← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Congressman Joaquin Castro on Trump's Ukraine comments echoing Kremlin and former Congressman Joe Walsh on GOP abandoning Reaganism when it comes to Russia.
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
Okay, welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta Show. It is Wednesday and joined by Congressman Joaquin Castro. You can see him there on screen with us right now. This is a bit of a special edition of the Jim Acosta Show. Typically, I like to do this at 4:00 in the afternoon. We're coming on a little earlier today. There's a lot of news happening, and I wanted to get right to it. And I'm gonna ask Congressman Castro just to hang on for one moment because I do want to get people caught up to speed on this war of words going on right now between President Trump and Velo Zelensky, the President of Ukraine. Of course, Trump had that news conference yesterday where he basically blamed Ukraine for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That was followed by some comments from Zelensky this morning. Zelensky saying, I would like to have more truth with the Trump team. That was some pretty overt criticism from Volodymyr Zelensky. Obviously, he's taking issue with Trump characterizing the invasion of Ukraine as somehow the fault of the Ukrainians. Trump responded, though, on his Truth Social account saying, quote, think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion to go into a war that couldn't be won, that never had to start, but a war that he without the US And Trump will never be able to settle. I mean, he went on and on to trash the Ukrainian leader. Let's talk about it some other things with Congressman Castro. Congressman, good to see you. Thanks for coming on. Welcome back to the program.
- [01:30]
Joaquin Castro
Yeah, good to be with you, Jim.
- [01:31]
Jim Acosta
So what's your reaction to this? I guess, first of all, there's sort of this Alice in Wonderland quality to Trump's press conference yesterday, the way he was talking about the war in Ukraine somehow being the fault of the Ukrainians. When you heard that, what was your reaction?
- [01:51]
Joaquin Castro
It's just remarkable how far we have fallen with Donald Trump as President of the United States. And I think in many ways, he's abusing the office of the presidency in the sense that whoever sits as President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world in terms of anybody in government. And that comes with great power, a great ability to help allies to support other nations, but also great ability to bully other nations. And he was bullying Ukraine and President Zelensky yesterday and bullying him on behalf of a dictator in Vladimir Putin who, you know, if you had spoken to Americans 40 years ago, or even President Reagan, it would have been unthinkable that an American president, in this case, Donald Trump, would be lying about what Ukraine did, saying that they somehow started the war with Russia when Russia invaded, Ukraine took over Ukrainian territory. And so it's just. It was blasphemous to listen to, but also just remarkable how much he's abused the office of the president and how far down he's taken the United States.
- [03:04]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And essentially being out there parroting Russian talking points, I mean, these are talking points straight out of the Kremlin. And so what. I mean, you're on the Intelligence Committee. You obviously have access to highly sensitive information. One of the things that you're going to hear from time to time from folks in the Democratic side of things is they're worried about where Trump's allegiances are. Does that ever concern you, what's going on here with Trump and Vladimir Putin, I guess is my question.
- [03:41]
Joaquin Castro
Well, no, I think people are right to think that. It's bizarre. I think it's strange. I've been concerned for a lot of years about the influence that Vladimir Putin and Russia have on Donald Trump. And really, if you look out throughout his history, his relationship with Russia or the Soviet Union started in the 1980s, and over the years, it has evolved. But Vladimir Putin has an oversized influence on what Donald Trump says and what he does, and yesterday was a perfect example of that. And remember, just for context, Jim, you know, the. After World War II, the world set up these. These bodies and these rules to make sure that things like invasions of other countries don't happen, that you don't have Russia go try to take another country's land. And here you have the president of the United States that's supposed to stand for freedom and for democracy and sovereignty, helping Vladimir Putin do that.
- [04:37]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And we saw the Secretary of state, the national security advisor, at the negotiating table in Riyadh with their Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, who has been at this for decades now. And, you know, the Ukrainian president, I think, rightly raised the question, why aren't we at the negotiating table? How on earth are you supposed to cut a deal that ends this conflict without the Ukrainians at the negotiating table? It seems as though it's the United States and Russia carving up Ukraine. You know, you have Trump almost salivating over the rare earth minerals that are deposited there in Ukraine, and it just sort of overlooks the, you know, the interests of the Ukrainian people who have been fighting, excuse me, fighting bravely over these last few years.
