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- [00:04]
A
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Secret Podcast. I'm here with my best friend adjacent, My best friend who's not jvl but also a best friend of mine, Bill Kristol. Very exciting to have you here. Thanks for hanging out for the Secret pod.
- [00:19]
B
Happy to do it. I'm glad you have many best. Many best. Several best friends. What do you have, like five best friends or 50 best friends? How exclusive a club is this? Exactly. Really?
- [00:27]
A
I mean, look, I don't want to
- [00:28]
B
pry at your personal. I don't want to pry. I don't want to be intrusive.
- [00:31]
A
You know, I have a lot of best friends in life. I have my, my straights, as I call them, who are my, my, my best friends from high school and college. And then I've got my, my, my, my, my, my lesbian best friends, and then I got my bulwark best friends, you know, So I just, it's nice to have a lot of friends.
- [00:52]
B
It is good. It is good. It's good to have different varieties of friends, honestly. Actually, I find two different ages, different backgrounds. Right.
- [00:59]
A
Keeps you. Yeah, you got to hang out with a lot of youngsters.
- [01:01]
B
I like that, actually. I always say that about the Bulwark. It's what, it's. I feel it keeps me younger in spirit. I could be kidding myself, but I, I, I like to. That's my, that's my line, and I'm sticking to it.
- [01:11]
A
You know, I think that I. You always seem young to me. I just want to say as we get started, obviously JBL is not here today. And just keep that guy in your thoughts right now, and hopefully he will be back pretty soon. And we love you, jvl. All right, so we're taping this on Thursday. It'll come out on Friday, but we're going to be off for the Fourth of July weekend. And this is when America is supposed to be celebrating its 250th anniversary. Now, I had Heather Cox Richardson on the focus group POD this week, and I asked her this same question that I'm going to ask you, but is speaking of your age and mine, I don't remember when America, because it would have been 76. So that's four years before I was born, is when America turned 200. But you must have been a kid, but not such a young kid. And so you would remember it. Maybe, maybe you're older. I don't know how old you are. But the point is, what do you remember about when America turned 200?
- [02:24]
B
So I was in grad school. And I was actually in New York for the summer working on Pat Moynihan's Senate campaign in the Democratic primary. So I was a Democrat before I was Republican. And now here we are again, you know, full circle. And so it was kind of a crazy summer. And it was the big ships. That was the big thing in New York. And I remember taking Susan and I took the subway. We'd been married about six months. That point we down to lower Manhattan to see the big ships. That was kind of the thing in New York. And it was kind of a big deal, the bicentennial, but not huge, honestly. I mean, there was a ton of 76. We had had Watergate. We'd had the end of Vietnam. We had Reagan versus Ford on the Republican side and Jimmy Carter winning the Democratic nomination. And people forget 76. It was little. We were recovering, I'd say, from Watergate and Vietnam and the vigorous oil shock of 73, 74. But there's still a lot of uncertainty about where the country was going. So the mood was not rah rah, but. But it was kind of nice, I think. I was thinking about the contrast this morning when I wrote morning shots. Gerald Ford was president. He sort of presided over the fireworks. I vaguely remember in Washington. I was not in Washington, but in Washington on the night of July 4th. But he didn't give some. He wasn't like Trump, you know what I mean? He just was a normal president who thought he should show up out of respect and maybe say a few words. But it was not his show. But he went out of his way, I think, to go on July 5th to Monticello to where there was a naturalization ceremony at Jefferson's home. And I think that's. I noticed, I looked it up this year. There's still. That still seems to happen every year, I think, in honor of sort of July 4th as a naturalization ceremony. And he spoke at it, and he gave very moving remarks. Ford is not known as a wonderful orator or anything like that. And I didn't watch it. I just read the. The tax stuff. But really a strong, not just defense of immigration and immigrants, but an affirmation that they are why we are great. This is a nation of immigrants. This is a nation based on values. We can take in people, not just can take in people from all over the world. It's great to be able to take in people from