Ari Weitzman (4:11)

Pod Save America.

John Wall (4:12)

Yeah, Pod Save America. The Pod Save America guys. And, you know, and these. There's, like, Democratic senators going to El Salvador. And there is a degree to which I'm like, I can see Republicans and conservative voices just setting a trap almost where Democrats are overplaying their hand, and they're like, this is the story we need to latch onto. And then you have conservatives and Republicans, like, look at how much effort Democrats are putting into defending this MS.13 gang member who is here legally. And there's almost like an over leverage, I could see that is concerning to me because I think the conservative voices are playing smart politics by kind of framing Kilmar Abrego Garcia as, like, this potentially dangerous criminal guy who's broken laws by coming here illegally. And, you know, a immigration judge once said that he was a member of Ms. 13 or whatever, and then Democrats are going to bat for this dude. I don't know the solution, but I can say that the issue should not be fought on the grounds of Kilmar Brego Garcia, that the really important thing here is that he is one example of the Trump administration snatching up all different kinds of immigrants, legal and illegal, in some cases, catching some U.S. citizens in their own little dragnet where Maybe they haven't gotten deported yet, but they're the diminutive there.

Ari Weitzman (6:04)

Kind of got me their own little dragnet. This little dragnet that's catching American citizens.

John Wall (6:09)

Yeah. And you know, they're being deported and they're. And they're. Or sorry, the US Citizens obviously aren't being deported, at least not yet, but they're being interrogated. This is a really, really important moment, I think, for the country. And I just can't believe that we have to make the argument that if somebody is going to be detained and then sent to a notorious prison that is built in El Salvador for literal terrorists and gang members, that we should at the very least bring forward some evidence of them committing a kind of heinous crime to be sent there. This is Obrego Garcia is El Salvadoran. So the response has been we're sending him to his country and you're upset. You want to ship him back here so we can just deport him again. And I'm like, yeah, I would prefer if you brought him back and then deported him somewhere else where he didn't have a court order saying that he couldn't be deported there like he does in El Salvador. But also, this is not just about him. Like there are Venezuelan migrants who have been sent to this gulag, for lack of a better term. It actually probably is the right term. I think it's the right term. They're being sent there without even being accused of a crime. So it's not just about Abrego Garcia. It's about all of these migrants who are being caught up in this and then these legal immigrants, which include the Mahmoud Khalils, the people who are here on student visas, the people who have green cards who are permanent residents. It's a much bigger story than just this one guy, but conservatives are fighting this on the Brago Garcia grounds. I think they still lose that argument, but it's a much more fertile ground for them than the larger picture, which has made for some interesting politics, at least.

Ari Weitzman (8:22)

Foreign.

John Wall (8:27)

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Audrey Moorhead (9:56)

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Ari Weitzman (10:35)

This Sunday. What you're saying reminded me of the fact that we're going to be running an essay from a reader that super proud of. Don't want to spoil the lead a little bit, but she one of the arguments she's making is that there's never going to be a person who is perfect, whether they're a victim of a crime. Like there's never going to be a victim of a crime who's going to be the image of emotion or a movement that is an angel and perfect. You can always turn over stones in their past. Just like there's never a person who's been unjustly accused of something or legally the victim of some process that's not gonna have skeletons in their closet. It reminds me a little bit of what Dave Chappelle said in his special during the pandemic during the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, where he said, yeah, George Floyd isn't perfect. A lot of people are saying, like, he's not the guy that you want to be the face of this movement. And Dave Chappelle's response was, but this is. He's the guy this happened to, so he's the guy. Which was just a simple way of putting it. Like, Kilmar Obrego Garcia might not be, like, the perfect guy, but he's the guy this happened to. So he's the guy. And what he's representing is the government overstepping or violating a court order, then saying they are unable to fix it. And the result, the consequence is that a person who should not have had this happen to him, legally, the government admits this should not have happened to him legally, is now in a foreign prison and is irretrievable. And the consequences of that are the point, not who the person is, but the thing that happened to him. So I'm agreeing with you there. And I think a lot of the Democratic messaging and even some of the conservative messaging, honestly, where we're going to be litigating about who the bad guys are and whether or not we're standing up for the right people or on the conservative side, like, saying what Biden did at the border, like, we concede a lot of this stuff. We concede that Obrego Garcia, by all accounts, seems to have crossed the border illegally. That's something we can agree to. We concede the fact that a lot of people cross the border illegally during Biden's administration. Like, historic number. But all of that stuff is context, but it isn't the point. And the point is that the government violated an order, and they're saying that they're unable to resolve it, and the consequences of that are extreme.