- [05:26]
Joaquin Castro
No, I mean, this administration is absolutely corrupt and has established a kleptocracy where you have these very wealthy people who want to benefit from the things that government does and privatize them or get huge multibillion dollar contracts. And so what President Trump did was basically threaten Ukraine and will cut off your support unless you give us half of the mineral wealth in your country. I mean, that's basically what he went over there and did.
- [05:57]
Jim Acosta
And the treasury secretary said something to this effect as well. He's asking for this as well as part of this.
- [06:03]
Joaquin Castro
Yeah, I mean, they basically went over there and extorted the president of Ukraine. And, you know, and Jim, you think about the damage that Donald Trump is doing to the United States of America in the name of Americans, this is going to be long lasting. You know, this man will not be president in a few years, four years, and, you know, it's likely in, you know, 10 years or whatever number of years he will pass on from this earth as one day we all will. But the damage that he's doing to the United States could last for a generation or even longer.
- [06:39]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, and I did want to ask you because, I mean, the other, the flip side of this is what's been taking place in Washington with all of these cuts at federal agencies, places like the faa, even though we just had a plane crash in Washington a couple of weeks ago, you have workers who are being laid off in important places like, you know, areas agencies that are dealing with nuclear security, the US Forest Service, the National Institutes of Health, the cdc, even though this bird flu problem is stubbornly not going away. And just today the Washington Post reporting the Trump administration has directed defense agencies to turn over a list of their probationary employees by the end of, I guess it was yesterday with the expectation that many could be fired as soon as this week. That's according to five people familiar with the matter. Talking to the Washington Post. And I'm just, you know, this whole, all this talk of probationary employees, it sounds as though those are the folks who've only been on the job for a couple of years. But one of the things that you hear from lots of experienced people here in Washington is that these are the young people that you want to come into government service, that you want to train in, whether it's working over at the Pentagon or working at the National Institutes of Health and so on. And you could really end up with a brain drain here in Washington, I guess. What are you hearing in your congressional office? I assume you're hearing from federal workers who are very concerned about what's taking place right now.
- [08:01]
Joaquin Castro
Yeah, a lot of panic. You know, these are families. Many of the employees, federal employees, have worked in their jobs for many years. Some of them that are probationary employees are new, maybe have worked there six months or a year. I met with some federal employees in the last week and a half or so, and they told me a story of a woman who had gotten hired by the VA here and had relocated to the city and then was told that her job was canceled. So she literally uprooted her life, moved over to another city and then told, well, you don't have a job anymore. So, you know, there is a way, and I think Americans agree, that you should take a look at the federal government and see where there is too much spending or where you can trim the fat, so to speak. But this is not what's going on. This is a kind of recklessness that before looking at anything, they're putting 19 year olds, 20 year olds in charge of just firing people without respect to what even the job that these people are doing. A perfect example of that was, you know, firing the people that tend to our nuclear weapons and then having to scramble to rehire those people or find them and go get them. You know, they're, they're firing people at the, the office is responsible for pandemic response. When you've got this avian flu that's affecting birds all over the world, and we saw what the pandemic did to us the last few years, why then would you go fire people who are in charge of pandemic response? It's reckless and it's making the world more dangerous and more expensive.
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Joe Walsh
Yeah.
- [09:36]
Jim Acosta
And we don't know what's going to happen next with this bird flu. If anybody has any predictions when it comes to that sort of thing, I mean, you can just sort of write that off because we just don't know at this point how that's going to evolve. And I did want to ask you because one of the stories that I feel as though has kind of been moved to the back burner and it shouldn't, is these mass deportations that the Trump administration has been carrying out. They've been taking migrants off to places like Guantanamo and so on, but there's been a kind of recklessness about this that especially in the messaging coming out of the White House, coming out of the President's mouth, that it just seems to be affecting the culture in this, in this country. And to give you a case in point, I know you've raised issues with this particular story, it's a tragic one, but out of Texas. An 11 year old schoolgirl from Texas has taken her own life after bullies threatened to call US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to deport her. This according to Newsweek. But there have been lots of news reports on this. A spokesperson for the Gainesville Independent School District told Newsweek the top priority of the Gainesville ISD is to ensure a safe and comfortable learning environment for all students. Because of this, we take out any reports of bullying at our schools very seriously, have a zero tolerance policy. But this is all about Jocelyn Rojo Carranza. She ended her life apparently after enduring months of bullying from her sixth grade classmates who targeted her over her family's immigration status, with some even threatening to report them to ice. And according to Newsweek, there's no suggestion that the Carranza family were living in the US Illegally. Congressman, what do you know about this? This is an awful, awful tragedy, but it speaks to what's happening to the culture of this country when you demonize immigrants time and again.
