Don Lemon, Miles Taylor, and Adrian Carrasquillo

Summary

The Jim Acosta Show: In-Depth Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Jim Acosta Show
• Host: Jim Acosta
• Description: Don’t give into the lies. Don’t give into fear. Hold on to the truth. And hope. jimacosta.substack.com
• Episode: Don Lemon, Miles Taylor, and Adrian Carrasquillo
• Release Date: June 4, 2025

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1. Introduction and Overview of Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill"

Jim Acosta opens the episode by discussing the escalating issues surrounding President Donald Trump's proposed legislation, referred to disparagingly as the "big, beautiful bill." Acosta highlights the growing problems this bill poses for Trump, particularly emphasizing its negative impact on the national deficit and health insurance coverage.

Notable Quote:

• Jim Acosta [00:01]: "It's a bigly problem for Donald Trump... Elon Musk has been going off on this big, beautiful bill... it's just getting worse and worse for him."

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2. Elon Musk's Opposition and Trump's Response

The conversation shifts to Elon Musk's active opposition to Trump's bill, with Acosta questioning whether Musk's actions stem from what he refers to as "Trump derangement syndrome." Don Lemon humorously compares the feud to "Mean girls on steroids," emphasizing the personal nature of the conflict.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta [00:42]: "Does Elon Musk have Trump derangement syndrome?"
• Don Lemon [00:57]: "It's like Mean girls on steroids."

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3. Congressional Hurdles and Marjorie Taylor Greene's Admission

Acosta and Lemon discuss the challenges Trump faces in passing the bill through Congress. They mock Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's admission of not fully understanding the bill, highlighting a lack of diligence among some lawmakers.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta [01:40]: "When Marjorie Taylor Greene said, 'I didn't know the AI stuff was in there,' it was like, 'You couldn't even get to page 200 and something to view the damn bill.'"
• Don Lemon [01:54]: "Like, wait, do we think Marjorie Taylor Greene reads bills? Come on. I don't."

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4. Economic Implications and Deficit Concerns

The episode delves into the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) analysis, which projects that the bill will increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade while cutting taxes by $3.75 trillion. Additionally, the bill is expected to result in 10.9 million people losing health insurance by 2034.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta [02:14]: "The CBO also estimates an increase of 10.9 million people without health insurance under the bill by 2034."

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5. Karine Jean Pierre's Departure from the Democratic Party

The discussion transitions to Karine Jean Pierre, the former White House Press Secretary, who announced her departure from the Democratic Party. Acosta and Lemon speculate on the motives behind her decision, suggesting it may be a strategic move to capitalize on her prominence amidst internal party struggles.

Notable Quotes:

• Don Lemon [07:27]: "To me, this is like what you expect to see the Trump people do is write these kinds of books. It's very Trumpian."
• Jim Acosta [08:53]: "A lot of the folks who are commenting... believe this is the most blatant in-your-face grift in modern political history."

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6. Executive Orders Targeting Critics: Miles Taylor's Stand

Jim Acosta introduces Miles Taylor, who has been proactive in opposing Trump's administration. Taylor discusses an executive order that targets him and Chris Krebs, former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, for their criticism of the administration. He calls for an Independent Inspector General (IG) investigation into these actions, emphasizing that they represent a constitutional threat.

Notable Quotes:

• Miles Taylor [19:03]: "This is the use of the investigative organs of the government to try to disrupt our lives."
• Jim Acosta [18:42]: "Miles has been on my mind for some time... we're going to bring him in shortly."

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7. The Importance of Whistleblowers and Free Speech

Taylor elaborates on the personal and professional risks he faces due to the executive order, discussing the emotional and financial toll on his family. He underscores the necessity of whistleblowers in maintaining constitutional checks and balances, advocating for collective action to resist presidential overreach.

Notable Quotes:

• Miles Taylor [24:32]: "This is going to get worse before it gets better. It will require everyday Americans to start rising up."
• Don Lemon [37:01]: "What we're seeing... a campaign of mass cruelty and heartache... is going to have a political impact."

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8. Immigration Policies and Mass Deportations

Adrian Carrasquillo joins the conversation to discuss the Trump administration's aggressive immigration policies, which have led to mass deportations affecting families, including U.S. citizens. The panel critiques the administration's tactics, highlighting the emotional and societal ramifications of these actions.

Notable Quotes:

• Adrian Carrasquillo [25:32]: "This is the first time in American history... a president has opened an investigation into a named critic for First Amendment protected speech."
• Don Lemon [51:30]: "Stephen Miller is a racist asshole... he's guiding the policy right now over at the White House."

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9. Personal Stories Highlighting Policy Impact

The hosts share poignant stories, such as Emily and Diego's ordeal with ICE, illustrating the human cost of the administration's immigration policies. These narratives serve to humanize the statistics and underline the urgency for policy reform.

Notable Quotes:

• Adrian Carrasquillo [49:49]: "They can choose to stay here or go be with their family."
• Don Lemon [54:07]: "There are wonderful, the vast majority of Latinos in this country are law-abiding, peaceful, wonderful, family-loving people."

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10. Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Jim Acosta wraps up the episode by reiterating the severity of the current political climate, emphasizing the need for vigilance and collective action to defend democratic values. He encourages listeners to support organizations aiding those targeted by the administration and to remain hopeful for positive change.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta [60:11]: "You can be the one to help them fight back. People have crowdsourced my defense. That's how you can help."
• Don Lemon [44:45]: "You need to have hope that we're better than this."

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Conclusion

The episode of "The Jim Acosta Show" provides a comprehensive examination of the pressing political issues of June 2025, focusing on President Trump's legislative initiatives, internal party struggles, executive overreach, and aggressive immigration policies. Through candid conversations with Don Lemon, Miles Taylor, and Adrian Carrasquillo, Acosta underscores the importance of free speech, the role of whistleblowers, and the need for collective action to uphold democratic principles in the face of authoritarian tactics.

Listeners gain valuable insights into the intersection of politics, media, and personal courage, with notable moments highlighting the real-world impact of policy decisions and the critical need for informed and active citizenry.

Transcript

[Jim Acosta]

I just sit in front of the camera all day.

[Don Lemon]

I know, I know. But I like doing. I like when we do this. It's fun. All right, welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta show. It is Wednesday, and the bungling of Trump's big, beautiful blunder is getting bigger. It's a bigly problem for Donald Trump, as you can see with me today. Don Lemon, the great Don Lemon is here. Don, I don't know if you're seeing this or following this. I know you had your run in with Elon Musk, but Elon Musk has been going off on this big, beautiful bill, as Trump likes to call it, which is just such a bad name for it right now because it's just getting worse and worse for him. And, you know, today he tweeted, call your senator, call your congressman. Bankrupting America is not okay. Kill the bill. Does Elon Musk have Trump derangement syndrome? You know, when you and I get.

[Jim Acosta]

Accused of tds, TDS all the time, it's a bad breakup, isn't it? It is a bad breakup. And Mike Johnson saying, hey, I texted, you know, Elon Musk last night. He didn't call me back. It was like. It was kind of like a, hey, you up?

[Don Lemon]

It's. This is like Mean girls on steroids.

[Jim Acosta]

This is not good, as, you know, you know better than I because you are the chief White House correspondent and a very good one at that. When the President has to go down to. To the Hill and get people on board, you know, it's not good. It's not good, you know? Yeah, it's not good.

[Miles Taylor]

It's.

[Jim Acosta]

It means that it's. It's failing. This big, beautiful bill is like just. I think it's a bus. You can call it a. A big. The Bombshell bus bill. I don't know what it is.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

But I think they're going to have trouble getting it through considering everything that's happening. And, you know, I was laughing on my show yesterday, Jim, because Marjorie Taylor Greene said, I didn't know the AI stuff was in there.

