It's a Numbers Game: Tom Cotton on Minneapolis ICE Attacks, Somali Fraud, and Ending America’s Immigration Crisis

Summary

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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Episode: It's a Numbers Game: Tom Cotton on Minneapolis ICE Attacks, Somali Fraud, and Ending America’s Immigration Crisis
Date: January 14, 2026
Host: Ryan Girdusky (substitute host)
Guest: Senator Tom Cotton (Arkansas)

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on immigration enforcement in the United States, particularly the shifting narratives about deportation under recent presidents, the Minneapolis ICE attacks, Somali immigration fraud, and the broader challenges facing American immigration policy. Ryan Girdusky opens with an in-depth analysis of deportation statistics, debunking progressive narratives about Obama and Trump’s enforcement, before interviewing Senator Tom Cotton about ICE activism, NGO coordination, Somali fraud, the need for skilled immigration, and Venezuelan human smuggling.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Debunking Deportation Narratives (03:01 – 16:20)

• Progressive Spin on Obama vs. Trump Deportations:
  Girdusky challenges a prevailing online narrative that Obama deported more people than Trump, calling it “truly baffling” and factually incorrect.

  “The left has berated Obama at the end of his presidency for his deportation numbers... So when did Democrats all of a sudden come to a rush, rushing back and sitting there and saying, 'oh no, we didn't mean any of those comments. Obama's deportation numbers were actually great.'” (03:18)

• Interior vs. Border Deportations:
  Explains Obama shifted deportation stats to count border turn-backs as deportations, inflating numbers, while interior enforcement declined.

  “Immigrants living illegally, most of the continental US are less likely to be deported today than before Obama came into office.”
  — Quoting Brian Bennett, LA Times (approx. 05:30)

• Interior Enforcement Decline:
  Obama’s interior deportations dropped from 181,798 (2009) to 60,332 (2016).
• Trump's First Year Impact:
  Trump increased interior deportations to 234,000, 50% higher than Obama’s best year.

  “President Trump is doing 50% more interior deport deportations in his first year than Obama during his first year... ICE is doing a fantastic job.” (12:42)

• Media and Activism:
  Notes how few incidents exist of ICE being “too aggressive,” suggesting ICE is “doing a fantastic job... and we should be supporting [them] at this moment.” (13:12)

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2. Interview: Senator Tom Cotton on Immigration Enforcement and Reform (16:20 – 37:13)

A. ICE Attacks, Progressive Activists, and Federal Response

• Recent Spike in Attacks on ICE Agents:
  Discusses Minneapolis incident, with progressives using aggressive tactics to block ICE (e.g., vehicles ramming agents).
• Federal Authority Over Local Interference:

  “We cannot allow local authorities to interfere with the proper exercise of federal power... If necessary... we may have to use National Guard troops under federal authorities or potentially even active duty troops to allow federal law enforcement authorities to conduct their proper activities.” — Senator Tom Cotton (17:10)

• Need for Safety:
  Cotton describes current environment as dangerous for both activists and law enforcement, supports deploying additional federal resources if required.

B. NGOs and Organized Anti-ICE Activity

• Coordinated Attacks Theory:
  Cotton calls for DOJ investigation into NGOs possibly training activists to assault ICE agents.

  “It's my intuition that the Department of Justice should be able to investigate and probably bring to justice anyone who is coordinating such activities, who's funding them.” (19:27)

• Funding Sources:
  Points to “very deep pocketed liberal NGOs” (e.g., Ford Foundation, Arabella, Warren Buffett) funding anti-enforcement activism.

C. Somali Immigration Fraud and Denaturalization Bill

• The Minneapolis Case:
  Billions defrauded from taxpayers, much sent back to Somalia; bill proposed (with Sens. Cornyn, Blackburn, Budd) to denaturalize those who lied to obtain citizenship.
• Precedent and National Security:
  Cotton stresses that fraudulent citizenship can and should be revoked.

  “Of course... we... reserve the prerogative to denaturalize immigrants who have come here and lied to us to get citizenship.” (20:46)

• On Somali Community in Minnesota:
  Shares personal knowledge; the FBI has long seen potential terrorism threats and now financial fraud from “large unassimilated Somali community.”

  “The Somali community has really recreated the clan and tribal structure that they had in Somalia here in the Twin Cities.” (22:23)

D. Immigration Reform, Point System, and the RAISE Act

• Skilled-Based Immigration Argument:
  Criticizes 'magic dirt' ideology, arguing for a system that favors immigrants with skills, education, and English proficiency.

  “A poem on the Statue of Liberty is not a guiding policy document for immigration.” (24:45) “The Raise act... is about the most fundamental question we have for immigrants, like who do we want to come here to get a green card? Because a green card is one step away from citizenship. I simply said we should bring the people here as citizens who are going to contribute the most.” (25:52)

• Past Republican Support for Amnesty:
  Discusses internal party battles, notably with Paul Ryan and John Boehner pushing for amnesty after 2012, and how Cotton and others opposed.