John Wall (13:14)

Yeah, it's interesting. I've actually been having this conversation with Phoebe, which has been fascinating because she, you know, my wife, she's in law school. She's finishing up law school right now. And there is this debate, you know, this sort of philosophical debate that she said that they've, you know, was in her first year of law school was something that they had in their classes, like, over the kind of attitude of English, common law, like this, this idea that it is better to prevent one innocent person from going to jail than to, you know, free 100 guilty people. And that's why our system's built the way it's built. You know, you're innocent until proven guilty. There's like, a real moral, ethical calculation there. As there should be. Yeah, as there should be, which is something I agree with. But I do think that there is this. You know, I said this on I think I said this on Twitter, maybe, and not necessarily entangled, but it occurs to me that there is a real philosophical divide on that question in our country between conservatives and liberals right now. And on this, I side very strongly with the left's position, or at least the position they're staking out right now, which is like some people on the right are arguing that it is worth catching some innocence in this process for the greater good. J.D. vance said this. Errors will happen, mistakes will happen. He accepts that in any situation, you know, there will be mistakes. Any human built system, they're going to screw up. Which is a fine thing to say, except that, like, it's not a justification. Well, even if it is a justification now you're in a situation where the mistake has been called out. You know that you made the mistake and you're not doing anything about it. So it's like you, fine, okay, sure. You can create a system where these mistakes are going to happen, like, get him home. Then like, do the bring him back and adjudicate his case the proper way. And that will build faith in the system. Instead of doing that, they're denying that a mistake has even happened publicly. While in court, they're forced to concede that they've made the mistake, this administrative error. And it's like, all right, even if I think it's a weak justification, but even if you want to say, yeah, actually we're going to screw up because we're creating a system that's hard and difficult and requires a lot of resources. And I guess we have some level of incompetence where we can't do that without shipping out people to a prison in El Salvador where they're not supposed to go. That's all well and good, if that's the argument you want to make, but then we have all identified a very glaring error that you've made, so now fix it. Which is, would be the easiest thing to do. I mean, I love that, you know, part of their argument is that they're not able to get him home. That, you know, they're somehow the administration is incapable of this, which is absurd on its. I mean, nobody should accept this as a realistic explanation. And the, you know, in National Review, the editorial board had an unbelievable section, sort of rhetorical flourish about this, which I've been really satisfied with their coverage. I, I'm like, am I a National Review Republican now or something? I don't know. They are producing some of the best commentary on this administration and the latter days of the Biden administration that I found, but I'm just going to read. The editor said this is an obvious injustice that could easily be remedied by bringing Abrega Garcia back. The administration maintains that this is impossible because it sent him to a foreign jail run by the government of El Salvador, not the United States. This is a ridiculous pretense because the president of El Salvador, Bukele will clearly do anything we ask for. If the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America requested that he ride a unicycle wrapped in an American flag in San Salvador's central square, Bukele would probably ask whether it should be a Betsy Ross flag or the traditional stars and stripes, which like, yes, that is obviously true. It is insulting to our intelligence to pretend that you can't just ask for them to send a back and they wouldn't do it. These guys, as Ezra Klein put it, he is a subcontractor for a prison. That is the arrangement. We are in control of the situation.

Ari Weitzman (17:58)

We're paying him for this, right? It's $6 million for this round of deportees.