[Don Lemon]

I was going to bring that up. Yes.

[Jim Acosta]

And then she says, and then she says, I didn't see what happened on page 200 and something. I was like, you couldn't even get to page 200 and something to view the damn bill.

[Don Lemon]

Like, wait, do we think Marjorie Taylor Greene reads bills? Come on. I don't.

[Jim Acosta]

Donald Trump, neither. Do you think he's read that bill?

[Don Lemon]

He doesn't even read his own tweets. They put his tweets out. And speaking of tweets, has he even tweeted about Elon Musk going after him? I mean, I sort of feel like it's been radio silence from him. And, you know, he must be so pissed right now that Elon Musk has done this to him. Yeah, he must be so pissed.

[Jim Acosta]

I don't think he's tweeted about him. He hasn't tweeted about him in a month. He hasn't really spoken about him until Elon Musk was it on Friday, I believe, went back to the Oval Office and he, you know, left his position at Doge. But Donald Trump is basically. Basically just been silent about Elon Musk for maybe a month or two since Elon Musk, you know, went back to, I guess, take over his company or work at his company, which he, you know, which was. Which is really in jeopardy, right? Not in jeopardy, but it's having some tough times.

[Don Lemon]

Well, and it's great that you make that point, because I've been thinking this. Maybe Elon Musk has a crisis counselor PR firm telling him, you know, we need you to go after Trump. We need you to go after the big, beautiful bill. We need to do anything that you can to help rescue this company right now and put some distance between yourself and Donald Trump. I don't know. I would love to know the answer to that question. Is that what Elon Musk is up to? It sure seems like he's trying to do something to rescue this company right now because.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, great minds. Because I said, wait a minute. Is Elon Musk. I said, is Elon Musk becoming woke again? Woke now because, you know, electric cars, green energy or whatever, like, Elon Musk was kind of woke. He was a Democrat back in the day. And I said, is he becoming woke now? Is this.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah. Don just froze on me. Don, you froze? Oh, no. Elon Musk heard us. Elon Musk must have heard Don and I saying something, and he. He reached into the Internet and he did something. He turned off Don. Don, I think I lost you there, pal. I lost Don. Hold on. Let's see if I can bring him back. Don's getting very close to his start time for his show, so I don't want to mess him up, but we just lost Don there. Don was frozen. Frozen lemon. And we're going to try to get Don back. But, you know, it's very interesting, it's very curious. As soon as Don and I start getting to the heart of the matter between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. All of a sudden, this thing freezes. Oh, no. Did we lose Don? I'm telling my producer Matt right now. Don froze and then dropped off. Can we get him back? I love Don Lemon and Don and I were going to get into a whole host of things, so hopefully he'll hop back on. But this is what was reported earlier today, not just this Elon Musk drama, but the AP is reporting that Trump's big bill is making its way through the Congress and that it will apparently increase deficits by $2.4 trillion. He's going to cut taxes by 3.75 trillion, but also increase deficits by 2.4 trillion DOL dollars over the next decade, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Correctional Budget Office. The CBO also estimates estimates an increase of 10.9 million people without health insurance under the bill by 2034. So over the next nine years, about 11 million people are going to go without health insurance because of the so called big beautiful bill. Let's see here. Send them another invite. Let me send them another invite. I thought I did a little information to chew on there as we try to get Don back on. And somebody was just chiming in right now saying they love the town hall. Thank you so much for saying that. I really, you know, the town hall was just, it was such a treat. I was going to mention this in just a few moments, but Don has so little time between now and when his show starts that I don't know. Don is on. Why is he not? Let's see here. What has happened to Don? Maybe we'll get him back. No, I don't know. It's not working, guys. We may have to get Don a different time. Waiting for Don Lemon, it says, man. And he and I have been going back and forth. He and I were going back and forth over the last couple weeks trying to get them on my show. Vice versa, we've been trying to make this happen because Don and I, you know, we just tear it up every time we do this. But Don was mentioning what's been happening up on the Hill with this bill. And basically what you're seeing right now is the beginning of what congressional reporter veterans would call a jailbreak, in that you see members of Congress on the Republican side starting to say, oh, gosh, I don't like this part of the bill. Don mentioned that Marjorie Taylor Greene has been saying she doesn't like that AI, that states can't go after AI and regulate AI. That's the beginning of the universe. There he is. We were talking about Elon Musk, and then substack blew up.

[Miles Taylor]

I think he did it.

[Jim Acosta]

I think it's the platform because I had full bars. I don't know what's going on, but I don't either. Think maybe it's in my. Wow.

[Don Lemon]

Well, the substack machine, as I like to say, sometimes the little hamster in the wheel just stops spinning and the whole thing grinds through a hole. But, no, we were just talking about. We were just talking about this big, beautiful bill. And I know you gotta get going soon, so we should talk about this other thing, which is what is going on with Karine Jean Pierre, the former White House press secretary? She said she's got a book out. She said she's going independent, she's leaving the Democratic Party. I mean, she was just. She was the press secretary, like five months ago.

[Jim Acosta]

Well, and there. And there are a lot of people who are speaking out who worked with her in the White House. And look, you know Karine Jean Pierre. I know Karine Jean Pierre. She's a nice enough lady, but everyone around, but not everyone. A lot of the folks who are commenting on these stories in Politico and other places are saying that they believe this is the most blatant in your face grift, to be honest, that they have seen in modern political history. I don't know if that is true. I don't know enough about it, but it's probably a good way to sell a book.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah, I don't know either. But I mean, to me, this is like what you expect to see the Trump people do is write these kinds of books. It's very Trumpian. And, you know, I've known Karine over the years, and I've always had good relations with her. She's always been very nice. I know that doesn't mean anything. At the end of the day, this is D.C. but to me, you know, this is an issue inside the Democratic Party. It seems to me right now like they cannot hang on to the folks that they have. And everybody is sort of going in a lot of different directions, and nobody seems to know what the best path forward is for the party. And I was talking to a senior Biden aide last night in D.C. who was saying that Biden is loving all the criticism he's getting these days. He's never felt better. He's been. He goes into places and people are applauding. It's all this criticism is backfiring on him. So I don't know if Karina is making a good move here, honestly.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And I don't know what the move is and I don't like to judge things as you know, Jim, because you never know what's. You never know what's not. And people write all kinds of things. And you know, look upon our, our tenure at CNN and our exits. People wrote a lot of things about me, at least I know, that were not true. And I mean patently false, just made up things. And so I don't know what Karine Jean Pierre, what her response is going to be, what's true and what's not. But if this reporting is true, you know, it, it's, I'll just say that it's interesting. I do like that the former president is enjoying his life. I do like that it's backfiring.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

That.

[Jim Acosta]

And I, I just wonder why there's so much focus on him and not the craziness that is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue right now.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah. And this aide I was talking to you last night was saying, you know, for Christ's sake, Donald Trump over the weekend is putting out this conspiracy theory that Biden was executed in 2020 or whatever it was, or 2021 or 2024. I don't know what it was. It was replaced by a clone robot or some shit. What the, you're the president. I mean, I don't care. Joe Biden would stumble and stammer and get words wrong and things like that. Who gives a shit if the current President of the United States is peddling crazy ass conspiracy theories?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. Here's what I say, Jim. We both know Joe Biden.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

You seen him much more and been up close and personal with him much more than I have. Joe Biden was an old man. We know that. We know Joe Biden wasn't the Joe Biden that he was when he was 70, that he when he was 60, when he was 50, when he was 40. All it's going to happen to all of us if we're lucky enough to get there. Even now, I can't recall things like now I'm like, what's that guy's name? Acosta, Jim. That guy. You know what? You know what I'm saying?