  “Paul Ryan's always been a lot more of what you might call the... old establishment Republican view on immigration... I remember him telling me once... ‘Americans won't do these jobs.’ I said, 'Paul, you got a period at the end of that sentence. You need a comma ... at current wages.’” (28:30)

• Impact of Standing Against Amnesty:
  Early opposition successfully delayed and halted legislation, later reinforced by Trump's electoral coalition including working-class Latino voters.

  “The way to appeal to working class Latino voters is to appeal to working class voters. Don't treat them as Latinos who care about this one unique issue...” (32:03)

E. Human Smuggling & Venezuela

• Venezuela as Smuggling Hub:
  Outlines how human trafficking, alongside drugs and weapons, is used by the Maduro regime to pressure the US.
• Efforts Against Traffickers:
  US leverage via indictments, prisoner exchanges, and pressuring Venezuelan authorities to accept deportation flights.

  “Venezuela is really the epicenter center in the Western Hemisphere for so many of the threats we face, most notably drugs. But not just drugs. The weapons trafficking, the human trafficking. It's a playground and a crossroads for every American enemy around the world.” (34:18)

F. Information Sources

• Where to Follow Tom Cotton’s Work:
  “Just go to cotton.senate.gov, you can see what we’re up to in the Senate.” (36:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The thing that I deal I am the most frustrated with is that it’s not true. Obama did not deport that many people.” – Ryan Girdusky (04:01)
• “ICE is doing a fantastic job... Self deportations have spiked... Obviously it’s working.” – Ryan Girdusky (12:50)
• “If necessary... we may have to use National Guard troops under federal authorities or potentially even active duty troops to allow federal law enforcement authorities to conduct their proper activities.” – Tom Cotton (17:10)
• “A poem on the Statue of Liberty is not a guiding policy document for immigration.” – Tom Cotton (24:45)
• “The way to appeal to working class Latino voters is to appeal to working class voters. Don’t treat them as Latinos who care about this one unique issue.” – Tom Cotton (32:03)
• “Venezuela is really the epicenter center in the Western Hemisphere for so many of the threats we face...” – Tom Cotton (34:18)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Debunking Deportation Narratives: 03:01–16:20
• Sen. Tom Cotton Interview – Begins: 16:20
  • ICE Attacks and Federal Response: 16:32–19:05
  • NGO Coordination/Funding: 19:05–20:26
  • Somali Fraud & Denaturalization: 20:26–23:45
  • Merit-Based Immigration/RAISE Act: 24:45–28:00
  • GOP Amnesty Battles: 28:30–33:33
  • Venezuela & Human Smuggling: 33:37–36:51
  • Where To Find More: 36:57
• Concluding Thanks: 37:13

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Tone and Language

• Assertive, statistics-heavy, and critical of both progressive and establishment Republican immigration narratives.
• Senator Cotton throughout assumes a matter-of-fact, “common sense policy” tone; Girdusky is outspoken, occasionally irreverent (notably in references to Lindsey Graham and “magic dirt theory”).
• Consistent use of "we," "our country," and appeals to American-centric policy considerations.

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For New Listeners

This episode is a detailed critique of US immigration policy, with a strong emphasis on statistics and policy analysis. It’s especially recommended for those interested in current events around immigration enforcement, the comparison of policy records between presidents, the rise of activist opposition to ICE, and the debate on skills-based reforms. Senator Cotton provides an insider’s view of DC battles over amnesty and the future direction of GOP immigration policy.

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Transcript

[Ryan Girdusky]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Ryan Girdusky]

Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Gretuski. Thank you all for being here. I want to talk about something that's going on online that a lot of people are bringing up in the wake of the Minneapolis shooting. We're seeing a narrative kind of come out among progressives that I find truly baffling and it's that Obama deported more people with less resources than President Trump. I guess to say that Obama was such a good president, look how Trump is really ineffective even on immigration. First of all, the left has berated Obama at the end of his presidency for his deportation numbers. They called him the deporter in chief. And that's why in the 2020 Democratic primary, as it went on, so many Democratic candidates running for president really berated Obama and tried to hold Joe Biden responsible for, during that primary for Obama's deportation numbers. Then Senator Kamala Harris criticized Obama's Secure Communities program because it led to arrests in California of illegal aliens who Julian Castro repeatedly criticized. Biden, who was vice president obviously under, under Obama, saying, asking him to admit that it was a mistake to deport people. So did Bill de Blasio. So did Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders to his credit, sort of criticizing Obama back in 2016. So he just carried that on throughout 2020. So when did Democrats all of a sudden come to a rush, rushing back and sitting there and saying, oh no, we didn't mean any of those comments. Obama's deportation numbers were actually great. We love that he kicked out so many illegals. When did that happen? It's truly insane. It's very baffling. And also the thing that I deal I am the most frustrated with is that it's not true. So I think I've mentioned this in passing on this podcast, but I really wanted to dive into the numbers for everyone because then this narrative needs to die out. This narrative is not true. Obama did not deport that many people. In fact, every year that he was president, fewer and fewer people were deported from the interior of our country. He slowly whittled away our interior enforcement, all while flooding swing states with hundreds of thousands of refugees that he hoped and many Democratic strategists hoped would eventually vote for Democrats. This is from the Los Angeles times in on April 1, 2014. It's by a writer named Brian Bennett. If you wanted to look it up. He says, quote the portrait. A steadily increasing number of deportations rest on statistics that conceal almost all as much as they disclose. A close examination shows that immigrants living illegally, most of the continental US Are less likely to be deported today than before Obama came into office. According to immigration data, explosions of people who are settled and working in the US have fallen steadily since his first year in office. They're down 40% since 2009. On the other side of the ledger, the number of people deported at near at or near the border has gone up, primarily as a result of changing who gets counted by U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies as a deportation statistic. The vast majority of those border crossers would not have been treated as a formal deportation under previous administrations if all removals were tallied. The total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under previous administrations than is now. Obama changed the way deportations were counted in order to juice up the numbers, the official numbers, the numbers that everyone saw, all while refusing to carry out immigration enforcement within the interior of the country, all while making sure that illegal aliens who were here were not being deported. They were allowed to say, here are some numbers that I want you to pay attention to. I know I'm going to throw a bunch of them out at you, but just listen to what I'm saying. During George W. Bush's presidency, the one right before Obama, about 2 million people were deported. It started at 189,9000 removals in 2001 and increased to 360,000 in 2008, about a 100% increase throughout Bush's presidency. During Obama's presidency, according to official statistics, Obama deported 3 million people starting at 380,000 in 2009, climbing to 438,000 in 2013, and then falling to 332,000 in 2016. In Trump's first term, he deported about 1.2 million, starting with 287,000, rising to 360,000 about George W. Bush levels before falling because of COVID to 200,000. During Biden's all four years, he deported 1 million. In Trump's first year, he's deported about 622,000 illegal aliens. So I know that I just gave you a lot of numbers, and I'm sure some of you are swirling your eyes and saying, what? What do you talk. What's the point of that? I'm going to summarize it. According to DHS statistics, Obama deported the most, followed by Bush, Trump term one, Biden, and then Trump term two. Obviously, it's the lowest. It's only been one year, so whatever. But when you look at interior deportations, people who are actually living in the United States illegally, the numbers tell an entirely different story. This is not the people who are turned away at the border, which is not what anyone thinks of when they think of deportations. Someone who, you know, coming into your house, knocking on the door and you refuse them entry is not someone being kicked out of your home. They're being refused entry. That is an entirely different thing. Every person knows that. Right? Okay. According to Migration Policy Institute, over the course of Obama's administration there were a was a pronounced shift from focus of removal of recent border crosses and criminals rather than ordinary status violators apprehended in the US Interior. People who were living here illegally, not people who were just crossing the border. Border. The underlying reasoning was to deter illegal border crossings and remove unauthorized immigrants before they became integrated in U. S. Communities. But obviously once they were quote unquote integrated, just mean they were living here. They might not spoken English, they might have been having jobs, whatever. They were basically safe. As shown in Figure 1, and I'm going to put this graphic on the YouTube page. As shown in Figure 1, interior removals decreased from 181, 798 in fiscal year 2009 to 60, 332 in fiscal year 2016, while border removal stayed high and increased from 207,000 to 279,000 during that period. All the deportation numbers come from people who try to flood the border because they knew it was safe to be in the United States illegally. Obama was sending mixed messages to human smugglers. He was saying, we, yes, we're going to try to apprehend you at the border, but if you're through the border, you're scot free. So it became even more of a mad dash to get illegal aliens into the country, into the interior because they knew once they got inside it was almost impossible to get them outside unless they were arrested for a serious crime. And then Obama did deport a lot of them. Not to mention that the fact that under Obama's presidency, the immigration backlog of the people who are waiting to hear from a judge increased substantially from 224,000 to 449,000. And the percentage of removal cases that resulted in people being allowed to stay went from 23.8% of cases to 51.6%. Getting into the interior of the country was basically as safe as you possibly could under Obama, much more under George W. Bush. Obama's interior removals went from 181,000 at the beginning of his presidency, almost 182,000 to 65,000 thousand at the end of his administration. Here's the question. Do you think President Trump has deported more or less than 181,000 people this year? If it is less than 181,000 people, the top year for President Obama, then what are we even talking about? Given that there's 10 to 12 million, given that there's so many, if he's deporting this few from the interior of the United States, is it this draconian insane thing? Why are we spending all this money? President Trump can't count on people crossing the border illegally. Why? Because he solved the border crisis. He didn't need an act from Congress like Joe Biden said he did. He didn't need a bunch of new things. He just needed to enforce existing law and he fixed the border crisis. We didn't need a new list of laws like James Lankford, Republican James Langford, Oklahoma did to try to team up with Democrats. We just needed a new president. According to Migration Policy Institute, as of September, which was I believe, when the fiscal year ended, right? So not Oct, November, December, when they really ramp stuff up, but just January 20th to September, President Trump deported 234,000 illegal aliens from the interior of the United States. So ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, what's bigger, 234,000 or 181,000? It's not even close. President Trump is doing 50% more interior deport deportations in his first year than Obama during his first year, his first year of the second term, I should say, than Obama during his first year. It's not, it's, it's so, it's, it's laughably bad. ICE is doing a fantastic job at working and doing what they can do to apprehend the illegal aliens and get them deported. Self deportations have spiked. We've seen these numbers coming out of many studies that are sitting there and saying that our foreign born population is declining. Obviously it's working. What President Trump's doing is working. It needs to be carried out. And considering how few times that the media, I mean, it's horrible when it happens, but how few times that liberal activists can point to this person or that person being injured because ICE is being too aggressive, how few times it's happening out of the hundreds of thousands of encounters we are, ICE is working with is pretty good. It's really honestly very, very good. If they would get out of the way and let ICE do its job. It would be better or the President just in the National Garden so ICE can make sure they could do their job one or the other. But the ICE is doing a fantastic job and we should be supporting him at this moment. Coming up next on my podcast is a guy who knows a lot. I should say a guy, a senator who knows a lot about immigration law and immigration enforcement and commonsense immigration laws. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. That's coming up next. Stay tuned.