- [11:25]
Joaquin Castro
You know, I was so struck by that story. I have an 11 year old daughter and two kids younger than that. And Donald Trump and his administration have created a culture of cruelty and meanness and have dehumanized immigrants at every chance they get. And there is no way that you do that without infecting the culture so that other people, including kids, treat anybody that they profile as an immigrant with that same dehumanizing spirit. And apparently these kids were telling her again and again that ICE was going to pick up her parents and she was going to be left alone in the country with no one. And so it's incredibly sad story, but that is the culture that Donald Trump has created.
- [12:21]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And Congressman, I mean, you think about this personally. I think about it personally too. My dad came to this country from Cuba when he was 11 years old. And when he came to this country, John F. Kennedy was the President of the United States. He came here to Northern Virginia. He tells a story about a elementary school teacher who would take him out of class to help him learn how to read and write over at Vienna Elementary School. And the President of the United States at that time was not demonizing immigrants. He was not calling them rapists and killers. He wasn't talking about them as if they're all gang members, which is totally false. And, and you know, I guess there are some folks out there who think, you know, oh, well, the polls tell us we have to be tough on immigration and so on. Of course, if folks, if there are dangerous People here illegally, of course, they have to be removed from the country. Democratic and Republican administrations have done this. But, Congressman, I'm worried about what. I mean, if fellow sixth graders are doing this to a kid, something has happened to us.
- [13:22]
Joaquin Castro
No, it's. It's sad to see, you know, that people would be treated like this. And I feel as though we've lost perspective that the United States became the most powerful, most most prosperous country on earth, not in spite of immigrants, but because of immigrants, that they have helped this country really flourish over the years. People from all over all different parts of the world. But Donald Trump has made his success in politics on the backs of immigrants and dehumanizing them and talking about them only in terms of threat and highlighting the ones that do bad. And look, there's bad people from every group in every community, but they're not doing that because they're immigrants. There's bad people everywhere. But he has used that against all of the others, those examples, against all of the others to dehumanize them. And this is the kind of thing that you end up with when you do that.
- [14:24]
Jim Acosta
And I know I have to let you go. Please apologize to your staff for beholding you here longer, Congressman. But the situation with the migrants being transported to Guantanamo, there have been some reports that it's not 100%, that it's just violent gang members and so on being taken there. Is that kind of a black hole of information. Do we know what's happening there? And I promise I'll let you go.
- [14:48]
Joaquin Castro
No. We have no clear understanding about the full list of people that have been taken to Guantanamo, which is a place that the United States has held terrorists. They're taking these migrants who came for a better life, who they cannot demonstrate had any kind of criminal record or even dangerous people, and putting them next to terrorists. And then I don't know if you saw, Jim, I think it was yesterday on the official White House look like Twitter page or account, they put up something that said asmr, which is, you know, basically autosensory sounds that people will listen to to relax or go to sleep. Something like asmr, illegal deportation. Really? They're putting out there the idea that people would get joy from listening to these people. They have these images of people shackled in chains and being led onto the airplanes. Let me tell you, whoever is running that account and whoever approved that account, they are sick, sick people who are doing that. To think that this is all just a big joke. And, you know, and it's a gleeful thing that you would listen to it to go to sleep. Those people, they need mental help at the White House. You need to go get some mental health help because it is sick, demented stuff.
- [16:15]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And when you normalize the dehumanization of other human beings, bad things happen. It just happens. We saw this with the family separation policy during the first Trump administration. When you see other human beings as being less than human than you are, bad things happen. Congressman Joaquin Castro, it's good to talk to you. Thank you so much for your time. Please extend my apologies to your staff. I know I held you way too long, but good to talk to you as always, Congressman Catro.