[Don Lemon]

And so I do that.

[Jim Acosta]

It happens to everybody. But I will say, you know, I didn't like to give my political, you know, give political opinions or any sort of leanings when I worked in mainstream media. But this last time, I wanted Kamala Harris to win. Not because I was enamored with Kamala Harris, but because I thought that the Democratic Party, she was the only one who believed in Democrats, democracy. So I will say that I believe that a Joe Biden ran the country, even if he was in cognitive decline or whatever mental state, that he was in a hell of a lot better than Donald Trump is running this country. And I think we need to be focused on that because Joe Biden is in the past. He is retired, and he left Donald Trump with a good economy. That Donald Trump fucked up. And he left him after he pulled our economy back off the brink from the first time, first time Donald Trump was in office, you know.

[Don Lemon]

Exactly. That's right. And I mean, and just today you have the Department of Education going after Columbia University, trying to say it doesn't meet its accreditation status and so on. And the way Trump has tried to go on this campaign of revenge and retribution in this sort of undemocratic, strongman wannabe fashion. That is the story, that's the story that we should be focusing on right now. The American people, journalists, folks like Don and I, that's the story. Whether Biden did this or that, he's. He's gone. He's not the president anymore.

[Jim Acosta]

Right. And I do think that the Democrats, they need to have a postmortem. They need to figure out where the party is going. I spoke, you know Mike Nellis. Right. I spoke with Mike Nellis, who was a, a former senior advisor to the Kamala Harris campaign and other raised money for him.

[Don Lemon]

Try to get him on. Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

And he talked about. I, I had him on today. He's a great guy. You should have him on. It's. And it's up on the substack right now. And he talked about the way forward for Democrats. We talked about Pete Buttigieg, whether America was ready for a gay president. We talked about the trans issue. And he has some very interesting insight and perspective on where Democrats need to go. And I think he's pretty much on the mark. We disagreed on some things, but I like people that I can disagree with and still respect. Yeah. You know, he's not a MAGA person that you go, wait a minute, what you're saying is not even related anywhere to reality.

[Don Lemon]

No. You have to be in the real world for, for me to want to have a conversation with you. I mean, that's just the way I, I do it. But, and I know, Don, you have to run, but you mentioned Pete Buttigieg. I mean, my feeling is, is that he could be president and that he could be very successful running for president. And this Notion that he can't be successful, to me, is wrong. I think that's a misreading of. Of where we are as a country right now. I think Trump could so seriously screw things up, and he's in the process of fucking those things up right now. That the table might be set for Pete Buttigieg. You just don't know. We saw this back in 2008 with Barack Obama. People said, there's no way he's gonna beat Hillary Clinton.

[Jim Acosta]

Okay, so we agree on that somewhat. I agree that Pete Buttigieg is qualified and would be a great president of the United States. The only thing that I disagree with you and with Mike on is that this is different from 2008, Jim. You lived it. You saw how our political climate, how the rules changed for politics, how anything became that you could. That nothing mattered.

[Don Lemon]

Right.

[Jim Acosta]

You could say, I'm going to grab a woman by the pee and all of that and still become President of the United States. In 2008, when Barack Obama ran, you couldn't do that. That was. We didn't play by those rules.

[Don Lemon]

Correct. I think that's true.

[Jim Acosta]

Changed the game. So now, you know, I think about Pete Buttigieg. Great. If he runs, great. I think that he would be a great president if he wins. But I think people think about what happened, how they demonized and otherized trans people and members of the LGBTQ community in 2024 and that election. And I think that is a legitimate concern for I hear Democrats, progressive people, really far to the left, saying, I love Pete. I just don't know if it's time yet. And people said that about Barack Obama. So I say if Pete wants to run, let him run. But I do understand the concerns and the hesitation from some folks.

[Don Lemon]

Well, I don't want to hold you up, and maybe I'll let you have the last word there. My thing is that I believe that this country is ready to make change in all sorts of ways. And, you know, I agree with you that Trump has. He's so normalized. Cruelty and hatred and nastiness in this country. I do worry about what a Pete Buttigieg candidacy would be up against, but you got to go for. You got to try. When you're in that moment where you might have the table set for you, I think you have to do it. No matter what the pundits say, what the climate or environment might be like. Well, I don't know. We'll. To be. To be determined, I assume. I guess. But yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

And to be continued. So next time. Maybe we shouldn't talk about Elon Musk because then we won't lose connectivity.

[Don Lemon]

Oh, it's true. All right. We won't next time. We'll talk about other things. All right. Good to see you, Don.

[Jim Acosta]

Good to see you. Thank you. Tim Acosta. See you later, buddy.

[Don Lemon]

Thank you, bud. All right. Thank you so much. Oh, we got Jip there because Elon Musk, I think, tried to screw us over there, but I'm kidding a little bit, but maybe not. That's the great Don Lemon. As you can see, Don and I were just getting going there because we were so rudely interrupted at one point. I think it might have been Elon Musk, but I have no idea. And I say that partly in jest, but I do think it's interesting. And in a few minutes from now, I'm going to be talking with Miles Taylor. Miles was at the town hall that I had in D.C. the other night. That was on Monday night here in Washington. And Miles was there. We gave Miles an award for defending freedom. And we gave other awards out to January 6th police officers, folks like Harry Dunn, Mike Fanone, Daniel Hodges, Akalina Gannell, Tara Settmeyer. She got one for defending women. And Aaron Parnas for defending Gen Z. But Miles has been on my mind for some time. I'm going to bring him in in just a few moments here because it was earlier this year when Trump, you know, he gets the press in the Oval Office. You know, he doesn't want the press asking the hard questions anymore. Brings them in the Oval Office and they read out these executive orders. They read out these ridiculous executive order. I mean, I wrote about this in my substack the other day. Why are they reading the executive orders to him out loud in the Oval Office? Like he has not read them? It's almost like they're reading him his last will and testament and he's got to sign off on this. I mean, it's just so weird. And I mean, can't they just read this stuff behind closed doors? It has to be done in, like, this reality TV show fashion. And I know. I guess that's the point. But the day that he read the executive order saying that the Department of Justice is going to go after Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, to me, there have been some very un American moments since the beginning of this new administration. The pardoning of the January 6th criminals being, I guess, top of the list. I would say they're right at the top of the list. The executive order instructing the Justice Department to go after Miles and Chris Krebs, to me, was one of the most un American things I have ever seen in my lifetime. And it needs to be roundly denounced. It's disappointing to me that we did not see Republicans up, many Republicans up on Capitol Hill and around Washington immediately denounce that. You cannot have the President of the United States announcing an executive order where, you know, he is saying that we're going to have the Department of Justice go after people. Let me see if I can start to bring in Miles Taylor now because we need to have this discussion. Miles just announced that he is calling for basically an IG investigation, independent inspector general investigation of what is going on inside the Department of Homeland Security, inside the Department of Justice. He's requesting a review of whether these executive orders violate the law, the constitutional rights and other safeguards meant to protect American citizens. And there's Miles right there. Hey, Miles. How you doing, Jim?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

I thought I'd give you a live shot. You know, I love it.

[Don Lemon]

This is great.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

We. We just, you know, we gotta spice it up. We gotta take the viewers on a. On a tour of Washington's back streets.

[Don Lemon]

I love it. I know exactly where you are right now. I recognize that street. I think I know from where you came. But we won't mention any names right.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Now, everything in between, so.