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[Jacob Goldstein]

It's Coldwater Creek, the mark of exceptional workmanship and signature touches inspired by a Mountain west heritage. Distinctive styles created from quality fabrics, silhouettes perfected with just the right drape. Feel good fits offering ease of movement and thoughtful details to elevate your look. For a wardrobe you can count on season after season. Visit coldwatercreek.com Shop the new spring collection at 20% off $75 or more with code iheart20 this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem?

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[Ryan Girdusky]

My guest for today's episode is Senator Tom Cotton, who's represented the great state of Arkansas in the United states Senate since 2015. He chairs the Senate Republican Conference and Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator Cotton, thank you for being here.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Thanks for having me back on Ryan.

[Ryan Girdusky]

So I wanted to talk to you about the situation in Minneapolis. Obviously it's a very tense situation. Progressives are training their most die hard activists to really try to stop ICE agents from doing their jobs. And there are a series of methods but noticeably spike there's been a massive spike in the number of people using vehicles to ram ICE agents. And in New York City, we saw thousands of of of activists sitting there trying to stop ICE agents from doing their job. In 2020. You are the op response to the Floyd riots saying sending the troops to stop civil unrest. What kind of response would be appropriate and effective to make sure ICE agents can do their job now from the federal government?

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Well, we cannot allow local authorities to interfere with the proper exercise of federal power. That's been a constitutional guiding principle for over 200 years. And I believe that Donald Trump feels the same way. So if necessary, as we've seen in some other cities, we may have to use National Guard troops under federal authorities or potentially even active duty troops to allow federal law enforcement authorities to conduct their proper activities. And of course, it is the proper jurisdiction and responsibility of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers to find, apprehend and deport illegal aliens, in particular violent and criminal illegal aliens, of which there are apparently quite a few in the Minneapolis area. If you look at the widespread fraud that has been going on, and I understand that there's a bunch of liberals in the Twin Cities and elsewhere who don't like Donald Trump and who don't like ice. However, there are ways to register their displeasure without putting their own lives at risk, without interfering with federal authority. And unfortunately, that's happened in this terrible tragedy last week. I know the ICE officer and the other officers involved there feel terribly that this woman lost her life. But whenever federal, for that matter, any police, local police too, are engaged in law enforcement activities, you shouldn't interfere with them. It's not just unlawful, but it's dangerous as well, as we saw last week. And if we're going to have roving bands of liberal activists following around ICE agents, blowing whistles to alert illegal aliens of their presence, trying to find out what hotels are staying in, and then banging pots and pans outside of those hotels, then yes, we may need to use additional forces to protect our ICE agents as they're conducting their desperately needed activities to get illegal, violent, criminal aliens out of our country.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Now, the number of ramming attacks is up 3,200% year to year. If NGOs are training activists to use cars as a way to assault, is there a way to investigate NGOs or go after NGOs in specific? Because they can't just all be these random people randomly. We're like, hey, let's use our cars and figure out different ways to sit there and stop by. Someone must be organizing someone somewhere.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

I would think so, Ryan. Now, not I'm not a prosecutor and I'm not deeply steeped in these laws, but again, like you, it's my intuition that the Department of Justice should be able to investigate and probably bring to justice anyone who is coordinating such activities, who's funding them. And we know there's a large network of very deep pocketed liberal NGOs that are funding all of these big left wing protests and activities. I think the no Kings movement just released their financial disclosure form and we see that they've got tens of billions of dollars from left wing foundations like the Ford foundation or Arabella or Warren Buffett or what have you. So just as we saw with antifa riots on the street six years ago, it may be the fact that these so called legal observers or ICE Watch or whatever kind of crazy names they have for themselves are just the visible tip of the iceberg and that there's a much deeper network of training and coordination and funding that the Department of Justice should pursue.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Now, the focus on Minneapolis is specifically about the Somali fraud case where billions of dollars of taxpayer money was being used to, you know, basically be robbed. And a lot of it went back to Somalia. You've recently co authored a bill in the Senate along with Senators Cornyn Blackburn and Bud to denaturalize those who were in the fraud scheme. Can you tell my audience about the bill specifically?

