Dems EAT Their Own in California, with Ana Kasparian, and Trump's "Softer" Deportation Approach, with Gregory Bovino | Ep. 1317

Summary

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The Megyn Kelly Show – Ep. 1317

Dems EAT Their Own in California, with Ana Kasparian, and Trump's "Softer" Deportation Approach, with Gregory Bovino
Original Air Date: May 14, 2026
Host: Megyn Kelly
Guests: Ana Kasparian (Young Turks); Gregory Bovino (former Trump border official)

Episode Overview

This episode dives into explosive political drama within the Democratic Party in California, highlighting infighting and messy campaigns in the gubernatorial and congressional races. The first half features Ana Kasparian analyzing California's chaotic primaries, the collapse of candidates’ public images, and the desperate tactics politicians deploy.

In the second half, former Trump administration border official Gregory Bovino joins to discuss how Trump’s immigration policy has shifted to a “softer” deportation strategy, why mass deportations have slowed, and the behind-the-scenes turmoil at the border. The conversation pulls back the curtain on infighting among border hardliners, policy reversals, the political capital required to sustain hardline strategies, and the alarming scale of illegal immigration.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. California Political Infighting: Dems “Eat Their Own”

[03:39 – 32:08]

Katie Porter vs. Tom Steyer: Vidgate and Fallout

• Katie Porter, a Democratic candidate for governor, accuses opponent Tom Steyer of leaking a five-year-old damaging video where Porter berates staff, aiming to undermine her campaign.
• Porter claims the video could only have come from the Department of Energy and draws connections between Steyer staff and DOE alum.
• Steyer’s campaign issues what Megyn calls a “non-denial denial,” deflecting responsibility while technically denying involvement.

  “Tom has nothing to do with that video. This is an attempt from Katie Porter to deflect from her past mistakes.” (Megyn paraphrasing Steyer statement, [07:00])

Gubernatorial Primary Breakdown

• New Polls: Javier Becerra leads at 19%, with Steve Hilton and Tom Steyer tied at 17%, Republican Chad Bianco at 11%, and Katie Porter trailing at 10%.
• Ana Kasparian expresses surprise at Porter’s poor polling and lackluster field:

  “Chad Bianco is doing better than Katie Porter. That actually blows my mind.” (Kasparian, [08:33])

• Kasparian criticizes the debate performances and lack of substantive policy from all major candidates.
• Discussion on California’s fiscal irresponsibility and the lack of candidates able to address budget and oversight concerns.

“Vanilla Pudding” Candidacies and Interview Meltdowns

• Becerra called out for being unremarkable, “vanilla pudding,” with “no exciting solutions.” (Megyn, [16:58])
• Memorable moment where Becerra, in a KTLA interview, tries to dictate the terms of questioning, displaying lack of media savvy.

  “To have the actual candidate sit down and telegraph openly and on cam, I don’t want to be asked too many hard questions…It’s pretty extraordinary and suggests the guy’s not ready for primetime.” (Megyn, [13:53])

The Jack Schlossberg (Kennedy Heir) Congressional Mess

• NYT exposes Schlossberg (JFK’s grandson) as unprepared, entitled, erratic—needs naps on the first day, plagiarizes other politicians’ social posts, never really held a job.

  “33, you’ve never held down a job…What gives him the entitlement to a House seat when he hasn’t been able to prove himself in any place of work?” (Kasparian, [21:46])

• NYT called out for doing a “lengthy hit piece” that even details Schlossberg paddling the Hudson daily and making jokes about “jizz cocktails” on social media.

  “He’s an idiot…He went to Harvard and Yale…If there’s better proof that those things mean nothing when you’ve got a family connection…” (Megyn, [17:16])

• Guest and host both question the U.S. political class’s lack of talent and barriers for “ordinary, competent people.”
• Schlossberg caught plagiarizing a Seth Moulton video verbatim on social media; his excuse: “he liked it.” (Megyn, [31:23])
• Pelosi, Ron Klain, and old Kennedy advisors back Schlossberg despite record.