[Don Lemon]

Oh, yeah, now what? You're bi Union Station. We'll leave it at that. But, Miles, I'm so glad that you're doing this. I'm so glad that you have come out and said you're pushing back on Donald Trump's un American behavior. You're calling on these federal watchdogs to investigate the Trump administration for his executive order. Going after you. You said in your substack writing about this, you said this is not a partisan request, it's a constitutional one. Tell us what you meant by that.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Well, look, I mean, at the end of the day, Jim, you know, being targeted by an investigative executive order is a. Is a totally different thing than, you know, Donald Trump saying something mean about you on Truth Social, which he's done. Saying something mean about you on Twitter, which he's done, saying something mean in the press release. He's done all those things to us. This is different. This is the use of the investigative organs of the government to try to disrupt our lives. And make no mistake, those powers are extraordinary. It gives the President and his lieutenants the ability, you know, potentially, hypothetically, to dig into every aspect of our lives. And so, you know, that's why I Say, at the end of the day, this is not something that we treat as, you know, as a political act. We think it's very important constitutionally to have the inspector generals of these departments whose job it is to watch over the shoulder of the investigators to see if they are actually carrying out this order, which we believe to be totally politically motivated on his part because of me speaking out against him. And, you know, you can agree or disagree with me about Donald Trump, you can love or hate what I said about Donald Trump, but it was First Amendment protected speech. And so absolutely, you know, now we, you know, we believe these investigators are fundamentally violating our constitutional rights by engaging in this review. And as a first step, we think that's what the inspector generals are there to do is to, is to look into that and to shine a light.

[Don Lemon]

And Miles, when the executive order came out, I guess you and I haven't really spoken about this together publicly, like in this kind of a fashion. But I know you were at the town hall the other night. I'm tremendously grateful for that. I thought your words were powerful. People in the audience were moved by them. I just thought it was your message about how we can't stay quiet, we can't be anonymous in this time right now. We have to put ourselves out there. I guess I do want to ask you about that. Well, let's start there. Why did you, why, why did, why did you want to deliver that message?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Well, it's, of course, you know, as I had said that night, Jim, ironic coming from me, you know, to say that, you know, anonymity is a threat to democracy. I, of course, had initially criticized the President as anonymous, but there was a reason for that. I mean, I did that because it was a device I knew that would get attention. That may sound crass, it would be crass if the object was to get myself attention because I was in a movie or selling a product. But the message was that the President of the United States was viewed by his own lieutenants as fundamentally unfit for office. So much so that they had real conversations about whether they might have to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him. That, in my mind, is not the type of thing that a bunch of unelected bureaucrats should be talking about behind the scenes in a smoke filled room and not sharing with the American people. If they have that view, then, dammit, it's their job to go tell the voters who are the ones who are responsible for deciding whether to fire or rehire a president. And so I felt like it was Very important to get that message out there. But in the course of that, Jim, you know, I realized that, yeah, it brought attention to the message, but I couldn't stay behind a mask forever because that sent a different message. It sent a message that we can have these opinions and not attach our names to them and everything will be okay and someone else will just solve it for us. Someone will ride in on the white horse. And that wasn't the case. And as we got closer to the 2020 election, no one was riding in on the white horse. And a lot of these cabinet members who'd been fired or left the administration that you and I both know had these opinions were not coming out and sharing them. And so I felt like a different message needed to be sent, that we shouldn't hide behind those words, hide behind anonymity rather, and we should own our words. And now my worry is that as the President's engaged in a truly historic and sweeping government wide whole of government effort to exact revenge against his enemies, that it is collective silence within the Republican Party, within the federal government, within corporate America that will enable him to carry it out. And so that, to me, is a bigger threat to free speech than Donald Trump himself. It is us self censoring and being anonymous. And that's one of the reasons I'm out there right now talking about this situation is to tell people, look, it is hard, it's very hard to come forward and speak about these things because you invite a lot of turmoil into your life. But the alternative is much worse because you invite a lot of fear into the rest of your life if you don't step up and do the right thing.

[Don Lemon]

No, there's no question about it. And my hat is off to you for doing that. And by the way, you just got into a car. It's 87 degrees in Washington. If you have to turn that car on and turn the AC on, you go right ahead.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

The AC is on. And I will say for anyone out there who says, oh, dang, why is he in a Tesla? I bought this seven years ago before Elon went crazy. Although it seems like Elon's trying to uncrazy himself. I don't know, we'll see what happens.

[Don Lemon]