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Yeah, it's part of a long standing traditional principle of immigration laws. You can't come to our country either on a visa or a green card, ultimately become a citizen committing fraud, lying about why you're here, who you are, what you've done, and expect us just to look the other way and say, well, you've got citizenship now, so there's nothing we can do about it. Of course, we, like any other nation, state reserves the prerogative to denaturalize immigrants who have come here and lied to us to get citizenship. So it would make it very clear that we can do that in this case. And, and I feel like something a bit of an expert on the Somali community in Minnesota and the threats they pose there. My wife's parents have lived outside the Twin Cities for the last several years. I've been there a lot. I've gone to the local FBI office to get classified briefings when we're on an extended break, say like in the August recess. And I'm up there for a weekend to visit my in laws and take the kids to see them.

[Ryan Girdusky]

And this is a long bonding trip. Well, his FBI office, it's a little.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Bit cooler in Minnesota in August than it is in Arkansas, I'll grant you that. But you know, anytime I'm away from Washington for an extended period, especially for August or the Christmas holidays, I'll try to use the FBI office in Little Rock. And occasionally if I'm in other places like Minnesota in particular, to get up to date on what's happening, to do my work as a member and now chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the FBI there has been worried for many years about the threats posed by this large unassimilated Somali community. If you recall, ryan, oh, maybe eight or 10 years ago, there were, there's a spate of so called Minnesota men, as the Star Tribune referred to them, who kept getting arrested for trying to go to Syria and fight with, with isis. And of course, the so called Minnesota men were always Somali immigrants. It's much like the illegal alien from Maryland was always referred to as a Maryland man last year in the news, you know, and I remember asking the FBI agents there, it's like, well, why are they going to Syria to fight when they could simply, you know, go to the Mall of America or any other large public gathering in the Minnesota area and commit an act of terrorism? As we've seen, sadly in places like Orlando and San Bernardino. And they, the FBI office there said, well, what's happened here, Senator, is that the Somali community has really recreated the clan and tribal structure that they had in Somalia here in the Twin Cities. So they have very strong tribal and clan leadership. And the tribal and clan leaders basically tell young men who are radicalized, if you want to fight in the name of radical Islam, that's fine, but we've got a pretty good gig going here. We're living in the west, we're making lots of money. Apparently. We now know a lot of these Somalis have defrauded the taxpayer money. That's how they're making it. So if you want to fight, go overseas, don't do it here in the Twin Cities. So this has been something that's been on our government's radar from, from a national security threat for a long time. It just doesn't seem like it was on Tim Waltz's radar as a fraud threat. Or maybe it was on his radar and he simply didn't want to do anything about it because it was an old fashioned patronage machine for the Minnesota Democratic Party.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Right. Well, Tim Waltz also gave the Refugee of the Year award to one of the women who were scamming taxpayers. So he was not, he was not really having his finger on the pulse. You've been one of the most realistic voices when it comes to immigration for a very long time and don't have a wide eye emotional idea that everyone in the world should come here and that they all bring the same level of value. Right. That every immigrant is equal as far as what they turn out. This, that is a fairy tale that the people who say that we have a magic dirt theories tell themselves. Some immigrant groups are very expensive for taxpayers. Somalians are one of the most expensive immigrant group there are, which is true for people without a high school diploma, people who don't speak English. When during Trump's first term you put together something called the Raise act to put a point system in and it didn't unfortunately pass. Why is there anyone in Congress now who says there and says we should have some kind of point system where people who have degrees and speak English and have the ability to provide for themselves should get advanced placement as far as immigrants go, as opposed to just being related to somebody, which is how most immigration is currently.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Yeah, Ryan, as you say, I've always had a kind of hard nosed and clear eyed American centric view of immigration. Of course, most people around the world would like to come to America. It would benefit Them certainly most people from the third world of question is, does it benefit the United States? I get that from our founders views, from the Declaration, from the Constitution. That's where we should look for guidance about immigration policy. A poem on the statute of liberty is not a guiding policy document for immigration. And as you said, and things have changed throughout time as well. You know, there's times in, you know, the 18th and 19th century when we needed a lot of immigrants and we got a lot of immigrants and we basically had no immigration law. I mean, if you got here and you didn't have a communicable disease and you weren't going to be a public charge, which is very relevant today, then we would let you in. We had an entire continent to settle. But it's not the case that our history is just more and more immigration marching throughout time. There have been ebbs and flows at various times for various reasons. And the simple fact is we don't need as many immigrants today as we once needed to populate an entire continent or run vast factories at the dawn of the industrial revolution. And we should be asking who are the best immigrants for us to bring here. The Raise act as you mentioned, is not about immigrant visas, not, you know, that are in the news a lot. H1B. H2A. H2B. It's about the most fundamental question we have for immigrants, like who do we want to come here to get a green card? Because a green card is one step away from citizenship. And I simply said we should bring the people here as citizens who are going to contribute the most. So I cut away all these categories like as you said, family reunion, which is a vast, vast number of green cards, which is the diversity lottery. Really, family reunion is just the diversity lottery. Did you have someone lucky enough to get here 10 or 20 years ago and bring you here? All kinds of set asides and quotas for random industries. I mean we had set asides for green cards for lawyers. Like no, no offense, I don't think we need more lawyers, especially foreign lawyers in the country. So I said let's just look, look at some factors here that lead to immigrant success in our, in our country for both the immigrant and our country. One is the ability to speak English as soon as you get here. Two is age. The younger you are, the more you can contribute before you get to your retirement ages. Three is education level. What kind of education do you have that can help you get a good both the level of education is it high school, college, graduate, postgraduate, and the field is it in engineering and computer science or is it in gender studies? Obviously some accounting for exceptional abilities. Obviously we have a lot of great, for instance, Latin baseball players from Latin America. You know, we want the world's best baseball players from the Dominican or Venezuela for that matter, like Shohei Otani or Yoshinobi Yamamoto from Japan to come here. Are you an incredible concert pianist or are you a world class AI expert or data scientist? So you put all those in the hopper, you run a simple formula, you give people points and the people with the most points are going to get the first green cards. Very little appetite for that. Eight years ago, early in Donald Trump's first term, even though he endorsed it, the Democrats were uniformly opposed and frankly, as you said, a lot of Republicans were opposed. Well, I like to think through some small measure of my advocacy over the years, and I know through some big measure of Donald Trump's work, a lot more Republican see the world as, as we see it, there's a lot more support for that kind of policy. Still a lot of resistance from the Democrats though.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Well, I want to bring up to my audience some numbers. According to the Manhattan Institute, ending chain migration would save American tax dollars $1.45 trillion over 30 years. English proficiency and high school diploma would save them 2.4 trillion. And deporting 10 million illegal aliens would save 1.6 trillion. You know, you've been in Congress before you were in the Senate, but you've been now there for a while. You, I'm sure it was much different back like around 2013. What was how Republican leadership like there? Were you pushed to support amnesty at any point, like from Paul Ryan or anybody?