all over the world. We get these people who want to live in a free country. And he goes on, it's not a really Long speech, but It's a speech, 15 minutes or something. And it's, it's moving really, and powerful, I would say. And in that respect, I think, you know, the contrast is pretty amazing. I mean, Ford said this in 76, if you remember, there's that clip that went around a lot when Trump began all the anti immigration stuff ten years ago of Reagan and Bush debating in 1980. You remember that? I think it's the New Hampshire primary. And they both give this pretty impassioned sort of appeal to defense of immigrants that have, in this case, I think it was coming from Mexico and we need to welcome them. And that was very much the spirit of Ford's thing. And then Reagan, when he's president, his last public speech is the day before he leaves, January 19, 1989. That would have been at the White House. He's giving the Medal of Freedom to a couple of people and he goes out of his way again. He says, I want to add one thing that's a little separate from the ceremony, really. And he gives this tribute to immigrants. And again, it's more than just a kind of, well, we can afford to take them in and be nice to them and we shouldn't succumb to fears. But it's not that defensive tone. It's, this is why we are great. This is why America has unparalleled dynamism and optimism and creativity. It's because all these people come here and we, and sort of refresh us and they, and we, we learn from them and we thank them for coming. I mean, that was very much the spirit, spirit of both Ford and Reagan, who of course had been big rivals in 76 and Bush for that matter. And I, I did give some thought, therefore, when I went back and looked at these, the Republican Party that I didn't quite grow up in, but I moved over to in the 70s, actually, from Moynihan to Reagan. And that you grew up in and how, and that issue in particular, I think the decline and the reversal has been so noticeable and so appalling really.
- [06:23]
A
It's funny you mentioned Reagan. I, I, sometimes people say, oh, Sarah, your beloved Reagan. Or you know, you, you guys are, you know, you're so Republican and it was so bad with Reagan. I was 0 to 8 years old with Ronald Reagan. And it's funny what you pick up when you're sort of a kid or even as you sort of come into political consciousness and you're seeing people look back at a very recent past president. But I remember vividly that debate. Those debate clips between Bush Senior and Reagan, they're not. They are trying to outdo each other in that debate as to who is the most. Not just welcoming, but affirming and making it as a pitch for who we are. Right in that I remember that vividly. I also remember Reagan saying, you know, because this imprinted on me like a duckling about who we are as a country, where he said, you can go to France and never become French, and you can go to Japan, but you'll never be Japanese. But any person from across the globe can come to America, and if you've got freedom in your heart, you can be one of us and you can you become an American. And to me, it was like, yes, like that. That way of talking defined for me as a young person, not just how I thought about America, but also how I thought about the Republican Party thinking about America and immigration. And so I didn't have this sense, I think, from people who, who view Reagan very darkly. And obviously my view of him shifted somewhat as I got older, and I just had a much more complex view. But when you're a kid and you have a more cartoonish view, I still remember those types of things that defined for me what a Republican was. And maybe I was just choosing to take in some of the more positive things or the things that resonated with me particularly, but I just did not see a Republican Party that was hostile to immigration the way that Trump is and the birthright citizenship SCOTUS decision that just came down. Now that we've all had a chance to digest this, I think people are saying, well, look, it's not so bad, because even even though it was only 5, 4 in the dissents, you still saw even Thomas and Alito sort of saying, if they were, you know, we're not, we're not talking here. They had much narrower views of, of ways in which you would segment people to not fit the birthright citizenship decision. They would still say, look, if you came here with immigrant parents and you were born here, you're still an American citizen. Do you feel good about that? That even what is quite a radical Supreme Court did this? Or do you still feel like, geez, five, four, come on, it's black and white in the Constitution. What are we doing here?