It's interesting that you brought that up. If you go around D.C. these days, just about every Tesla has like, F Elon on it, or I bought this before Elon went crazy and so on. So don't worry about that. That's okay. Well, let's talk about Elon in a second. But I Did want to ask you, when Trump put out that executive order, that very un American executive order, going after you, which is obviously it was designed to send the message to other future Miles Taylors, don't do this. Other future Chris Krebs, don't do this. Don't cross me. I'll come after. Did you have any heads up whatsoever, or was it one of those things where it was like, this is in the news. People are texting me. It's happening right now.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Yeah, None. None whatsoever. I mean, we suspected, Jim, my wife and I, that somewhere along the line he would come after us. And, you know, I've now been going on seven years of warning that this guy, if reelected, would be engaged in a really historic campaign of retribution. And he's done that to a table. So I suspected at some point we'd be on some executive order. What I did not expect is so quickly in the administration, him to escalate these attacks to directly ordering federal investigations into named individuals. I mean, legal scholars tell me this is the first time with me and Chris Krebs in American history, 249 years, that a president, by executive order, has opened an investigation into a named critic for First Amendment protected speech. That's never happened in this country. And so it was a gut punch. I mean, my wife and I were both just getting home. She was getting home with the baby, I was getting home with the dog. And, and we were in the driveway and someone texted and said, you need to turn on the news. And we watched it happen. And, you know, we went to our kitchen table afterwards and Hannah looked at me and, you know, her first question was, do you think we're going to lose the house? Because we've only just put the pieces back together in our life. After speaking out against Trump in 2020, we know we don't have the resources to go defend against this type of full frontal assault. And I hate to say it, but I had to respond to her and say, I don't know and we need to figure out how we're going to do this. Now, I'm lucky, Jim, because organizations came forward to offer support. An incredible organization that I can't say enough about, whistleblower aid, helped us create a legal defense fund. We're immensely grateful folks that are your viewers. Other folks have helped us with that. It's endpresidentialrevenge.org, endpresidentialrevenge.org It's a nonprofit. They're supporting not just us, but other people who are being targeted by the White House for their public service. And, I mean, we broke down into tears when they offered to go launch that defense fund because we didn't know if we were going to have to sell the house to pay for our defense. My fear, though, is what if you're the 30th person on the list, or the hundredth person, or the thousandth person to receive an investigative order with Trump's signature at the bottom, are you going to have that network? Are you going to be able to come on Jim Acosta's show and talk about it? And that's why we feel like we have to draw a line. I mean, I'll tell you, every fiber of my being wanted to just stay private after this happened. We just did not want to go back into the public limelight. Like I said, we're growing our family. We wanted to go back to private business and just put our lives back together. But after a lot of conversations, you know, after many weeks, and if there's a reason Hannah and I weren't on here talking to you the day after this happened, because we spent weeks figuring out, do we really think we should go back out there and punch back? And ultimately, our conclusion is, one, this is wrong, so we have to. And two, they are going to do this to so many more people if we don't come out and show how wrong this is and try to lay down a marker and get the system to prevent this from going forward. So that's what we're setting out to do.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah. And I think Trump, you know, I often say he's his own worst enemy. For all of his perceived enemies, he's his own worst enemy. And he is sowing the seeds of his own destruction, I believe political destruction. When he does things like go after you, Miles Taylor, when he goes after people like Chris Krebs, you know, quite frankly, when he. When he tried to take my press pass and go after journalists, people like the Associated Press, because it stiffens the spine of the American people. And I. I think it's just wonderful that folks have come out of the woodwork to help you, that they. That there is this effort. And presidentialrevenge.org I mean, that, to me, gives me hope. But the question that I have for you, Miles, is, you know, what can be done? Because it seems to me we're going to need a lot of legal defense funds over the next few years. And, I mean, they're going after Columbia University today trying to, you know, get rid of their accreditation. I mean, this is just. This is Going to be a long, hard slog, it seems to me.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Yeah, well, the first thing that I would say is, Jim, you mentioning the story of your press pass is so resonant. You know this, but you know your viewers don't, which is that the day that that happened to you, I will never forget, I was sitting at Trump Hotel with a group of Cabinet secretaries. I was still in the first Trump administration. And I'll never forget a very senior person in the White House coming into the Trump Hotel and walking over to the group of us and just gloating so gleefully that they had just revoked your press pass. And I, I remember the, the laughter, the high fiving. It's, it's before maybe you even knew it had happened or you had just maybe found out it had happened. And I still remember every detail about that scene because it was so sickening, the joy with which they were attacking so directly, symbolically. And actually the First Amendment is a reporter holding Trump's feet to the fire at the White House, being booted from the White House. And now we've seen in a second term, that episode has become so illustrative of their approach to the free press. And those warning signs were there. And I remember being disgusted by that. But I mentioned that, Jim, because it also answered your question, which is how do we start pushing back against that? You are the example of that. You could have been a reporter who had the press pass revoked, got beaten down by the Trump White House, and sort of tail between your legs, just caught your reporting, stopped talking about it. And there were pressures, I'm sure, on you to, hey, Jim, dial it back a little bit. I know he's doing outlandish things, but maybe if you just focus a little less on the violation of Democratic norms, you won't be in this situation again. Jim Acosta did not think that was acceptable. I think you have demonstrated extraordinary professional and personal courage all through everybody. But you don't have to be Jim Acosta. You can be the small business owner who says, no, I'm not going to let people cancel me because I stood up for the thing that was right. I mean, I'll give you an example of how this happened recently. I'm not going to call the person out at all. They're trying to protect their family. But I'm doing an event in a major city in a couple of weeks to help try to raise for this legal defense fund. And a catering company was hired to help cater for the event. Very friendly group of people, and they had to back out the other day, and they backed out because they found out what the event was for. Not that they don't support our efforts to shine a light on attacks, on free speech, but they are worried that their employees, who are immigrants, will be targeted by the Trump administration if they cater an event that I'm at. This is the level of social fear we are seeing. So don't think for a second everyday Americans can't be, you know, make that decision because they. We will be faced with those decisions about whether to stand up or not. And it makes all the difference in the world to make that choice. It is hard. But there's also strength in numbers in speaking out. And that's ultimately how we came full circle, my wife and I, in deciding whether to go back out there against this is it really takes someone. It takes people breaking the seal. And the last thing I'll say on that front is in 2020, when I was seeing that a lot of people weren't coming forward, I was going to coffees privately with a lot of these senior officials that ended up coming and speaking their minds about the president, former cabinet members, and then people who weren't household names and that sort of thing. And I was having coffees with them, and everyone's like, you know, yeah, we share your view, but this guy's going to blow up our lives if we do it. And, you know, I realized what it was going to take was a bunch of us deciding, okay, let's all come out at the same time. And, you know, that spreads out the attack surface in a sense. And that helped. That worked, and that works, whether it's at the national level or at the local level. And that's how people need to think about this moment that we are going into as a country.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah. I mean, I can't tell you how disappointed I have been. And first of all, thank you for all the very kind words. It's very nice. I mean, I can just say humanly, personally, there was just no way I could personally say, I'm just going to take this on the chin and just. And just absorb this. I thought it was gonna be sending the wrong message. I thought, my God, what kind of example are we setting for kids out there? And so on. And to me, it gets back to what's happening right now. It just encourages the bad behavior. If you go along with it, if you take it, if you absorb it and say, oh, gosh, I'm so sorry, you are encouraging the behavior. And I wonder, Miles, what your take is on law firms, universities, Media organizations taking it on the chin, bending the knee, bowing down to me, it makes what you're going through even more difficult.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Well, it also shows that they have made a choice to agree with the president, whether they realize it or not. Donald Trump has accused people like me and Chris Krebs of treason for speaking out against him. That is a crime punishable by death in the United States. And even if he thinks that that's a joke, his supporters don't think it's a joke. The people that send us messages saying they're going to kill me in a firing squad, that send graphic, violent things about my wife, that talk about my daughter or my nieces and nephews, they don't think he's joking when he says treason. And that's incredibly alarming. But when those institutions cower, they are effectively agreeing with him that dissent is treasonous because they have chosen to accept the fact that if they dissent, they will be treated like traitors. And that perpetuates the revenge. It makes it that much easier. And I take a different view. And it's why, you know, Jim, you inspired me, in part, to get on this platform this week, and it's why I called my substack reason, because I think the opposite. I don't think that dissent is treasonous, and certainly not criticizing a president. And there's a long, proud tradition in this country of viewing it the opposite way. And I always go back to this Teddy Roosevelt quote is, you know, he said that not only is it not treasonous to criticize a president, it's treasonous not to criticize a president. And to say that that criticism, you know, should not be done, that is servile. And, you know, the truth should be spoken always about the president of the United States, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant. And so, you know, look, I would say this. If free speech is treasonous, then I hope they build bigger prisons, because I want to see people in this country rise up and show that they're not afraid to be called traitors. And it takes that sort of conviction and feeling of defiance to buck yourself up into the place you need to be. And just remember, we're only a few months into this administration. I don't want to be cynical about this, but this is gonna get worse before it gets better. It will require everyday Americans to start rising up. I mean, it's genuinely going to require that. And that, I think, is the only thing that has started to. Started to curb some of the excesses of this administration.

[Don Lemon]

No, I 100% agree with you. And, and for folks out there who are saying, oh gosh, you know, we can't have people like Miles criticizing Trump. I mean, first of all, you come from a Republican background. But second of all, going back to the individual we mentioned at the top of this interview, I mean, you can accuse Elon Musk now, I guess of having Trump derangement synd. He's out there on Twitter going after the big beautiful bill. He's talking about how it's going to explode the deficit and so on, kill the bill and so on. And it just, it's remarkable to me how, you know, hypocritical they are in all of this. And the question that I have, Miles, is you've got to think, you've got to think that there are other Miles Taylors inside the White House, inside the administration as we speak, waiting. You know, they're, they're, they're going through the struggle that you went through. They're going through the struggle that I went through. And they're saying, how do I, what do I do? How do I speak out? How do I reveal what's going on? How can I be the whistleblower? And I what's your message to them? Because you know, those guys exist, those ladies exist. As we speak, there are people who are saying God awful things and want to speak out.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