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Oh yeah, very much so. Ryan. You know, I, I, I was not a big letter writer when I was a private citizen to my elected officials. I was busy first with school and then the Army. I think the only time I ever wrote a letter to my senators and congressmen was in 2007 or eight maybe, when John McCain and Ted Kennedy were pushing a big amnesty bill. I think, remember the Z visa? They were going to give you a visa in 24 hours. Fortunately that failed. But after the 2012 election in particular, there was a sense among a lot of Republicans in the establishment that we lost because of this emerging Democratic majority. As the thesis went at the time, we have to do more to appeal to minority voters, especially Latinos. And the way to do that is have a massive amnesty and have huge new influxes of unskilled and low skilled immigrants. And that led to the so called gang of eight bill, if you recall, done in the Senate, jammed through, I think, right before one of the summer recesses and then coming our way in the House. I was in the House only six or seven months at that point. It was very clear that, you know, we're coming back. I think it's probably fourth of July recess. Get the House back in July up against the August recess and compel us to pass it. And Paul Ryan's always been a lot more of what you might call the kind of traditional old establishment Republican view on immigration, more immigration. Let's get more low skilled workers here. It's going to help American workers up the ladder. Suffice to say, we had very different views. I remember him telling me once that this was. And you know, he had a lot of influence and everybody liked Paul and I liked Paul. He was coming off his time as vice president. He wasn't yet chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, if I remember. Certainly not speaker yet. But he said, you know, Tom, mom, you know, Americans won't do these jobs. I said, paul, you, you got a period at the end of that sentence. You need a comma at the end of the sentence. And after comma, it should say at current wages, they won't do something. He just, oh, I think he rolled his eyes at me. That's, you know, he has a very libertarian economic point of view, as a lot of Republicans do. And I'd seen just that mass migration, both legal and illegal, had suppressed working class wages for so long. And I think that's proven out in the first, first Trump term when you saw working class wages rising at their fastest rates ever. So there's a big push right as we got back from that July 4th recess in 2013. And John Boehner, I think, had asked Paul to speak at one of our conferences about why this bill was flawed, imperfect, but something we need to move forward with. And even though I'd only been there for about six months, I jumped up and responded quickly. And fortunately we were able to stop the momentum it had that summer.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Are you the first one to say no? I.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