Broader Discontent with Political System

• Ana indicts the entire electoral class as “embarrassing on the international stage” and calls for a return to civics and basic education:

  “Our political system…seems to incentivize or attract some of the dumbest people to raise their hands and say, I want to be a public servant. But they’re never really public servants.” (Kasparian, [24:12])

• Megyn and Ana agree that social media ruins candidates and deters the best and brightest from seeking public office.

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2. The Thomas Massie Primary Fight & Money in Politics

[36:10 – 45:06]

• Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) faces an onslaught from Trump and the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC, Republican Jewish Coalition, United Democracy Project PAC), pouring millions into primary challenger Ed Gel Rhine.

  “He’s had the full power of the Israel Lobby…unleashing cash to promote his primary opponent, who’s been backed by the President…” (Megyn, [36:10])

• Ana warns:

  “Our elections…are bought. And if you don’t play nice with the Israel lobby, they’ll do whatever it takes to crush you and they’ll have smear pieces written about you. That’s what's happening right now.” (Kasparian, [36:10])

• Discussion of how out-of-state money and super PACs undermine democracy, referencing Citizens United’s impact and voter disillusionment.
• Both agree the only real solution is a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.

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3. Trump’s “Softer” Deportation Approach: Inside the Border Policy Wars

[53:08 – 104:45] With Gregory Bovino (Former Trump Border Official)

“Softer” Policy Shift

• Tom Homan's ambiguous comments on possible amnesty spark concern that Trump/Biden era border hardliners are backtracking.

  “He wouldn’t just say we want all the illegals out and that’s our goal. He said, I don’t want to get ahead of the President when specifically asked whether there’s an amnesty deal potentially in the works.” (Megyn, [55:12])

Erosion of Hardline Tactics

• The Trump administration, post-Minneapolis, reversed sharp visa cuts, disbanded roving deportation teams, and handed key policy decisions back to “career law enforcement.”

  “It is. It’s definitely a softer approach now. Much softer than it was a year ago when we hit Bakersfield in Operation Return to Sender…” (Bovino, [59:55])

• Bovino claims these “softer” strategies embolden illegal immigration and threaten public safety:

  “It does seem like things have changed, that we’re going towards that softer side.” (Bovino, [61:16]) “That softer approach means a much harder approach for US Citizens, for MA and PA America…the ones that are going to die at the hands of illegal aliens.” (Bovino, [59:55])

Turning Point Events: Minneapolis Deaths and Political Pullback

• After the controversial deaths of Renee Good and Alex Preddy in Minnesota (one during an ICE mission, one Border Patrol encounter), Trump’s team pulled back hardline tactics.
• Megyn presses that the administration “waved the white flag” in Minneapolis, retreating in the face of sustained Democratic/media attacks and local sanctuary city rejection.

Underlying “Social Contract” of De Facto Amnesty

• Retired agents and Megyn argue that U.S. enforcement implicitly only pursues immigrants who commit additional (serious) crimes.

  “If you manage to sneak past the Border Patrol…you’ve effectively bought yourself a ticket to stay…we’ve basically agreed that if you don’t commit an additional crime, you can stay.” (Megyn paraphrasing OldPatrolHQ, [63:29]) “If you talk to everyday citizens, it sure seems that we do [have the will]. Ninety-five percent of all immigration officers…the rank and file, they want it to be done. So there’s a lot of will. It’s just, I think that will gets lost in the talking points of those who have lost their will, the rhinos, the politicians…” (Bovino, [65:58])

Bureaucratic and Political Sabotage

• Bovino alleges, “I’m a mass deportations kind of a guy and many in the administration are not. So we definitely came to loggerheads on how we go about deporting individuals…”
• Trump’s inner circle, pressured by “rhinos,” big business, or labor interests, reversed policy:

  “President Trump was the best case scenario we’ve ever had…It’s just those individuals advising him, including many of those politicians, that maybe they’re in bed with big labor…” (Bovino, [62:07])

Laredo and the “Whack-a-Mole” Problem

• As interior enforcement relaxed, illegal border crossings spike at specific hot spots (like Laredo), simply shifting flows elsewhere.