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Joaquin Castro
Thank you.
- [16:44]
Jim Acosta
Thank you very much. We appreciate it. And that was Congressman Joaquin Castro. Always grateful for his time. And one of the things that I do love about doing this show on Substack is we see the audience response, the audience feedback in real time. And somebody rightly said, as Congressman Castro was speaking there, say her name. I'm going to say her name again. Jocelyn Rojo Carranza. Jocelyn Rojo Carranza should be alive right now. She should not be dead. We should not have a situation in this country. And, you know, let's wait for all the facts to come in. We're seeing these stories that are coming out now. We're responding to these stories in real time. These press reports are deeply disturbing about this case. And I hope my friends in the national press pay attention to this. And I know many of them will. They all, they do a great job. But they folks need to pay attention to this story. We cannot have a situation in this country where because people are so immersed in some of the hateful rhetoric aimed at immigrants in this country that just comes out of conservative media like a busted fire hydrant. We cannot be so immersed in this country in that kind of bile, in that kind of hate filled garbage that we're starting to lose a sense of who we are as Americans. We are Americans. This is not us. This is not who we are. We don't live in a society. We should not live in a society where our kids are bullying other kids because of what color they are, what their last name is, what language their parents may speak. They should. We should not have kids bullying other kids to the point where they take their own lives. We've had immigration issues in this country. There's no question about it. We've had problems at the border. There's no question about it. You've seen Republican and Democratic administrations in the past enforce the border. President George W. Bush People don't remember this built a sizable portion of the walling that exists along the US Mexico border. He was somebody who believed in enforcing the immigration laws of this country, but he was also somebody who spoke compassionately. And I know some folks out there might have a problem with George W. Bush. I get that. He spoke compassionately about the migrant experience in this country. Ronald Reagan spoke compassionately about what this country was all about in terms of attracting immigrants to this country. That was why Ronald Reagan talked about America as being the shining city on the hill. When you see the Statue of Liberty over my shoulder right there, when Ronald Reagan was president, they refurbished. Go give this a Google. They refurbished the Statue of Liberty. And when they reopened the Statue of Liberty, I remember this. I was a little kid. They had a huge celebration in New York in the New York harbor, and Reagan gave a pretty stirring speech about what the Statue of Liberty means. And he made a point of emphasizing that the Statue of Liberty is of foreign birth because it came from France, our friends in France. And so, you know, folks, we're in a dark place right now. I'm not going to lie to you. Am I an optimist? I'm an optimist. You hear that from me all the time. And I know some folks are like, jim, enough with the optimism. We're in a dark place right now. We cannot be a country. We cannot be a place where we demonize fellow human beings. We cannot be a place where we demonize fellow human beings. My dad came from Cuba. My mom's folks came from Irish and Czech immigrants. One of her grandparents drove a limo in New York. One of her grandmothers worked as a maid at the Dakota Building in New York City. People come here from other countries and they start a new life, and then they have kids that do better, and then those people have kids who do better after that. And that has always been the American immigrant experience in this country. And so, you know, for the young, I hope and pray that there are young people watching this program because this is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this substack show, and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to do and get into podcasting. There is a side of the story of this country that is not being told. There is a side of the story of this country that is not being hammered into the minds of. Of young people in this country. They have been. They've had hatred and divisiveness and scapegoating injected into their veins for the last five to 10 years. And I'm here to tell you I want to bring back the idea of the United States of America that I grew up with as a young man. And oh, hell yeah, I was all patriotic about movies like Red dawn and Rocky4. And I, I loved it when Rocky knocked out Ivan Drago and Rocky iv. After, you know, Ivan Drago, the Russian said I must break him talking about Apollo Creed. And I love those movies. I'm as patriotic as they come, but I'm patriotic about that America, that America that cares, that we talk about caring for one another, looking out for one another. And it's so easy, it's so easy to step on other people. It's so easy to kick migrants around. And I just ask the question, you scoop up all the migrants in this country and take them out of here. I mean, I'm just going to be, I'm just going to be straight up with a lot of the folks out there. Who's, who's, you know, some of these folks out there need to ask the question, who's going to come and clean my house? Who's going to, who's going to be working in some of these low paying jobs that a lot of Americans don't want