I mean, look, I will just be very blunt about the internal struggle that I went through. You think that it's better to stay in obscurity and to stay comfortable. But believe me, on the back end of this, if you saw wrongdoing and did nothing, you will be uncomfortable in your own skin for the rest of your life. And you will struggle and you may not even be able to name it, but you will have this unnamed thing haunting you for the rest of your life. You will be in therapy about it without knowing. You will get, you know, you'll be addicted to pills or alcohol. It will consume you. And that's not some prophetic warning. You go look at the whole history of people who've talked about sitting on allegations of wrongdoing when they knew they shouldn't have done it and how much it tortured them for the rest of their lives. And I knew that that's what would happen. And I didn't want to hate myself for the rest of my life. And I thought, I'll take all of the consequences. I would rather take the ultimate consequence and be taken down by one of these vigilante MAGA people in the street, God forbid, than live the rest of my life knowing I saw wrongdoing and did nothing. And that's the first thing I would say. But the second thing I would say is it won't destroy your life. It will free you. I have never felt more freed in my entire life. No one can get leverage over me ever, ever, ever, ever. I feel the most freed I've ever been in my entire life. And that doesn't just mean professionally, on some grand scale, that I'll stand up to the President of the United States. It means if someone's, you know, an asshole to my wife at the coffee shop and says something inappropriate, I'm not afraid to just say, hey, that was wrong. I mean, we all live every day with these little micro social fears. And when you stand up in the face of wrongdoing, it frees you from all of that for the rest of your life. And so that's what I would tell those people. But the third thing is there are organizations out there for people who want to speak out, and they exist. I mentioned the organization helping us. At the endpresidentialrevenge.org, there's groups like Government Accountability Project. Norm Eisen runs an extraordinary group, States Democracy. There's a growing constellation of these remarkable democracy defenders who are helping people, whether they're in government, outside of government, current officials, former officials, people in the business world, people at law firms to come forward and do the right thing. And that's hard, and that's scary because the normal mechanisms for blowing the whistle have been attacked and assailed. And the President is trying to make it as hard as possible to go out there and dissent. But there is pushback, and that gives me a lot of hope, is to see folks, and I saw a number of them the other night at the town hall. You pulled together, Jim. I mean, it was just like a room packed full of brave people. Folks are. It's taken a little bit longer than, than we'd hope, but, you know, folks are really stepping up and that's remarkable. And look, I will just say, personally, from the bottom of my heart, it has blown us away just the past few days, the outpouring of support that we have seen. We didn't know if it was going to be there. I did not know yesterday if I was going to say these things and it was going to fall on deaf ears and go drive back home to Hannah and say this is going to be a lot harder than I thought, or if I was going to hear from people around this country who had our backs and it was the latter. And, you know, I'm not an emotional guy, but I called my wife on the drive home from D.C. yesterday, and, you know, I just said, I think I got a little bit more hope than I had on Monday.

[Don Lemon]

Well, I mean, not to get all Star wars and everybody, but rebellions were built on hope, I thought is one of the lines from one of those movies. But, Miles, listen, you're giving everybody hope and taking the stand that you're taking right now, speaking truth to power. It's exactly what we need across this country right now. And little by little, you're right. It's happening slowly. But little by little, step by step, people are waking up to the reality of what we're all facing right now. And as we saw the other night at the town hall, and people were very much moved by the words that you spoke there, that support is coming together. This movement, it's coalescing. It's coming together in a way that I think is going to blow you away. It's going to blow me away. And I think the American people are going to be strengthened by it in the long run. I mean, there's that old saying about being stronger in the broken places, and we're pretty broken right now as a country. I do have hope that we're going to get to this place that you and I have been talking about for some time, and. And you just. You have to have hope. You have to have hope that we're better than this. That, to me, is what it is at the end of the day.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

And I've got to say, Jim, there's something about the new media ecosystem that we're in that allows everyday Americans to actually be in this fight. I mean, you know, we're used to. Twenty years ago, someone asked, well, how can I help? And it's like, you know, you can show up at a rally and people like, I don't feel like I am able to contribute. I will tell you point blank right now without any humiliation. I don't pretend to have endless financial resources. I am able to fight back because people have crowdsourced my defense. Literally people I've never met in my life.

[Don Lemon]

Amazing. Amazing.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Are the reason I'm able to go take these legal actions against the Trump administration. That's how you can help when this happens to other people. You can literally be the one to help them fight back. And so people that I'll probably never meet in my life have effectively saved my family and. And are behind us. That is cool. That is remarkable. That gives me A lot of hope is that people can actually go be in this fight right now, and I'm inspired by that. So, yeah, I appreciate everything you're doing on this front, Jim. And, you know, genuinely, I think that. I think it's starting to turn the tide. So, you know, just. Just super grateful for your moral leadership in these times.

[Don Lemon]

And I'm grateful for yours, Miles. I'll let you go, but really, just. I just want to say once again how grateful I am to you for coming to the town hall the other night and spreading your message and what you continue to do every day. I firmly believe that this decision that you are making, to take this stand, you are going to feel good about this. It's hard as shit at times, but you're going to feel good about this the rest of your life. And your daughter, your little. Your just beautiful daughter that I met the other night, she's going to be so proud of her dad. And that's what, you know, I think that's going to be something that you're going to feel very good about for years and years to come, man. And she's going to say in years from now, she's going to say, I don't even remember any of this stuff.

[Miles Taylor]

Stuff.

[Don Lemon]

But I'm so glad you did it, dad. So I'm proud of you.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Means a ton, Jim. Thank you. I seriously appreciate it. And thanks to all your viewers.

[Don Lemon]

All right, thanks. Thanks, Miles. Appreciate it. Good to see you, man. Peace to you. And drive safely, please, in that and that Tesla that you got there. You know, I can't say enough about Miles. He's just such a great guy. And I understand. I. You know, listen, I. When I cover the White House during the first Trump administration, I would talk to Trump people from time to time, and they would tell me how batshit crazy it was behind the scenes. They always wanted to be quoted anonymously. They did not wanna say on the record what they thought was going on. And this is right up until January 6, 2021. I was hearing from Trump officials, Trump advisors, Trump friends, Trump attorneys. They were all saying privately what Miles is now saying publicly, which is that this man, the guy who is now the President of the United States, cannot hack it. He cannot do this job. He can't do it because he's not built the way that you need to be to be the President of the United States. You have to be able to accept criticism. It's part of the job. You have to be able to take hits. It's part of the job. And Donald Trump is just not built that way. And so when somebody comes out and speaks publicly like Miles, and says what needs to be said and says what so many officials and aides and advisors won't say publicly because they feel like they can't do it, they lack the guts to do it. They feel like they're in some kind of a bind or situation where they can't do it. Miles is doing publicly and in a brave and courageous way what so many of them, let's just face it, who are gutless wonders, can't have the balls to say it out loud. And that's why I'm appreciative of Miles and what he does and what he said. And there. And there are. There have been others over the years who have done similar things as Miles. I think of Stephanie Grisham from time to time. She does not like to speak publicly that much anymore, but she was very out in front with her criticism of Trump. She recognized the danger. She spoke out publicly. And we need people like Miles, we need people like Stephanie to continue to do that. Olivia Troy, obviously my friend Olivia Troy, who was at the town hall the other night, she worked for Mike Pence. She has spoken publicly, and we need those kinds of folks. That's why I asked that question at the end of that interview there. What would Miles's message be to the current Miles Taylors? Because I can guarantee, I can bet good money, I can bet good money that there are other Miles Taylors right now as we speak, who are freaked out about what they're witnessing inside the Trump administration. Because there's no question about it, what's happening this time around is even more batshit crazy than what it was the last time around. So you have to have the Miles Taylors of the world. And so what everybody's doing right now to uplift and support him, I want to encourage all of my subscribers to subscribe to Miles, and you could do that right here on Substack so you can continue to follow what he is going through. All right, I want to get to my buddy, Adrian Carrasquillo. He is doing excellent work over at the Bulwark right now and is writing about, I mean, really what we've seen take place in the immigration realm, which is just absolutely madness. The way that Latinos have been targeted in this country, let's just face it, they've been absolutely 100% targeted in this country. Adrian's been following this with his reporting. Adrian, great to see you, buddy.

[Miles Taylor]

How you doing?