  “What happens in the interior directly correlates to what happens on the border…Now that meaningful, large scale interior enforcement stopped, you’re seeing places like Laredo start to spark up a bit. And this is just the beginning…” (Bovino, [83:32])

E-Verify and “Total Spectrum” Enforcement

• Bovino: E-Verify is a useful tool, but only with a full suite of tough measures (blocking remittances, making it hard for illegals to own land, etc).

  “E-Verify would be one facet…it’s not that hard, Megyn. We’ve got a great strategy…But I don’t think he’s [Trump] getting the whole story. He hasn’t gotten the whole story over the past year.” (Bovino, [94:12])

Border Wall and the Long-Term Threat

• Both agree that the wall was never finished, and that the lack of it means future admins can (and will) reverse any legacy of restrictionist policies.

  “A completed wall with all that technology…would make it very difficult for another mass migration to occur. But…if another liberal administration came in…I think we’ve seen nothing yet.” (Bovino, [97:13])

The 100 Million Illegal Immigrants Claim

• Bovino claims the actual illegal population in the U.S. is closer to 100 million (!)—not 11 or even 25 million as mainstream studies suggest.

  “Yes, I do put that number at 100 million…what we saw there, as far as traffic patterns, children attending school or not attending school when we were in those cities, correlates pretty well with that hundred million.” (Bovino, [98:54])

Internal Purges: Border Hardliners Pushed Out

• Bovino, Banks (current border chief), Kristi Noem, and other "mass deportation" hardliners now out:

  “We are all no longer employed by Department of Homeland Security. We are all mass deportation hardliners. And I use that term with great pride. Am I an immigration hardliner? You bet.” (Bovino, [102:45])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ana Kasparian:

  “I am not enamored with any of these candidates. I’m not a fan.” (08:33)
  “Our political system…seems to incentivize or attract some of the dumbest people to raise their hands and say, I want to be a public servant. But they're never really public servants.” (24:12)

• Megyn Kelly:

  “He’s like vanilla pudding. It’s fine. It’s not like, exciting. It’s not ice cream. It’s just pudding.” (16:58)
  “He’s an absolute idiot. He went to Harvard and Yale…if there’s better proof that those things mean nothing when you’ve got a family connection, I don’t know of it.” (17:16)
  “You don’t get to dictate what they ask you. You don’t get to tell them how they do their jobs.” (13:53)
  “If the residents of upper New York, Upper Manhattan vote for this guy to represent their interests…they’re going to get exactly what they deserve.” (32:08)

• Gregory Bovino:

  “Don’t be a politician. Border czar’s not a politician. Border patrol agents aren’t politicians. It’s black and white…” (57:46)
  “Everyday citizens…want that done. 95% of all immigration officers…the rank and file, they want it to be done. So there’s a lot of will. It’s just, I think that will gets lost in the talking points of those who have lost their will, the rhinos, the politicians…” (65:58)
  “We are all no longer working for Department of Homeland Security. We are all mass deportation hardliners…Am I an immigration hardliner? You bet.” (102:45)

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Important Timestamps & Key Segments

• [01:00] – Show open, main topics previewed
• [03:39] – [32:08] – California races, infighting, downfall of Katie Porter and Jack Schlossberg
• [36:10 – 45:06] – Thomas Massie’s primary challenge, Israel lobby, super PAC money in politics
• [53:08 – 104:45] – Gregory Bovino interview: deportation policy shift, border enforcement, DHS internal conflicts, the 100 million claim, and border wall debate
• Notable Quotes: peppered throughout at the indicated timestamps above

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Tone and Style

• The tone is candid, often biting, irreverent, and passionate on all sides. Megyn Kelly’s and Ana Kasparian’s banter is sharp and sometimes sarcastic.
• Quotes reflect blunt assessments, e.g., describing politicians as "idiots" or "vanilla pudding," mocking media spin, and pulling back the curtain on political malaise and bureaucratic cowardice.
• Bovino’s language is that of a rank-and-file lawman, direct and with little patience for political doublespeak.