to do? It's a good question. I mean, I'm just saying, are there folks who shouldn't be here? Oh, hell no. Of course they shouldn't be here. If there are immigrants here who came into the country illegally and are in gangs and engaging in criminal behavior and so on, of course, of course have to enforce the law. There's no question about it. There's so many people here who are just trying to make a better life. And if you talk to economists, Washington Post has written about this and so on, talk to economists, they will say one of the reasons coming out of the pandemic that the United States has done so well, economically speaking, compared to other countries, other industrialized countries around the world, is because we have a labor base that includes immigrants. And so, you know, you got to think long enough. I've seen folks chiming in with $25 tomato, $100 tacos and so on. You ain't too far off, folks. You're absolutely right. And you know, I was under the impression, I was told during the campaign that Donald Trump on day one was going to start lowering prices in this country. That was what he said. That was what he said. On day one, prices would start coming down. They have not been coming down, they've been going up. And you remove part of the labor force in this country. That has been so critical to our economy. You start doing tariffs. I mean, you know, folks, you're going to see perhaps the opposite of what some, some of us voted for last time around. I'm going to start bringing in my buddy, Joe Walsh. Joe Walsh has lots of thoughts on all of this. Former Republican congressman from Illinois, Joe Walsh used to be a Tea Party guy and so on. And very different points of view on, on the world scene these days. There's Joe right there. Joe, great to see you as always.
- [25:25]
Joe Walsh
Jim Acosta. It's always good to be with you, brother.
- [25:28]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. I do want to talk about the immigration issue, because it has been a potent issue for the Republicans. It's something that they have been very effective at exploiting, and I do want to dive into that. But the big story of the day, and I was talking about this with Joaquin Castro at the beginning of the program, you know, when Donald Trump holds a news conference and he blames the Ukrainians for the war in Ukraine.
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Joe Walsh
Yeah.
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Jim Acosta
You can do a fact check afterwards. And you say, oh, that's not true. There's a part of me that wonders, is he all right? Because if Joe Biden had gone out there and said, well, it was the Ukrainians, you know, remember when Joe Biden was president, he would. He would say something wrong and the wrong words would come out, and it was like, oh, my God, the sky is falling. And, you know, nem, nem, it's a twister. You know, Joe Biden, he said the wrong thing. But if Donald Trump goes out there and says the Ukrainians started the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nobody's asking the question, is he all right?
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Joe Walsh
Well, it's funny, Jim, we don't ask that about Trump.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Joe Walsh
Because I think it's more sinister. And look, you are an objective, independent journalist. You're a way nicer guy than I am. So I'm going to say something that you would never say. I like. Nothing Trump said yesterday or today about Ukraine is surprising. He stands with Vladimir Putin. He's always stood with Putin. He's never criticized Putin, going all the way back to when he first got elected, and Putin helped him get elected. So I'm looking at nine fricking years of this stuff and people still scratching their heads like, why is Trump negotiating everything for Putin? And he's, you know, selling Ukraine down the river, and people are like, surprised? Yeah, don't be surprised. I'll say, Jim, what you're too decent to say, I think Trump's a Russian asset. I think Putin has something on Trump. I think Trump works for Putin. I think Trump stands with Putin. And I was thinking this morning, Jim, I'm just an average American citizen. What an odd fucking position for me to be in right now, for any American to actually oppose one's own country. I mean, like, strange.
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Jim Acosta
It's bizarre.
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Joe Walsh
I stand with Ukraine. I stand with NATO. I stand with the free world, freedom and democracy. And so because Trump, by extension, the United States right now stands opposed to all of that. Yeah, I oppose my own country right now. This is weird.
- [28:17]
Jim Acosta
Well, I know what you mean by that. And one of the reasons why I thought it'd be great to have you on and talk about this, Joe, is because you were a lifelong Republican, and we both grew up with Ronald Reagan, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, and so on. And it is contrary to being a Republican. I mean, I know what you're saying about being an American, so. But let's come down to maybe 10,000, even 30,000. It's contrary to. It just seems to me to be contrary, to be a Republican, to spout Putin talking points and to parrot the Kremlin in the way that he was yesterday. That's the thing I don't get. And why there aren't. I mean, I guess Senator Roger Wicker has been critical of Pete Hegseth and so on, but I'm waiting for these Republican senators and the normies in the party and the GOP and the Grand Old Party to say something. My God.