[Don Lemon]

Good, man. Good. Thank you. So much for doing this. I was just talking to Miles Taylor about this, and I know you've been doing a lot of immigration reporting, and I have to think that you're already talking to administration officials or people behind the scenes who are saying, you know what, this is a little bit screwed up. What we're seeing unfold before our eyes, this mass deportation operation that Trump has been unleashing on the country. And you wrote about some of this in the Bulwark just recently. You wrote a piece called, and I want to make sure everybody reads Adrian's piece. It's called Love in the Time of Deportation. And it starts off this way. When Diego went to court in Tennessee for his annual ICE check in on February 12, he didn't expect anything different from past years. Neither did his wife, Emily, a US Citizen who went with him. They weren't planning on going anywhere. But this time, Diego was detained. He was shipped off to an ICE detention center. Emily, his wife, had a huge decision to make this, according to Adrian, uproot her entire life or be separated from her husband. If she chose to self deport with her two and a half year old son, who is also an American citizen, then just like that, their lives in the US Would be over. She plans on leaving the country in June. Adrian, so many families are going through these kinds of situations right now, aren't they?

[Miles Taylor]

I've been sort of like obsessed with the concept of self deportation, the idea that this mass deportation regime could then extend to US Citizens having their lives overturned by what's going on, because the administration, as you and I both know, said they were gonna go get criminals and gang bangers. And what they've been doing is they've been going after people who've been here paying their taxes, have been here for 10, 20 years. And so it took a while because I wanted to track down people who would be willing to tell their story. You know, we kept their identities anonymous in the. And, and you know, what hit me is, and I know you've done this for a long time, you and I both have, Jim. And, and it hit me when she said we, you know, you were just talking with Miles, I was listening about the Tesla, right? She said, we just bought a Honda Prologue electric vehicle. Like they weren't planning on going anywhere, you know, and five months ago, and now here they're confronted with her choice being. And. And I asked her, how difficult is this for you? And she said, well, it's not difficult because my choices are stay here or go be with my family. And she was unwilling to separate her family. And so now she's going to Colombia in June.

[Don Lemon]

And I mean, and so many families are faced with this heartbreaking choice. I mean, who wants to live in a different country than their wife or their husband or have their child separated from the kid's parent? And yet we're seeing so much of that take place right now. There was the case recently in the last few weeks of a little kid from Honduras who was a U.S. citizen, left with his mother. We're seeing this in case after case after case. But this is what Tom Homan said at the beginning of the administration, that we'll deport whole families, even if some of the people in the family have US Citizenship. It's unreal.

[Miles Taylor]

They said there would be collateral damage, quote, as if that's something that you can use. I covered immigration 10 years ago, and I didn't think I wanted to cover it again, because you get into this place where you have to keep raising the stakes of how difficult the story is and how much it pulls on the heartstrings for people to get to pay attention. But what I found important about this year is that this is the central story that, as we're seeing, their overreach on immigration then leads to constitutional overreach.

[Don Lemon]

Right?

[Miles Taylor]

Where they're doing things that are illegal, everything from birthright citizenship orders to trying to arrest the Newark mayor, you know, trying to sort of rock up members of Congress who are. Want to do congressional oversight, which is a legal thing. And so that you start getting into what is going on here. You know, we have. We've talked about this. We've seen this with the ICE members that are wearing masks. Why are you wearing masks?

[Don Lemon]

Why are they wearing the masks? Why are they wearing masks? Do we know? Yeah.

[Miles Taylor]

Well, I've got something coming on that hopefully soon. But, you know, it's just. It's this constant thing that. And, And. And you and I have talked about this privately, but I. I've been really impressed and really proud of the work that you're doing. I think that's.

[Don Lemon]

So.

[Miles Taylor]

We look up to you because you've been around. You know, you look great, but you've been around here for a while, and we respect.

[Don Lemon]

I'm old. I mean, let's just fucking say it. I'm old.

[Miles Taylor]

You're a veteran. But in this time. And something that I've been excited about with the Bulwark is, you know, when they're. When they're trumping up this BS charges about tattoos and using that as ways of arresting, disappearing them in El Salvador. I told my editor I want to write a piece titled the Tattoos are. And they said, okay, you know, and just to be able to at this careers to say what's happening.

[Don Lemon]

Well, the work you guys are doing over the bulwark has been very important. And the work you've done in particular over there has been very important. And it needs to have a voice because, I mean, I mean, let's just get right into, into this. This whole notion that they were going to carry out mass deportations and that the only people who would be swept up in these mass deportations would be gang bangers and criminals. That was. I mean, you know, there are lots of big lies out there. And maybe it's not as big of a lie as the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, but the idea, the idea that you were just going to be deporting gang bangers and criminals, I think that is sizing up to be the lie of the year. That is one of the biggest lies that have been told about these mass deportations. They're just deporting families. They're grabbing people with brown skin, Spanish last names. They're waiting for them at the courthouse, they're snatching them up in many cases, not giving them due process and getting them out of the country to make the country less brown. I'm going to say. You don't have to say it, but I'm saying it.

[Miles Taylor]

Oh, no, no. It's a bait and switch. And I think that, you know, I remember at the beginning of the year I wanted to put that Trump and Miller were making America white again. That's what they were trying to do. And you know, that's ultimately what they're trying to do. When you go from denying due process, when you go from people who are going for their court date, they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. How about the people that were paying taxes and then they're suddenly trying to get, you know, all the tax information on these people? Aren't these the people who pay taxes every year? The people who are just keep their head down, they work, they start small business, they hire people. It's been outlandish. It's been crazy. I mean, one thing that I think they benefited from is that like a lot of people don't know the nitty gritty policy of immigration and what's going on. You know, we all knew. And polls and focus groups have shown this Americans wanted a tighter border. They wanted Biden to tighten. Yeah, that has turned into all this interior enforcement, going into schools, you know, go pulling people when they're coming out of churches. And it's, it's clearly, it's not just wrong. It's also, we're seeing in the polling and we saw this beginning with the hundred days stuff that Americans are saying, wait, I didn't sign up for this. And then on top of that, the economy is always number one. But immigration is this thing that's happening, including with Latino voters, where they're saying, oh, no, this on top of the economy and the tariffs, I didn't vote for this. And I think they have a wake up call coming next year.

[Don Lemon]

Well, and you have a lot of Cuban Americans down in South Florida who vote Republican pretty much. You know, every time there's an election in this country, you have a lot of Venezuelans who want to emulate the Cubans. And so they vote pretty much Republican, by and large, down in South Florida. And I think because of the revocation of temporary protective status for several of these groups, people are waking up and saying, oh, wait a minute, they're coming after my family, they're coming after my abuela. Like, I thought I voted for Donald Trump and I was going to avoid this. No, because you voted for Donald Trump does not make you immune or your family immune to deportation. If you have a Spanish last name, if you have brown skin and you show up at your court date, you might be fucked. And that's just the way it is. And the other thing, Adrian, that has to be pointed out is I was at an event down in Texas last weekend talking to a Hispanic media group, and I had some people there tell me that people are not showing up for their court dates because of this. People are not showing up at school. Little kids are not going to school because they're worried they're going to have raids at the school. How does that make the country safer?

