Transcript
Jake Tapper (0:00)
Foreign.
Mike Pesca (0:05)
2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. So as you know, I try to avoid and ignore conspiracies that aren't true. What I try to do is concentrate on substance. I have a special niche of correcting misimpressions. The misimpressions I see as maybe being perpetrated through the mainstream media world. I don't like to be play into the hands of propagandists. So this is why I didn't spend too much time on the Epstein story before yesterday. And then yesterday I kind of said things backwards, or at least my brain and tongue were involved in a conspiracy. So to be clear, yeah, Epstein killed himself in his jail cell. There is no evidence otherwise. But this brings me to another shiny bauble, or what's the opposite, a fetid hunk of meat. Alligator Alcatraz. The Trump administration wants the shock of the outrage. And Democrats or people of good conscience, of course they're going to be outraged. It's outrageous. What are decent people supposed to do when they hear about the conditions in this Florida detention center? Not be appalled. That's the point. So Trump is sort of forcing most people into a game where he is calling the shots. So I haven't talked too much about alligator Alcatraz, but I think I have to. And I think that front page New York Times reporting shows that it is pretty horrific. And even if we're being manipulated into being angered and shocked and dismayed, those are legitimate responses. If you look at similarly the exporting of prisoners to countries where the prisoners have no ties and where the United States really should not be doing business, South Sudan and Today, Eswatini, until 2018 it was known as Swaziland. As I talk about on the just list in substack today, the king of Swaziland. Sorry, Eswatini, you want to be proper with a man with 11 wives? The country has a 29% HIV positive rate and now five prisoners from Laos and Vietnam. Eswatini says they will repatriate them. I think the statistics and the polling on immigration seem to indicate that the public has soured on the Trump plan, the Trump execution of that plan and you've probably heard top line numbers from a recent Gallup survey. 30% of Americans want immigration decreased, down from 55% a year ago. So only 30, not even close to a majority of Americans are now saying get these people out of the country. 79% consider immigration good for the country and support for the border wall and mass Deportation is down, on the other hand. So that was a July 11th survey. July 9th, YouGov did a survey, and one of the number one issues for Trump in terms of net approval is border security. In fact, right after national security, it's the only one where he does have a net approval rating. So you might say, oh, so what he's doing at the border is working. But there are other items in the poll that show not immigration, he's minus 9%. Refugee admissions, he's minus 10%. So how can we have a public that likes the border security policies but doesn't like the immigration policies? Aren't they the same thing? It's that the public is isn't always perfectly laser focused on all the nuances of issues, which is exactly why big, splashy initiatives like Alligator Alcatraz play and the Trump administration thinks they work for them. But I wonder how it all is landing. I did a very good substack live with Sam Stein. I don't know if you know about these things. It's kind of casual. Two people get on a live chat, and if you're on substack, you could participate, ask question, or just watched. I asked Sam, who's the managing editor of the Bulwark, this fundamental question I'm wondering about regarding public opinion and immigration. And the question was, well, rather than just have me describe the question, just thinking about the specter of these masked ICE agents. Such bad practice, bad even for ice. If you want legitimacy into people and for people to believe you not, you're just a band of marauding thugs who might be throwing people in the back of a van, thinking about all these horrific prison conditions which the administration is all too proud to highlight. So here's the question that I put, Sam. My question is, do you think it's how the Trump administration has enforced their immigration policy or that they have?