them into something meaningful. And I think that's one of the aspects of your books that's so helpful because you have a good way of integrating all those important nuggets that you've uncovered and have appeared through congressional inquiries or whatever, and they're just washed over us, and no one's made it sort of part of the jigsaw puzzle. And how did the idea for this book come about? What was the nugget that told you that? Oh, this is it. This is my next book.
- [42:55]
Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, there were really two stories that broke us. I decided I wanted to do something on immigration. So I started looking at, what do these foreign powers think of immigration? And I started running across. You know, I read a couple of them running across these quotes from Mexico, and I thought, this is really weird. I mean, I knew that there had been these, you know, Chicano activists in the 1970s that said we're going to retake California. But so that really got me curious from the standpoint, okay, if that's their perspective, how does that govern what they are doing? And is there evidence that they're actually doing it? So it's like getting a clue. It's almost like a criminal case, right? You get a clue and you say, okay, I'm going to follow that through. And then for me, it was also this practice of birth tourism why we found the newspaper in China in 2011. Think about this, the CCP telling Chinese citizens, you have a constitutional right for your child to become a US Citizen too. I thought, why on earth would they do that? And why would they allow this big birth tourism industry to flourish? That's what got me really curious about it. So I find those threads and then I'm kind of off to the races and then my very patient wife and family puts up with me obsessing over this stuff for 18 months or whatever.
- [44:16]
Miranda Devine
And have you got your next idea in mind?
- [44:19]
Peter Schweitzer
What's the next big topic? I don't, but I would love any thoughts you might have on that, having written several great books yourself, but I haven't thought of it yet. But I am in the process. I've got a contract to do another book. This first book was part of the two book deal. So I'm hoping to come up with something very soon. So I'd love to hear any suggestions.
- [44:40]
Miranda Devine
What about artificial intelligence? Because that's another China race and I mean an existential threat if we don't get it right.
- [44:48]
Peter Schweitzer
No, that's a great topic and I am very interested in that topic. I have a very good friend of mine, Wynton hall, who has just written a book that's coming out in a few weeks called Code Red on that topic.
- [44:59]
Miranda Devine
Oh, wow.
- [45:00]
Peter Schweitzer
If I have something additional to say to him, it may be AI. But I do think this nexus of domestic elites in the United States, foreign powers working in collaboration in a way to control us, not as some kind of like James Bond Dr. No sort of thing, but in a confluence of interests. Because what you find a lot of times, and I think AI is an example, you get people from China, from Silicon Valley. People in Silicon Valley aren't necessarily Marxist Leninists at all, but they both want an element of control. And so they look sort of like a Venn diagram with the overlapping circles. They find that common interest. I think that is one of the biggest threats to liberty that we face in the Western world today. So I'd Encourage people pick up Code Red. It is a terrific book. I have endorsed it. But yes, AI is one of those topics I'm definitely interested in.
- [45:54]
Miranda Devine
Yeah, it sounds interesting. I remember there was a professor in China who famously was a leaked speech but became quite famous after Joe Biden was elected, saying that Trump was going to be a problem and sort of chortling about the fact that he'd lost. And the problem was that Wall street, you know, we have our friends in Wall street, but Wall street couldn't control Trump. And that do you think is the sort of essence of the anti Trump resistance? It's not really because he's uncouth or any of the has Orange man bad, all of that sort of popular hate about him. It's really a deeper problem that the elites or the deep state and foreign interests have with him is that he's just not controlled. He just doesn't go along with their long term plan to sell out the country 100%.
- [46:48]
Peter Schweitzer
Miranda, I think you nailed it. That's exactly it. If he was giving them what they wanted, they would be laughing along with the jokes that he makes and the things that he does. So it is an issue of control and it's also an issue of Donald Trump. We hear this phrase in economics, creative destruction. And that's where really where innovation comes from, from creative destruction. But for some reason they don't want that sort of emphasis in governance. If you look right now at, I think he calls it the Board for Peace that he has set up and people are sort of mocking it. And I'm saying no, what he's doing is he's looked and seen what the United States, what the United nations has failed to do decade after decade after decade. And he said, well, why keep doing the same thing over and over again? The UN's not going to fix Gaza, it's not going to fix Israel. Put it aside. We're going to create a startup and that startup is going to be called, I think the Board for Peace or whatever he's calling it. And we're going to re engineer it. That's something that in the private sector is welcomed all the time. But they don't want that in government because they want control, they want predictability so they can go off and do what they want to do. So that is, I think, one of Trump's least understood qualities. You certainly understand it, but a lot of American people don't because the media does not want to report it and does not want to see it through that lens. They just want to say it's kind of this impulsive, reactive thing. There's a lot of thought that goes into a lot of the creative destruction that we're seeing. Venezuela being another great example. I mean, you know, nobody would have thought we're gonna go in and just grab Maduro. And that's, in fact, what he did. And now everybody, I think, generally admits, unless you're on the far left, that this was a very good thing.