[Miles Taylor]

I spoke to a principal in Chicago. One of the first stories I did this year when I took up this new beat was just, what is ICE in schools look like? And she was talking to me about, like, teachers that their weekly meeting turned into basically a therapy session because teachers were crying. You know, one teacher had daca. They don't know what's going to happen to them. You know, the, the idea of what do I do if ICE comes to the school? Of course, there's the regular administrators have, you know, you're going to check in, we're going to go, we're going to talk to the principal, things like that. But literally what do we do? ISIS in the school? Am I putting my body in front of an ICE agent to stop a child from being taken? You know, this stuff where. And we, we already know the famous line, the cruelty is the point. But you're showing up at a school to try to get a father who's picking up his kid from school. I mean, it's just samples of this stuff that they're doing. And I don't know, I guess the Stephen Millers of the world think that this is like fun or that this is the right thing to do. But you're right. I mean, it ultimately goes down to when we. When we just pare it down to its basic foundation. They do not want the country the way it is now. They do not want the country as brown as it is now. And a lot of people had those eye opening, whether you were a Trump supporter, whether you were a South Florida, a Cuban, a Venezuelan of thinking. And when we've talked to these voters in the past, oh, no, they're not talking about me. When he says criminals going across the border, he's not talking about me. And so I am against that. And now they're finding out that they actually are talking about all of you.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'll just say it, that Stephen Miller is a racist asshole. And he is. And that's what's guiding the policy right now over at the White House. And I hate to use language like that, and I used to not use language like that and doing what I do, but I'm in a position now where I'm just gonna say it. And that's how I feel about what he's been doing over there. I mean, you were also reporting, and we spoke about this just recently, that there was this idea that they were gonna have a migrant Hunger Games, a, you know, sort of a Latino Hunger Games in this country to sort of like fight for your right to stay in this country and so on. Whatever happened to that is that. Has that gone away? They kind of backed away from it. Cause they even. They realized this is so sick.

[Miles Taylor]

They do so much of this stuff, which is like floating these things, press hits and for attention. And so who knows how it started if someone pitched or someone found out about it. But you know, this. This pitch of like, it's gonna be this American dream and we're gonna give citizen. The thing is that that flies in the face of the entire way that they've done all of their immigration stuff. This is not about some hopeful American dream. Wrap yourself in the flag, Statue of Liberty version of America. We know what this is. This is, you know, pitting people against each other. And you have people in this country who are trying to stay here and do the right thing. And you want us to turn on the TV to see your vision, your dystopian vision of what immigration is. And I was glad to quote you in that piece. You know, it's just. And so I think this is where we get back to. And it's not about patting ourselves on the back. This is where we get back to. Why are we doing this right now? We could be doing other things, could be covering other things. You know, I've covered election politics, and I enjoy doing that. But it's like, in this moment, this is the front line for this story, for their overreach, for their unconstitutional things that they're doing. And so, to me, it's like, these stories are about humans, as we saw in the story I wrote today. These are real people, US Citizens. You know, it's so hard to humanize when you read, you know, 100,000 people were removed or people who came from the border. When you give these people names and when you talk about their details of their family lives, we find out that, just like us, they're our neighbors. And people, it turns out, even Trump supporters, don't want them to be deported.

[Don Lemon]

Yeah. And there just aren't enough Latino criminals and gang members for them to meet these deportation goals. And that is the big lie in all of this. This is where the truth will eventually see the light of day, because the only way they can meet these quotas, meet these numbers that Trump wants to see is if they carry out a campaign of mass cruelty and heartache across this country, and that it continues over and over again to the extent that people become so sickened by the level of cruelty that is emanating from this White House that it has a political impact. It's already starting to have a political impact. His poll numbers on immigration are starting to go upside down. They're starting to nosedive because people are saying, I'm not this cruel. We are not supposed to be like this. I mean, I have this Statue of Liberty over my shoulder here for a reason, and it's because it's to remind people that's what this country is all about. We came from somewhere else. I mean, we're not all speaking Navajo here. We all came from somewhere else. And it's that journey, and it's all of those journeys that come together that make this country a special place. And, Adrian, I really appreciate the reporting that you do over at the Bulwark. Keep doing it, man. Keep plugging away and anybody who. And don't penalize and punish Adrian for talking to me. Those are my opinions I expressed here. But great to see you, man. Thanks so much, Jim. All right, thanks a lot. So anyway, sometimes I get a little fired up and I, you know, I've been hearing from people say, you know, oh, my goodness, Jim, every once in a while you say a curse word on your show. Let me go find my fainting couch. Oh, I do declare. Jim Acosta. He uttered a naughty word on the sub stack. My goodness, I've never heard such language before in the year 2025 here in Washington, D.C. jim Acosta, my goodness, how can you say that Stephen Miller is a racist? Well, guess what, folks? You know, if the, if the hood fits, wear it. When these guys think it's okay to subject people with Spanish last names and brown skin to this level of cruelty, when you have Trump in the White House, in the Oval Office basically putting out a fatwa on people like Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, there's some un American unconstitutional shit going on right now in this country. And pardon my salty language, I apologize right now in advance. I put this. I laid this apology on the table for all of you that, you know, there's some stuff that just requires something a little saltier than the King's English. And that is. That is what I'm going to bring to the table from time to time. And, you know, when you're. When you're deporting, we can't even say deporting. When you're matching up and removing US Citizen kids and sending them out of the country because their mother is mixed status or overstayed their visa or whatever it is, you're doing nasty, cruel, mean stuff, and you're a bad person. And as Adrian was asking, why do they wear a mask? Why do the ICE agents wear a mask? I'd love to get an answer to that question. I suppose if they're conducting operations where they are going after legitimate gang members, okay, maybe they need to protect themselves and their anonymity and so on. But if you're rounding up moms and little kids and abuelas and dads who are just paying their taxes and working in some restaurant somewhere doing something like that, you don't need a mask. You need a mask because, frankly, you're probably ashamed of what you're doing. You're feeling shame, just like so many people inside The Trump administration right now, inside the Trump White House right now and in the MAGA movement, perhaps Republicans up on Capitol Hill, they feel a level of shame. It's part of the reason why they lash out. It's part of the reason why they lash out at guys like me, lash out at guys at miles, like Miles. They feel shame and they don't know what to do with those emotions. And so they lash out. They call people names, they go after journalists, they go after lawyers, they go after whistleblowers, they go after Latinos in this country, people who are just working in a restaurant. They just did a bunch of raids here in Washington the other day, went through all the popular restaurants in D.C. those people were at work. They weren't gang bangers. They didn't pick them up at the gang store or the gang restaurant. They picked them up working their jobs at nice restaurants here in Washington. They pick them up at work. What does that tell you about the mass deportations of gang members and criminals that Donald Trump talked about out on the campaign trail? It was all a lie. He was lying. He was lying to you. He was lying to me. He was lying to the American people. And he continues to lie. It is, I believe, the big lie of the moment, the big lie of the moment from Donald Trump and Stephen Miller is that Hispanic people are criminals who don't belong in this country. And that is a lie. There are wonderful, the vast, almost all Latinos in the country, the vast majority, far and away, the vast majority of Latinos in this country are law abiding, peaceful, wonderful, family loving people who are just trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. That is the truth. That is the reality. That is the truth. And the reality that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are trying to deny to you every day. They don't want you to know that truth. They don't want you to see that reality. They don't want you to look behind the curtain and see the President of the United States who can't hack it. He can't hack it as the President, which is why he posts crazy shit all the time on the Internet. Think about that president posting crazy shit all the time on the Internet. And so the people inside the White House, people inside the administration, do what Miles did. Come forward, speak out. If you need to start off with an anonymous op ed in the New York Times or an anonymous book, start there. But eventually do the right thing and speak out. We need more Miles Taylors in the world. That's what we need in this moment. My thanks to Don, my thanks to Miles, my thanks to Adrian. Thanks to everybody for watching. Thanks again for everybody who's been watching the town hall. If you haven't seen the town hall yet, it's still up on Substack. It's also up on YouTube if you want to watch it there. You're sitting on the sofa and it's easier to watch the YouTube on the sofa. You can do that. There's you can also listen to it on Apple Podcasts. And once again, thanks everybody for watching. Really appreciate it. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening, everybody. Good night.