- [09:28]
B
Yeah, more of the latter, a little more worried. I mean, I think if it's fair, some of the modifications of the. Some maybe over the top. You know, it's not just five, four, maybe it's really like five two with two in between or Something like that. Still, the, the. I would just say it this way. When Reagan issued the executive order on January 20, his first day at office a year and a half ago, you know, I'm on a couple of threads with law professors and stuff. Many who you know, many who you talk to on. On your excellent lawyer legal affairs podcast. And it's called the Illegal News. I couldn't remember. I know it's legal. Something illegal, something, whatever. We have too many podcasts, can't remember the names of them, you know, and I'd say the consensus was, well, that's a joke. It's a pitch to the base. And that one could really be. I remember several people said that could be 9, 0. I don't think even Thomas or Alito go for that. Certainly 7:2 may not get to the Supreme Court because every lower court will strike it down right away, which they did. And the Supreme Court will just say, come on, we're not taking this. This isn't like a close call. Why should we take it? You know, there's no diversity, no disagreement between the circuits. There's no interesting constitutional issue. They took it and they ended up with this, you know, I don't what you call it, 5, 522 type decision, which is not good. I agree with that. And the other point I'd make on that, I have two other two points, I guess quickly. One is, in the real world of immigration, leave aside this court decision, which is somewhat theoretical. This wasn't going to, you know, so we would be forward looking and not unimportant.
- [10:57]
A
But.
- [10:57]
B
But in the real world, it's bad. I mean, they pulled back a little after Minneapolis, but they're going ahead with all the mass deportation stuff they've got. There's a good New York Times article this morning. They've increased the quota of arrest. The White House called over to ICE and said, we want 2,000 arrests a day. They've literally given up any pretense that they're going after violent criminals. They're going after the worst of the worst. They're dealing with, I don't know, deadbeats who need to be, who are taking government resources. It's none of that. It's just anyone we can get. And they're now, of course, denying people to temporary protective status they've had for a few years in the case of the Haitians. But the Salvadorans are coming up and that'll be 20, 25 years. And they may not renew that. And then they become illegal so they can go after them. So the cruelty, the stupidity, the willfulness in a way of the assault on immigrants. And of course they're not friendly to legal immigration either. That's really chugging ahead. And I think it's with dhs, with all that money, ice, with all that money, the failure to put on any constraints after all that pretty good fighting the Democrats did and they stalled the DHS bill at all, which was good, I thought. But the end of the day, you know what we remember three, four, five months ago. Well, at least we're gonna, they're not gonna be able to wear masks anymore. At least they're not gonna have to, you know, obey certain procedures and stuff. Well, Mullen pulled them back a little from Kristi Noem day, you know, days. I suppose in terms of the dramatic character of their assaults on people, it doesn't seem quite as bad, but it's pretty. But as the institutionalization of the anti immigration sentiments, I guess, if I can put it that way, I think is very worrisome. And I guess, I guess the broader point I make about the current moment is on the one hand, I'm sort of cheered up by the 250th, 250th anniversary in this sense. I don't think, and I'm curious to know what you think about this. I don't think Trump has succeeded in hijacking it. I don't think people care much about what he's tried to do or like it much. I don't feel like he's put a Trumpian stamp on our country through the, you know, having cage fight at the White House and the idiocy on the Mall. And so I think in that respect it's sort of been a dud from his point of view, which shows the public has a certain healthy resistance and they're going about their normal fourth of July cookouts and fireworks at the local high school and so forth in a pretty good way. On the other hand, as we sit here on approaching July 4th weekend, what 18 months into the Trump second term, the institutionalization of a lot of bad stuff, both in DHS, but DoD, DoJ, what's happening with, you know, the civil service and other case court, Supreme Court case, has some implications on that politicization of everything in the government. The grift, the graft, the corruption.
- [13:37]
A
That stuff is 2 billion, two stuff
- [13:39]
B
is, I mean, that stuff is bad and it doesn't seem to be letting up. The public doesn't like it, to their credit, I think, but, but the, the lever they control the levers of power and they're exercising them pretty aggressively, I guess is the way I would say it. So that part so got a good, you know, the glass is half full in the sense that he's not quite succeeded in convincing the public of a Trumpian vision of America or of immigration for that matter. But he on the other hand, he is, you know, his grip on the government, on the Republican Party, his ability to intimidate private sector actors and get them to go along with him and the bribery both, the corruption both ways in a sense. Right. The transactional corruption. That stuff is pretty grim. I don't know. What do you think?
- [14:23]
A
So this is the secret podcast and since I know you don't listen to our own podcast, this is where. This is the podcast where JVL and I disagree often strenuously on things. And so I'm going to disagree with you too. That's the spirit of this podcast. So this is how I think about immigration.