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Joe Walsh
Yeah. So among the senators, Jim, most Republican senators oppose Trump's stance on Ukraine, Russia.
- [29:24]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, but.
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Joe Walsh
But not in the House. My former colleagues in the House, more of them are with Trump. Why? Because again, news flash, America. The Republican Party base is with Trump. The Republican Party base. You know me, Jim. I'm not an establishment Republican. I come from the hardcore base. The base is now authoritarian. I mean, if Trump is pro Putin, the Republican Party base is pro Putin. So every House Republican is going to dance to that base. And sadly, Jim, you're right. Most Republican senators will as well.
- [30:01]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, you're right about that. And this kind of goes back to Tucker Carlson and his fixation on Putin. There's sort of like this dictator curiosity. It's the damnedest thing. I don't know where it came from, but it didn't come out of the generation that you and I came. I was talking about Red dawn, you remember? Yeah, Patrick Swayze.
- [30:25]
Joe Walsh
Great movie.
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Jim Acosta
I think Charlie Sheen was in it. Wolverines, you know, fighting the Russians, fighting Cubans, I have to say. And you know when they invaded that whatever that town was in Nebraska and so on, that is what I. That's what. And so to me, I feel like, is it. Is it. Is it a younger generation of conservatives or of MAGA people that just. They didn't culturally grow up with that, or have they just sold out? And it's just. It's just a pure transaction. They sold out. Trump will get them elected. So whatever the hell comes out of his mouth, whatever comes out of Tucker's mouth and Fox News and all that, you're just going to go with it.
- [31:02]
Joe Walsh
Yeah. And, Jim, you're so right, because the animating force in the Republican Party is authoritarian. Look at the leading voices. We're rapping on Trump. Trump's an idiot, but this is Trump's instinct. J.D. vance is right there with him. TUCKER Carlson. Right. The animating philosophy in the party right now is pro authoritarian. It is a younger person. But, Jim, it's also, look, I got to be honest, it's also the older base. I heard this during my Tea Party years. It was always there, percolating, like, they would tell me, joe, Joe, I want my old America back. Democracy can't get it back. So I want a fucking strong man. I want a strong man, Joe, to get me my America back. Jim, I heard that over and over every day for years. And now they've got their strongman.
- [31:50]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And so what do you do if you're Zelensky? What do you do if you're the Ukrainians? You know, I see Volodymyr Zelensky coming out and saying, you know, Trump is caught in this disinformation bubble. And so he's correctly diagnosing the issue here. But I'm very worried about this. And I, of course, they're not gaming things out inside the White House. You know, obviously, if you hand off parts of Ukraine to the Russians, it's not going to appease them. This is like, I feel like I'm watching the Darkest Hour, you know, with Winston Churchill. Appeasement just doesn't work. He's going to say, okay, thanks very much. And then six months later, he's going to say, well, where else can I go? Where else can I poke and prod?
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Joe Walsh
Now I get Jim again, again, call me an idiot, but to me, just put, put the obvious out there. And Europe and Ukraine have to wake up for this. Donald Trump is on Putin's side now. You can interpret that however you want. I got my own rationale for why that is. But in this great struggle right now between Freedom, sovereignty, and a dictator. The President of the United States has sided with the dictator. Now, that's just the fact. That's the reality. And by the way, J.D. vance came out earlier today trying to give Zelensky advice. You know, it's really not smart to badmouth the president. Oh, go fuck yourself, J.D. vance. Donald Trump, Jim. Donald Trump accused Zelensky of starting the damn war. I think if I'm Zelensky in Europe, in the free world, you don't coddle Trump anymore. The reality is what it is. You all got to stand strong together and defend freedom and NATO.