John Wall (18:03)

It's totally absurd. So anyway, I do wanna say a couple things though, to spread the criticism around a little bit. I know that this isn't necessarily the right time for this, given some of the genuine, like constitutional crises that are on the horizon or have arrived, depending on your view on some of this stuff. But mental note, like, if you're the Democratic Party, just file this. I would say, please God, just remember this. Once people are in this country, once immigrants come here, migrants come here illegally or across the border claiming asylum in mass, and another administration comes in and wants to remove them, or a future Democratic administration comes in and wants to remove them. It is unbelievably difficult. It is very, very hard and super resource intensive. And JD Vance is right about this. Not an excuse, but it's true, to remove them, to get them out of the country. So, like, the best thing we can do is to bring order to the border. If we can reduce the number of migrants crossing the border illegally, that's actually really good. It's not just really good for like the general stability of the immigration system. It's really good for the migrants because then they'll go through a system that is more organized, that is more humane, where their case will be adjudicated because there are fewer of them, or we make a more robust system to process them. But what's happening now is we are whiplashing between administrations. That's what's going on in our country. Basically every four to eight years, different political parties coming to power. And then we're having these wars that are now coming to a crescendo about what to do with these 10 million, 15 million undocumented, unauthorized, illegal immigrants, whatever you want to call them, who are in our country. And sometimes we are going to have administrations that handle the situation like this, which is to say they are going to do some really inhumane, extrajudicial type stuff to remove them, because so many successive administrations have done nothing to fix this problem. So, like, next Democratic administration that comes into office, if you are a future President Biden, whatever, when there's 2 million people crossing the border illegally, don't convince yourself that this is a problem that you don't need to solve, because it is a problem that you need to solve, not just for your own political sake, self evidently, but also for the sake of the people involved in this process. And I think that's a very real legitimate criticism of many Democratic administrations that the party has not totally grappled with. Like, I see Senator Van Hollen of Maryland going down to El Salvador, and there is part of me that thinks that has that little voice in my head that a lot of conservatives have been articulating. That's like, man, he's putting in a lot of effort for this now, like, for this one guy who, like, I understand is a moment, and I'm glad that he's bringing attention to it. Cuz I also see the threat of what the Trump administration's doing. But like, what did he do prior to this on this issue, you know, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez doing like the Kilmar is all of us thing. Like he's not, you know, most Americans are gonna read that and think, oh, I didn't come to the country illegally. So no, like Trump is still in the positive on his immigration, you know, on views and polling of his immigration. I don't think the message is Kilmar is all of us. I think the message is you could be put into a situation very similar to the one that he's been put into. You don't have to empathize with him, he doesn't have to be all of us. But like, there is a reality that if we accept the administration has the power to do this, we are accepting they have the power to do this to basically anyone they want, because due process is being thrown out the window. I don't know if Democrats can message their way out of this or get on the positive side of the immigration issue, given Everything that's happened in the last four or five years. But watching them, I don't feel like they are winning this issue in the public's mind. I feel like the position that I'm staking out, as common sense as it seems and feels to me, is maybe still a kind of minority position in the public's mind, which is a little bit scary. We'll be right back after this quick break.

Audrey Moorhead (23:16)

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Ari Weitzman (25:37)