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Episode Takeaways

• California’s Democratic politics are in crisis, with self-sabotage, lukewarm candidates, and the exposure of entitled, unprepared heirs like Schlossberg.
• Massive money in politics is warping electoral outcomes, as seen in Thomas Massie’s primary.
• Trump-era immigration enforcement has retreated from its hardline approach, with “softness” quietly introduced following high-profile controversies and political pushback. Even the hardest hardliners are being purged.
• There is widespread cynicism among informed observers about the competence, sincerity, and motivations of America’s political class.

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For listeners looking to catch up, this episode provides insider perspectives, sharp critique of the political establishment, and a rare look at the current state of US immigration enforcement straight from the men and women on the front lines.

Transcript

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[A]

Welcome to the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Later today, a first time guest on the show, Gregory Bovino, will be here. We've covered him a lot and now on the outside he's able to speak freely about his role in the deportations and and border policies of the administration for which he worked. This is going to be a very compelling exchange. He is ready to talk about what he was doing to enforce the border and why he got pushed out and who was like minded and who isn't and what is the policy right now as he sees it. He's going to be very frank and we're really looking forward to having him. But we're going to start today with two high profile races in California where Spencer Pratt continues to gain ground in the LA mayoral race. And then there's the story that we've been teasing for a couple of days in the governor's race with Katie Porter firing off a shot at her fellow Democrat, Tom Steyer. Go Katie. This is the way to channel your rage, sister. You got it? Now you point it at your opponents and you let loose, not at your lowly staffers because that makes you look bad. Plus, a brutal interview moment with the Democratic candidate who is becoming the front runner. We'll tell you who that is. Joining me now for all of this, Anna Kasparian. She is the host and executive producer of the Young Turks. When there are supply constraints on commodities prices surge, you see it with the fuel prices happening right now, right? As a result of what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz. And you know what else is a limited commodity?

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Gold.

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They mine it out of the ground and when it's gone, it's gone. Governments cannot just print more of it. And that is why everyone from central banks to savvy savers consider diversifying with gold. If you've been thinking about it for years but have never moved some of your savings into physical gold, consider Birch Gold Group. Now through May 29th, Birch Gold is giving first time gold buyers a rebate of up to $10,000 on qualifying purchases. For details and a free information kit on diversifying into Gold, text MK to the number 989898. Birch Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401K into a tax sheltered IRA and physical gold. Text MK to the number 989890 to see if you qualify for a first time gold buyer rebate of up to $10,000. Anna, welcome back. Great to have you.

[C]

Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

[A]

I've been watching you all over the Internet, setting everybody on fire. It's been fun to watch. It's.

[C]

I love it.

[A]

I love Piers Morgan and I love watching you on there because you take no guff from anyone and I'm always rooting you on.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

Okay, we got to start with Katie Porter. You and I were on the air when we first dissected her viral videos and it was a very fun segment and I think our audience enjoyed it. Now here she is again and she goes on cnn. She gets cross examined gently by Dana Bash about some of her low moments and she, she hurls out an allegation about where that tape came from in which she berates the staff or get the F out of my shot. And it was sort of an odd tape because clearly she wasn't live in the moment because she says, get the F out of my shot. And then the staff are like kind of just talks in a way you wouldn't if they were live on the air saying, no, you said that thing wrong. This is the way you need to say it. And you know, she's still annoyed. So it did suggest that it was being pre taped with a friendly, some sort of a friendly. And we didn't really know or ask who that was on the other side. But she's offering facts now what she says are facts. And here is what she said to Dana Bash. He just did an interview with Pod Save America where he said he was the only candidate who could stand up to corporate Interests. He was asked specifically, well, what about Katie Porter? This is what he said. She's hostile to special interests but she

[B]

doesn't have your money to get ads up. Right. That's a real thing. So the question is, can someone win and do this? That is the actual question, John, not can someone be good hearted? There are lots of good hearted people who I would be happy if they won. The question is can someone actually do this?