- [33:33]
Jim Acosta
And Joe, what about this discussion about immigration? Because I want to hear what you have to think about this. Obviously, people have strongly held views when it comes to immigration. And you know, there's got to be a solution here. There's got to be a bipartisan solution here. At some point, we're going to get there. Obviously, it's probably not going to happen under this administration. And remember when President Biden was in the White House, he had a bipartisan bill. Part of it was written by Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, one of the most conservative Republicans out there. And Donald Trump reached out to his Republican friends on Capitol Hill and killed that bill. I mean, that, that's part of one of the reasons why we're here. He want, I guess he wanted to hold out the opportunity if he got back into the White House to do this mass deportation thing. But I was talking to Joaquin Castro about this. And yes, of course, if there are criminal gangs and so on who are here illegally, they should be moved out of the country. No question about it. But if the culture is getting so infected that you have kids bullying kids, I don't know if you heard about this story in Texas. I was talking about this with the Congress. It's been alleged that sixth graders were abusing this poor young girl, 11 years old, to the point where she, she killed herself.
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Joe Walsh
Yeah.
- [34:52]
Jim Acosta
And, you know, I come from the immigrant experience. Not everybody does. I care passionately about it. Not everybody here who is here illegally or undocumented or what have you is here to do harm. Many of them are just here to just get a better life. Their parents or their parents brought them here in search of a better life.
- [35:10]
Joe Walsh
So back in my Tea Party days, Jim, I used to be a close minded, hard ass on this issue. I was all about defend the border, defend the border. If you're here illegally, go home. I then listened to people and I listened to immigration activists. You know, like, I know that the answer has always been there, right in front of us, going back to George W. Bush and John McCain. Right. Secure the border and give, give, give citizenship, a pathway to citizenship for, as you say, all the people that have been here forever contributing to this country.
- [35:47]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [35:48]
Joe Walsh
We all know that's the ultimate compromise. The problem, Jim, with this issue is Democrats to their fault, have ignored this issue for too long. And Republicans and I used to do it, but Republicans demagogue and they fear monger on this issue and it helped win Trump the election. So because this is such a potent issue for maga, I don't see them compromising for a long, long time. And it's up to the rest of us to point out how ugly, cruel this is, cuz this isn't us. America is not intolerance. America is a welcoming country.
- [36:28]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. I mean, and you can just go to any community in America now. I mean, and you're going to find people who have opened up a restaurant or a local business and they're working like hell to make ends meet. And it's a beautiful thing. And I just, I hate to see that. And the thing that I get worried about, and it's one reason why I've been wanting to do this independent journalism route, the substack and podcast and so on, is to talk about. I'm deeply worried about young people in this country and the venom and the toxicity that they've been exposed to and that they think it's okay to engage in this kind of bullying and intimidation and so on. That's a kind of sickness that I think we have to address.
- [37:12]
Joe Walsh
So I used to say, Jim, after I turned against Trump, I used to say, trump's not who we are. Donald Trump is not who we are. That's bullshit. Trump's a part of who we are. I think he's the worst of us. And I think Trump and Trumpism is an ugly overreaction to what a lot of people believe. The left took us too far. So now we're way over now on this road of cruelty and intolerance. And Jim, you're so right, man. We're going to get more stories of bullying and sadly of young people like this one young girl taking their lives because of the cruelty and intolerance. It's just up to the rest of us to say we're better than this, we're better than this. Yeah. Defend the border, but we're better than this.
- [38:05]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, absolutely. And, and I did want to wrap it up by talking a little bit about Doge, because it seems like every day there's a new story and a new outrage about the federal workers that they're going after and so on. And Joaquin Casher was making the point. Of course, we want to trim the fat. We want to find waste, fraud, and abuse. You want to have a more efficient government and so on. But I just can't get over cuts at the FAA shortly after a major plane crash in this country, cuts in the National Institutes of Health, cdc, when we're trying to get to the bottom of bird flu in this country. I mean, one of the questions that pops up on the screen frequently is, what should Democrats do? What should Republicans, who are opposed to this agenda, what should they do? You were a part of the Tea Party movement, and I wonder what you've been thinking, Joe, about. You've seen some of these images on the news of these small groups gathering in certain towns, and I was watching this and thinking, boy, this really reminds me of when the Tea Party was getting started in this country. Might we be seeing sort of this kind of movement, beginning in its infancy, in its early stages, against this, you know, MAGA movement that we've been seeing right now?