So I think I've got three, three things to respond to there back to front, starting with the Kilmare is all of us. I'm going to mispronounce his name and I'm sorry. Kilmar. Kilmare Abrego Garcia. I can get right the way that I hear that is a little bit like the way you're saying you want it to be heard, which is it could happen to him, so it could happen to any of us. Maybe it's a little overly broad to have the slogan he is usually and that's something that I think maybe that's what you're saying about Democrats having messaging issues is they usually turn the dial to 11 or 10 with it. And here we're thinking about the. Or here I'm thinking about the protests that happened to Israel's actions in Gaza, how protesters weren't only protesting Israel, but against their military action, but almost got themselves to protest in favor of Hamas. And that's like going a step too far, I think. And we'll talk about that a little bit more later. But I think this situation is a little different when I hear that slogan. It's a little more open ended to me. I think of it a little bit differently. Maybe we can critique the wording, but I think it's in a different ballpark. That's the first thing. The second thing is you mentioned that successive administrations for Democrats have struggled with the border. But that's the data actually I don't think backs that up because Obama was termed like the deporter in chief because there are so many deportations and fewer border crossings during his administration, which is true. I mean, you look at a chart of border crossings over the last 25 years and it was pretty stable and low during Obama. The system that we've had, maybe we've had problems in it that successive administrations haven't fixed going back to Bush, but the inheritor of that was Biden. Biden didn't fix it. But it's not as much a systemic Democratic problem as much as it's been a bipartisan systemic issue that Biden inherited and then failed to respond to. Because again, nobody should be able to dispute the facts of the numbers of border crossings that happen under the Biden administration. But when we think about whose fault that is and we want to look at the root of it, it goes back before Biden. Again, he gets the blame. He should, but it goes back before him. And when we're talking about this is thing three, going back to the source, thinking about the source of our problems, but the source of illegal immigration or people who are coming from other countries, the United States, that's a little bit of like the way that you're saying Democrats should think about this now of let's fix these problems before they happen. Let's try to address illegal immigration before we have to address what to do with handling all of the due process concerns and putting a lot of resources to addressing people after they're here. Let's prevent them from being here. So pretty similar too to the argument that Harris was attempting to make during the campaign saying we should look at what's causing immigrants to come to the US in the first place and try to resolve those issues. I'm still curious why that approach didn't work during the Biden administration. Seemed to make Sense, like, let's address these issues in Venezuela and Nicaragua so we can try to resolve it with these countries as allies before they get here. That wasn't super effective. It was counter, like, it did more harm than good in terms of the numbers of deportees or numbers of people who crossed the border illegally. But that's like maybe something to file for later. We're wondering things in the past, and that's one of the things I'm curious about.

John Wall (29:23)

I don't know if it is something to file for later. I mean, I'll say quickly. I think that the uncomfortable truth is having a president who postures convincingly in the don't come direction is actually really effective and maybe the most effective. Biden obviously had some things working against him and his administration, like the return to normal life from the pandemic, which completely crushed the economies of a lot of countries across the third World or developing nations, and forced many of those people who were living in some kind of crises. You know, whether it was joblessness, economic collapse, places like Venezuela, or total, you know, societal upheaval through governments collapsing, which was happening all across the south, the Southern hemisphere in like 2020, 2021, 2022, those things mattered, I think, a good deal. But I also think someone like Trump being in office, who convincingly tells people you're going to regret it if you come, that actually matters. And I don't think a lot of people are comfortable with that. But I, I do think that he is a symbol of this is, you know, we're not inviting you. And that does sort of reduce the influx that we see in places like Southern border. I also think, I mean, there's some evidence, I think, that these sort of address the root cause initiatives can do some good. It's common sense the same way. It's common sense that, like, you know, having a president who makes it seem like a little unwelcome to do the journey will reduce people coming. It's also common sense that if people are fleeing a place because the situation there is dire and awful, then making that place better will increase the odds they stay there. That makes total sense to me. The issue is like, we can put a lot of money and funding and organization into that, but we're not. I don't think we're that good at it. Like, I don't think Americans take a.

Ari Weitzman (31:51)

Lot of money to posture right.

John Wall (31:54)

It's way cheaper to do what Trump does. But I just, like, I don't think America, you know, we put a hundred people from the State Department on a project to, you know, bring stability and economic success to Venezuela. And we dump $500 million into that or something. Like, what are the odds that's going to work? To me, it's really low. I just. I don't think that we're capable of doing that. It's like, there's some things these countries just have to do on their own. We can aid and help and give nudges, but I don't know, I'm a little less sold that that's, like, a worthwhile endeavor. And I think that's part of, you know, that's part of why so many people felt like Harris got screwed by the Biden administration is that she got put on this thankless and impossible task to, like, solve the immigration crisis by addressing the root causes in South America. I mean, it's really, really difficult. Yeah, good luck.