[A]

What's your response to him? Well, given that Tom Steyer is the

[B]

person who leaked the video with me and the staffer from five years ago,

[A]

he pretty clearly think that I, he particularly wanted to be governor bad enough

[B]

to knock me down to do it. And I apologize for that video many

[A]

times because I am confident that is the case.

[B]

I've been told by many people it's

[C]

a Department of Energy video.

[B]

It was only held by the Department of Energy.

[C]

And people can follow the trail to

[B]

who his campaign staffers are and understand what happened there.

[A]

And the truth is, look, Tom Steyer

[B]

is a corporate special interest.

[A]

He's made his billions off being behooving to corporations making money off fossil fuel, oil, oil, coal, DOE shots fired. So she's blaming Steyer for the release of that video, suggesting it shows he's worried about her. So what does the Steyer campaign do? They issue the following statement saying Tom has nothing to do with that video. This is an attempt from Katie Porter to deflect from her past mistakes. Katie Porter only has one person to blame for her standing in the race and it's herself. Which I must tell you is a non denial denial. Tom has nothing to do with that video. Could be absolutely true and yet he may have leaked it. Like he, of course he has nothing to do with the actual video. He's not in the video, he didn't touch the video. He wasn't responsible for it leaking from the Department of Energy necessarily. But he, he might have received it and leaked it. And what most likely happened was it was leaked to a staffer and he could keep his hands clean and the statement could be factually true in every way. In other words, you would say if you really had nothing to do it, you'd say neither Tom nor anyone on his team had anything to do with leaking this video. We don't need to leak videos of Katie Porter to make her look bad.

[C]

Right.

[A]

She just has to be Katie Porter for that to happen. So I think he did it. And we did look to see his staff. We could not find evidence that current staffers of his gubernatorial campaign worked at the DOE. However, we did find that a 2025 hire out of one of his companies did indeed come from doe. There was a Bloomberg article that his, his galvanized climate solutions company hired Chris Creed, who oversaw investments for the DOE and its loan office. Not accusing Chris Creed. We don't know whether he had anything to do with this. However, it is not true that they have no DOE people working for Steyer. In any event, what does all of this tell us about the state of the gubernatorial campaign in California where the latest polls. I'll tell you, show us something interesting. There has been movement. Xavier Becerra, Javier is now in first with 19%. That puts him two points above Steve Hilton, who is tied for second now with Tom Steyer. Those two guys, Hilton and Stier, have 17, Javier has 19. Fourth is still the other Republican, Chad Bianco at 11, and Katie is bringing up the rear at 10.

[C]

Chad Bianco is doing better than Katie Porter. That actually blows my mind. Okay, so my honest opinion, I am not enamored with any of these candidates. I'm not a, I'm not a fan.

[A]

Because you are sane.

[C]

Well, I mean, honestly, if you take the time to watch the gubernatorial debate, that's happened already. Oh my goodness. I just. There was one particular moderator who in the very beginning, I couldn't decide whether I liked her or hated her because she was actually very aggressive. In the end I decided, no, no, I love her. She should be the moderator for every political debate in the country because she really held these candidates feet to the fire and didn't let them get away with simply saying that they're going to do these amazing pie in the sky policies. She wanted to understand, okay, how are you going to carry out those policies? And I remember Tom Steyer in particular really struggled in answering those questions. I don't remember exactly what the policy was, but there was something he wants to implement if he wins as governor. But what he wants to do has already struck down by the Supreme Court. So the moderator asked him, how do you propose to do this knowing that you're going to run into this massive legal hurdle with Katie Porter? I'm actually shocked at how poorly she's doing. To be honest with you. Chad Bianco had no policy solutions at all. And I'm open minded to a Republican as long as he actually has well thought out policy proposals. And California honestly needs a little more balance, politically speaking. But he was awful in the debate. He hasn't thought through anything. He's just very angry at Democrats and made that very clear. And.