- [39:21]
Joe Walsh
Well, I think that's a great point, Jim. And at a lot of those protests around the country, there were signs that said, no kings. No kings. No kings. Not here, Jim. That's a great point. Look, what should Democrats. Democrats be doing? They should be the hell out of Washington, D.C. and they should be in their districts talking about real people impacted by what Trump and Musk are doing. Forget about my former Republicans and colleague, Jim. They're not going to do anything here. Look, we. I want to always say this. Everything Trump and Musk are doing is unconstitutional, unlawful. We no longer have an independent legislative branch conducting any oversight. The courts are overwhelmed. So we got to put a spotlight on all of this. The courts will catch up. But Jim Acosta, you know, like, I know, in the meantime, there's enormous damage being done every single day.
- [40:18]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, yeah. And. And when you're talking about cutting people at, you know, installations where they're safeguarding our nuclear security, our nuclear stockpiles, and so on, I mean, what are we doing here? I mean, Jim, what was it like yesterday? We're trying to bring him back. Yeah.
- [40:35]
Joe Walsh
Yesterday, usda, they cut people who were overseeing the bird flu, and now they're trying to find these people to rehire them. Come on. This is happening every day. It's wrong. Democrats highlight this shit and then, boom, take them to court. This is unconstitutional.
- [40:53]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. There's a Keystone Cops quality to all this. And it certainly ain't Red Dawn. Ain't the Wolverines, you know, in charge right now. But Joe Walsh, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much. I grabbed you last time.
- [41:11]
Joe Walsh
You're the best man. Love you. Jim Acosta, Thanks.
- [41:14]
Jim Acosta
I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. I wanted to get Joe on all this because I do think and you know, as this podcast, this show has been dubbed no frills by my friends at media. And I don't mind that. I actually embrace that because I kind of like the no frills aspect to it. It feels very guerrilla style and that's where that's a little bit of the energy that we're going with, a little bit of the Wolverine's energy that we're trying to bring to all this. But in time, I'm hopeful that I can start toss the video and show you some of the things that are happening right now. And one of the things I thought was interesting about talking to Joe and one of the reasons why I wanted to bring them on is because you are starting to see these gatherings pop up in state capitals and these places outside of Washington, D.C. and people are under the impression, I heard this last night when Hannity was talking to Musk and Donald Trump and Elon Musk was making it sound like all federal workers are in Washington, D.C. again, it sounds like amateur hour. It sounds bush league. He doesn't know what he's talking about. There are federal workers all over this country in all 50 states. Hello. What are you talking about, Elon Musk? You don't know what you are talking about. And of course you're going to have problems at a variety of very important federal offices, installations, agencies and so on. They're in different parts of the country. That's why you have Senator Katie Britt of Alabama. She's starting to you read that story in the Washington Post about Republicans who are starting to worry about some of these cuts, these funding cuts and grant freezes and so on that are affecting agencies that are in some of these Republican states and some of these red states and red districts. All of a sudden you're hearing from Republican lawmakers. Maybe they're speaking quietly. Maybe they're quietly calling Susie Wiles over at the White House and say, you know, please don't take this away. I need this for my district, I need this for my state. But it just goes to show you, you know, if you just go in there with a flamethrower, everybody gets torched. And, you know, I, I just wonder at some point when they pull back. I just, you know, obviously that's not happening right now. I hope everybody understands. I had to do this earlier today. Typically, I like to do it at 4:00. I might toy the idea of moving it to a different time. I haven't fully thought that through. This is an organic process and I'm bringing you into that process. But doing it today because I have some other business to attend to later on this afternoon. But really appreciate you joining me today and always enjoy our time together. And again, the folks who are chatting and leaving those thoughts and so on, just really, really appreciate the comments. Really, really appreciate what everybody is saying out there. Keep it coming. No question about it. And somebody just said be careful in the snow. Absolutely. I'll be careful about that. Everybody be careful out there on the roads because it is starting to come down. I do want to end the show by saying her name one more time. Jocelyn Rojo Carranza. Jocelyn Rojo Carranza. She was just 11 years old, folks. 11 years old. It's an important reminder and to me, as well as best as you can. And I know it's a tough time. It's a troubling time. It's a dark time. Be kind as best as you can to one another and I'll see you next time. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a great day, everybody.