Ari Weitzman (32:58)

It just seems like maybe it's impossible to do both. Like, can you say, we want to help you with these root causes, but at the same time, we don't want you here? Like, maybe that's just something that's antithetical because, like, they both feel common, sensical, and Trump said, forever the messenger matters. Like Kamala Harris getting in front of a microphone and saying, do not come. Like, people are going to go up. Sure. While you're here trying to address our root causes, maybe that's something that we just can't do.

John Wall (33:23)

I mean, my preference would be we say we want you here, but if you come here illegally, you're gonna pay the price for it. I mean, what we really need is high rates of legal immigration. We need the labor, we need the population growth. It's good for business. I'm. I'm very supportive of immigration, and I know many people in the Trump administration are just not. They want less of all immigration. I'm somebody who, I think, views the amount of illegal immigration that we have as being extremely dangerous, both from, like, a societal and cultural perspective, but also.

Ari Weitzman (34:01)

The amount of legal.

John Wall (34:03)

The amount of illegal, I think, is dangerous because it frays the rule of law. It makes people distrust the system. It encourages more of the same behavior. For somebody who's waiting for five years in line for a green card, and then you see somebody just walk across the border, claim asylum, get in, and it's bad economically. Not bad. It's. It's better than nothing economically. I mean, the numbers just bear that out. But it's worse than legal immigration because these people come work here and they work under the table and in the shadows. And they're not. They can't operate in society as, like, fully functional, integrated citizens because they're here illegally. So there are all kinds of reasons, I think, to be really kind of draconian about illegal immigration. I just wish there was an administration willing to do that while being really open arms on the legal immigration side. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, to your point about, you know, and this is, I guess, to make a little bit of a pivot here, there are all these lingering questions about, you know, certain things the Biden administration did that didn't work. You know, why? What is it at the core of that initiative that Harris was supposed to take that just, like, failed utterly? And I've been thinking about this a lot this week because of the Abrega Garcia case in part, and also because of this piece, totally unrelated, that came out in the New York Times about the treatment of ADHD in kids and teenagers is like, there's just so much we don't know. And this came up in the tariffs thing, too. And I don't know exactly where I want to take this conversation, but I think this is worth, like, a lobby to just throw out. There is. There's so little humility in any of these discussions and so much reason to have humility in all these discussions. We. I don't know. You know, like, Abrego Garcia, I don't. To me, from reading all the evidence that I've consumed and the debates and, like, the. I think the allegation that he was a gang member is actually quite flimsy. It seems like it basically comes down to him being in a Home Depot parking lot with a couple guys who were looking for work and wearing, like, a bull's jersey. And then some confidential anonymous informant who filed a report to a police officer who ended up being incredibly corrupt, dirty cop with a really shady background. So, like, I don't really buy. Seems like he was just this worker, a union steel worker. I don't know why he'd be in a gang with, like, a good job and kids. And he seemed like an actual pretty decent family guy. But, like, we don't know and we won't know for a long period of time. We did this. This tangle piece on how to combat misinformation. And I talked a little bit about this, like, this idea that.

Phoebe (37:22)

Hey, everybody, this is John, executive producer of YouTube and podcast content and co host of the daily podcast. I hope you enjoyed this preview of our Sunday podcast with Ari and Isaac. We are now offering this podcast exclusively to our Premium podcast members along with our ad, free daily podcasts, Friday editions, in depth interviews, upcoming new podcast series, bonus content, and much more. If you want to receive all that and give your support to help grow Tangle Media, Please go to readtangle.com where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, a podcast membership, or a discounted bundle membership which gets you both access to the premium newsletter and the Premium podcast. If it's not the right time for you to sign up, please don't worry. Our ad supported daily podcast isn't going anywhere, but if it is in your ability to support by signing up for a membership, we would greatly appreciate it and we're really excited to share all of our premium offerings with you. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day y'all.

Ari Weitzman (38:27)

Take care. Bye all.

John Wall (38:30)

Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our Managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will K Back, Belly so Dahl and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bova, who is also our Social Media Manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, Please go to readtangle.com and check out our website.

Ari Weitzman (39:05)

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