[A]

Okay, yeah, we accept.

[C]

Right. And so. But Javier Becerra didn't perform well either and seemed to kind of be stuck in the 2020 era of politics, which made me worry because I think California in particular needs to kind of move away from that and start really thinking about the revenue that's coming in through taxes and how much we're hurting ourselves by. We are overspending. And the reason why we're overspending is because money is going to nonprofits and certain programs without any real oversight of those programs. This is something that the California State auditor has put out many reports on. And so we are in debt. The state of California is in a massive amount of debt. We owe money to the federal government. And so we can't have a clown leading the country. I'm sorry, the state. We need someone who's actually smart, who understands, yes, we need to take care of Californians, but we also need to increase our tax revenue by making this a desirable place to do business. Business in. And I just, I don't see many good solutions or solutions at all from these candidates, which really worries me.

[A]

Go Steve Hilton. He could still do it. If Chad. If he got Chad's 13%, that would give him a running chance, at least right now. If you add all the Democrat numbers together, it's an easy Democrat win in the general. But you never know. You never know because I feel like the more Californians get exposed to Steve, the more they're going to properly fall in love with him. I want to tell you this. So now Becerra is in first place, which is just stunning because that's a real come from behind moment for him. He was down in the bottom not too long ago. And so he's, I guess you could call the front runner. Now he sits down for an interview with KTLA's Annie Ramos and look at what happens. Watch this. Stop five. This is the start of our interview

[C]

with Javier Braceta in Highland Park.

[B]

By the way, this is a profile piece. This is not a gotcha piece. Right.

[A]

Well, look, I think these questions are fair. It's in order to learn about you as a candidate.

[B]

So long as about the profile.

[A]

I don't know how you define profile, but I'd like to begin the interview.

[B]

The way I describe profile is you talk about all the things that I've done, things I want to do, and

[A]

along with some tough questions.

[B]

But not only tough questions.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

No.

[C]

Wow. Disqualified.

[A]

It's great to be a Democrat.

[C]

No. Right.

[A]

It's great to be like, no Republican would ever sit down with press and be like, so of course it's going to be a nice profile of me. Right. With just a couple of hard questions.

[C]

Well, look, to be fair, I mean, I'll give you two examples on the Republican side, obviously, on a federal level, but I hate this behavior, regardless of who does it. So, you know, on the Republican side, we know how Trump treats journalists who ask him questions he doesn't like. He just called a journalist stupid this week because she asked a question about how the cost of the White House ballroom has doubled. And then he just said it doubled inside. You're stupid. It doubled in size. I doubled it in size. You're stupid. You're stupid. You know what? WOMAN Pete Hegseth, I mean, it wasn't reporters in this case, but he's sitting before members of Congress to answer questions, important questions about what's going down in Iran. And he just, you know, he excoriates them whenever they ask a question he doesn't like and he accuses them of acting in bad faith. In regard to Democrats, though, no, you don't get to dictate. Javier Becerra doesn't get to dictate which questions are asked in a journalistic interview. We need to, we need to see how he answers and handles difficult questions. So across the board, I don't care what your political ideology is, if you are willing to sit down before a reporter and answer questions again, you don't get to dictate what they ask you. You don't get to tell them how they do their jobs.