What. Paul spoke first in favor of it. I spoke first opposed to it.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Wow.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Our conferences. So we in our goal, from a tactical just standpoint of thinking about how to stop this, what I perceive to be very bad bill, was get beyond the, the July work period up in Washington, get in the August recess, more of our members would hear back home that they were opposed this kind of massive amnesty bill and then get into the election year and probably the Republican Leadership at the time probably think it was too hot to bring back up. I think they might have brought it back up actually. But if you recall, in the SP of 2014 is when Dave Bratt beat Eric Cantor and immigration was a defining issue in that campaign. It was really, the bill was really done after that point. And then you had Donald Trump running for office. He got elected and he got elected in 2016 and then again in 2024, even more so on the strength of very, very high Latino turnout and support. Especially like just take some test cases in South Texas. You had counties there that had been, you know, 9010 Democratic counties for a century and Donald Trump won them in near landslide territory by 2024 and proved out an argument I was making back in 2013 and that I think you've been making for some time too. The way to appeal to working class Latino voters is to appeal to working class voters. Don't treat them as Latinos who care about this one unique issue. Treat them as voters who need their government to look out for their interests, not to import massive numbers of people to compete with them. And especially if you're working class Latino voter and by definition you are a legal immigrant who came here who got the right to vote and now you're voting and there's a good chance that illegal Latino immigration is probably going to settle in your community and compete with you. It's not going to go to communities that are 98% white somewhere else in the country. And I think that's borne out in the election results when Donald Trump performed so well with working class Latino voters is that they're voting like any American would do on a broad array of issues. Most notably, oftentimes on their pocketbook issues. They're probably even more turned off by the Democrats cultural fads and craziness than a lot of the rest of our.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Identify as Latinx at all.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, yeah, only some, some white liberal in Washington would come up with the idea that they, we need to call them Latin X because Latina or Latino would be offensive to them.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Right.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

So I, I think again that, that having stopped that bill in 2013 and then seeing President Trump's rise to the White House in 15 and 16, we, we've kind of, at least for the time being, stopped any kind of momentum in the Republican Party for that kind of massive amnesty mass immigration bill.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Yeah, well, I'm sure Lindsey Graham's so still SOBS at night.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

The.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Just kidding. I know he's your colleague, but the. I want to Ask you one other quick question about Venezuela specifically. You're on the Intelligence Committee. But part of the thing that no one ever talk about the oil, which I understand why they would, but part of the thing that no one's talked about so far, Venezuela, is the amount of human smugglers that operate out of Venezuela and have brought hundreds of thousands of people here. Is there any conversation about bringing those people to justice? They've made billions off of human smuggling at the detriment of our country. Sometimes with criminal. That seems. That seems like it should be a part of the component of bringing certain criminal structures in Venezuela down because it would end illegal immigration, you know, in a large part, no matter who's the next president.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Yeah. Yes, absolutely, Ryan. We've heard a lot about drug trafficking. Nicholas Maduro was an indicted drug trafficker in the US Court. So it's one of the reasons why he's sitting in a jail now in New York City and not sitting in a palace in Venezuela. But that wasn't the only kind of trafficking out of Venezuela. You had weapons trafficking as well, and you had human trafficking. As you said, Venezuela is really the epicenter center in the Western Hemisphere for so many of the threats we face, most notably drugs. But not just drugs. The weapons trafficking, the human trafficking. It's a playground and a crossroads for every American enemy around the world. Iran, Cuba, China, Russia, even Islamic terrorists like Hezbollah. And they're doing a lot of that trafficking. And Maduro himself in part, viewed it as a way to put pressure on the United States, especially under the Biden administration, to send these flows of what Donald Trump might call some bad hombres in the direction of the United States, like TDA cartel members. You saw in the first year of President Trump's second term some small glimmers of cooperation from Maduro to accept flights of illegal Venezuelan aliens back into the country. That was really, I think, just to placate the president. I don't think he was serious about doing it in large scale. I know the administration is putting a lot of pressure on Delsey Rodriguez, who's in charge of the interim authorities in Venezuela, not just to stop the drug trafficking and cut off the Cubans and the Iranians and Hezbollah blood, release political prisoners, but to start taking at large number illegal Venezuelan aliens back into their country. Moreover, and it's not just illegal aliens. I mean, Venezuela has produced 7 or 8 million refugees in the Western Hemisphere. Some of those are here in the United States. Many others are in other countries that are friends. If we're successful, if President Trump is successful in returning Venezuela to a normal, stable, pro American country country, that pressure on our country and our friends in our backyard will be diminished as well. Those Venezuelans can go back to their homes and they don't have to live in other countries. And finally, you still have a lot of Venezuelans in the United States on so called temporary protected status. It's often just referred to as TBS because the media and the Democrats don't want you to know the T stands for temporary and you're supposed to go home. There's a major, of course, major disasters over the last 25 years under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. And that's an example of why we give TPS status in addition to things like natural disasters. But the goal of the program is to get people back to their home to contribute to their own country. So there's three different ways in which apprehending Maduro and applying the pressure we are right now to the interim authorities in Venezuela should reduce the pressure on our own country from Venezuelan migration to America, but also help Venezuela get back on its feet.

[Ryan Girdusky]

All right, Senator Cotton, where can people go to read what you're working on in the Senate and what you're coming out with, what bills you're supporting?

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Probably the simplest place is like a clearinghouse would be my website, cotton.senate.gov, we obviously put a lot down on social media, but we have all the links there, whether it's X or Facebook or YouTube or what have you. Just go to cotton.senate.gov, you can see what we're up to in the Senate.

[Ryan Girdusky]

Thank you for coming on this podcast. I appreciate it.

[Senator Tom Cotton]

Thank you, Ryan.