- [48:44]
Miranda Devine
Yes. And I mean, even the way that he's bypassed the usual diplomatic channels to try and get Steve Witkoff and now Jared Kushner involved in trying to solve these wars, we'll see how they. How that pans out. But certainly it worked with the Abraham Accords. Going against the grain, against the establishment.
- [49:02]
Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, no, that. That's exactly right. You know, what do you do in the. In the private sector? You restructure. And if you need to, if your innovation department's not doing great, you bring in new people, you try different things. Because, again, you know, the challenge is anybody that's negotiating a deal is going to have some, you know, personal ambition or certain interests. The problem with a lot of diplomats is, you know, they feel like they should have a lot more money than they have. And their expectation is that then when they leave diplomatic service, they're going to cash out. Right. They're going to either become a lobbyist, they're going to become advisors, et cetera. So that leads to a very conventional approach by most diplomats out of self interest. So let's bring in some other people. It doesn't mean that the people you bring in don't have their own individual interests, but those interests are wide open for everybody. See, you recognize what their commercial interests are, you recognize what their goals are. So you try something different. We reward this on Silicon Valley. We reward this generally anywhere in American industry, certainly in the arts, we reward it. We should start rewarding it in government, too.
- [50:15]
Miranda Devine
And I guess that brings us to the final question, really, which is about the unaccountable bureaucracy. Whether you call that the deep state or just the. The moribund sort of government apparatus that's permanent and that seems to be active against Trump or any Republican, but particularly against Trump. And it's almost a fourth branch of government. It's so powerful. What sort of. I mean, I guess Steve Bannon had the idea of dismantling the bureaucratic state or the administrative state. Do you see that Trump 2.0 is active in that sense?
- [51:01]
Peter Schweitzer
Well, I think they've certainly tried. I think the challenge, Miranda, is that if you look at the laws we have in place on the civil service, we would need congressional reforms in those areas. I think we need it, by the way. I mean, look, we sort of adopted the same approach that the UK had when it comes to the civil service, which in its ideal, is a great idea. Right. It's kind of like tenure for college professors. They need to have a certain level of protection so they can go about their job in a straightforward and honorable fashion. The problem is, are they? And the answer is, they're not. We see what tenure has done at the university level, and I think we're seeing the same thing in government service. The ideal and the principle is great. The problem is they take on a life of their own, whether it's the faculty lounge or whether it is. Is the highest levels of government. So I do believe we need to strip civil service, at least from a lot of positions, from senior positions. And I think we need to have tighter rules and punishments for those that are leaking information. I know there have been attempts at DoD, for example, or I guess the Department of War to do that, but it's very, very hard. And I think it's one of those fights that's going to be a long pitched battle that goes on. There's going to be no easy reforms. We saw the collapse of the Soviet Union happen suddenly after decades of what was going on. I don't think it's going to be quite so dramatic in this case. I think the reorganization of the state and the dismantling of the deep state is going to actually be longer and harder than that, because they are the ones that are making their own decisions about their own destiny. I go back to the tenure example in college faculties, and that's why universities are in so much trouble, because tenured faculty have destroyed those institutions.
- [53:00]
Miranda Devine
Well, it's a huge job for the Trump administration, especially to try and accomplish it all in four years, but thank goodness they have you there to give them a lot of pointers about some of the worst traps to try and close up before the end of Trump's first term. And whatever comes next, at least we might be a bit protected from the weaponized immigration that you've outlined so well. So thank you so much, Peter, and good luck with the next project.
- [53:29]
Peter Schweitzer
It's always a pleasure, Miranda. Thank you. And keep up your great work as well.
- [53:34]
Miranda Devine
Thanks for watching Pod Force One. I'm Miranda Devine. We'll be back next week week with another interview from some of the biggest players in Washington and the world. Let us know what you thought of today's video by leaving a comment below.
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Peter Schweitzer
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Peter Schweitzer
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