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[Jacob Goldstein]

It's Coldwater Creek, the mark of exceptional workmanship and signature touches inspired by a Mountain west heritage. Distinctive styles created from quality fabrics, silhouettes perfected with just the right drape feel Good fits offering ease of movement and thoughtful details to elevate your look. For a wardrobe you can count on season after season, visit coldwatercreek.com shop the new spring collection at 20% off $75 or more with code iheart20 this is.

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[Ryan Girdusky]

Charge.

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[Ryan Girdusky]

Now it's time for Ask Me Anything. If you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me. Ryan numbers game podcast.com ryan@numbers plural numbers game podcast.com I answer all these emails either privately or on the show. I I look forward to them. They make such a great part of the show. This question comes from Holly. She writes, hi Ryan. Love the show. I'm excited that you're on three times a week in 2022 or 2023. Clay and Buck had a guest on their show. I'm almost sure it was you and I'm embarrassed if it wasn't. I've done that so many times, Holly, where I'm like, oh, you did so and so. And it's the Completely wrong person who talked about physical health of red states versus blue states. And red staters were dying at a faster rate like heart disease, diabetes and obesity related issues. And blue states. Is there any indication that red state government, humans are addressing this or that the Maha movement is having an effect in these states? So we're gonna have to wait a little longer on official data. It takes a year to compile. So 2025 data really won't be ready until the end of 2026. It takes a long time for the CDC to really compile a lot of information. It was definitely me, by the way, who said this because I've been obsessed with this for a while. And it's not even red stable blue state. Red counties like in west Texas die a lot faster than places like Austin. So it's blue county. I mean it's. And there's a number of reasons for it, right? There's the jobs they do, it's the lifestyle, what food they eat, how much cigarettes they smoke. And it's. Obesity is a lot of it. Obesity is a major, major factor in rural America. So the good news is that life expectancy has trended up in the last year. Overdoses from fentanyl and other drugs is down. And I think it's down honestly, because Narcan's over the counter. But most importantly, obesity is down. And I would love to say that it's because people like to, you know, go on jogs and eat kale, but that's not it. It's because of ozempic and GLP1 drugs. And a lot of people have a lot of feelings on those drugs. But they are doing the job of reducing obesity. According to Gallup, obesity in the US is down from 40% in 2022 to 37% in 2025. That is not a small feat, even though it's a small percentage. A total of 16 states. This is where I'm going to go into government policy. Policy. A total of 16 states have decided to make GLP1 for obese, for, for obesity covered by Medicaid, allowing poorer states to poorer people to get a hold of it. Poor people in this country tend to be the ones who have the largest obesity problems among also Latinos and blacks who have enormously high obesity levels. But even poor whites have large obesity levels. Those states include Mississippi, which is the fattest state in the union. It is a Republican run governorship and legislature. They were the only red state to sit there and do the words, a full red state government, Republican government. They made GLP1 drugs available for Medicaid to reduce obesity in that state. Kansas and North Carolina have Democratic governors, but Republican legislators, they've also agreed to do it. South Carolina did it for two years. They have an all Republican legislator and governor, but they had to repeal it because of the costs were too high. So, so yes, some states are doing, they still do it for diabetes, by the way. Texas and a few other states do it for diabetes that Trump won. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Sorry. Actually, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin do it for obesity too. Texas, Louisiana, North Dakota and South Carolina do it for diabetes. States that Trump won include Mississippi, Kansas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan all do it for obesity as well. So Yeah, I mean, GLP1 is I, if you could choose, I guess which way you'd rather have weight loss happen, I'm sure you'd rather people just run and go to the gym and eat well. But I kind of, at this point, obesity is so bad that any which way you can do it, do it. And according to the Gallup data, the obesity rate has declined largest for people between the ages of 40 to 49%. It is down by 4.3%. It was at, it's almost at 50%, it's at 43% now. And among people 50 to 64, it's down 5% to 42.8 from 47.8. So almost 50% of the country was obese in those demographics. That is wild. It's also down 1% for 18 to 29 year olds and 2.2% for 30 to 39 year olds. 65 and over, it's up by 0.8% to 33.4. So yeah, I think that if there's any government policy that is the fastest answer to this specific thing of, of why people are dying young. Obesity has to do a lot with it. Heart disease and a myriad of other issues, chronic health issues. And GLP1 is the fastest solution. A lot of Republicans are still just, you know, they're like, we can't touch people's liberty to make bad choices. Which I get, I understand that concept. So making GLP1 drugs affordable and easy for poor people to get, I think is their, their solution. And so far it's working. Anyway, thank you for listening this podcast episode. I appreciate every single one of you. If you like this podc, like and subscribe to the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, YouTube, wherever you get podcasts. And I will be back on Friday. I'll talk to you guys then.

[Jacob Goldstein]

You see it instantly. It's Coldwater Creek the mark of exceptional workmanship and signature touches inspired by a Mountain west heritage. Distinctive styles created from quality fabrics, silhouettes perfected with just the right drape Feel good fits offering ease of movement and thoughtful details to elevate your lips. Look for a wardrobe you can count on season after season. Visit coldwatercreek.com Shop the new spring collection at 20% off $75 or more with code iheart20 this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem?

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[Ryan Girdusky]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.