[A]

I will say this in his defense, in setting up such an interview, the reporter, the journalistic team will normally pitch to the person what they have in mind. Like I've, I've been pitched many times that we want to do a long profile of you. And I can see how you would think, yes. Okay, so you're going to do bio. You're going to talk about arc of career as opposed to just an interview where we talk about your policies. If you're a politician, that's not an unusual conversation to happen in setting it up and pitching it and getting it and agreeing to it. But to have the actual candidate sit down and telegraph openly and on cam, I don't want to be asked too many hard questions. I want the puff piece. I was profile of a profile that I was promised. It's pretty extraordinary. And suggest the guy's not ready for primetime. Here is a former Biden administration official who seems to feel the Same. Not about the interview, but about him. Listen to this. This is on CNN, Sat 5B. Whoever is going to be governor will have to stand up to Donald Trump. Can I tell you, after working in Joe Biden's administration, I do not trust. Have you ever set out to do that?

[B]

Can I, can I just say, whoa, whoa.

[A]

I don't, I don't trust that he

[C]

would be able to do that.

[A]

Because. And that is the feeling. You don't trust that he'll be able

[C]

to stand up to Trump? I don't think that he will be able to stand up to Trump and lead.

[A]

And the reason why, Before she answers that, can I, can I ask you why? Because when I saw him in the administration, and I think a lot of people did, and it, people understand this, it's, he was not effective in government. And I think that a lot of people in the Biden administration are talking about this because they realize that he was not an effective HHS secretary. And if you ask any cabinet secretary,

[C]

they would tell you the same thing.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

How about that?

[C]

This makes a lot of sense. Okay, so I wasn't familiar with that woman. I've actually been on Abby Phillips show with her on the panel, and she, like, gave me the stink eye the entire time, but didn't really debate me on anything. So I couldn't figure out what was going on. Now I realized she was in the Biden administration and I was criticizing the Biden administration at the time. Anyway, I just, I don't, I don't know what to make of what she has to say there. It seems like she has a favorite that maybe she's looking to promote. Who knows? But I just, I wasn't impressed personally by his debate performance. He served in the Biden administration. I didn't see anything stand out that was worthy of praise, to be honest with you. You and I think that we are currently dealing with a political system where these politicians think like this is how it's supposed to work. You know, I rise up, I pay my dues, I start low, and then I work my way to a gubernatorial position in the country without proving a damn thing about my accomplishments. That's a huge problem. No, you're not entitled to that. But it looks like people are going to go for him based on how he's doing in the polling. It's kind of surprising. Like, I couldn't tell you what Javier Becerra is proposing to do to make California a better state. And that's a problem?

[A]

No, he's like vanilla pudding. It's like, that's what I think. I mean, it's fine. It's not like, exciting. It's not ice cream. It's like, it's just pudding. It's like kind of squishy and kind of just goes down without any effort. But like, it doesn't excite anybody.

[C]

Right.

[A]

So we'll see. We'll see what happens with that. But it is interesting to see the knives coming out for him and him feeling defensive. Not used to being at the pointy end of the spear. But on brand here, as we're talking about Democrat candidates who get a pass or who, you know, the machine gets behind. And then they, then you look at them and you're like, that's what the machine is pushing on us. That brings me to Jack Schlossberg, who is perhaps better known as JFK's grandson. He's the son of Caroline Kennedy, who was the sister of JFK Jr. And the daughter of Jackie and king Jack. He is the son of Caroline Kennedy and he's an absolute idiot. He's 33 years old. He is a total idiot. He went to Harvard and Yale. He's got a law degree and a business degree. And it just. If there's better proof that those things mean nothing when you've got a family connection in particular, I don't know of it. So he decided to run for a U. S. House seat for the upper west and east side of Manhattan. My old hot where I used to live for many years. And this is because Jerry Nadler said he was retiring. It's a safe Democrat seat there. There are. I think I was the last Republican on the upper west side, although I lived in a building with a bunch of orthodox Jewish people who tend to vote republican. So maybe not the last, but one of the last. And this, this, this is the seat he's running for. So the New York Times, Anna does a pretty lengthy hit piece on him and what a mess he's been in this campaign. And he. I'll just give you some highlights. They say, okay. He. He announced his campaign. His aides teed up calls with frenzied media outlets, Democratic luminaries and a roster of wealthy donors. They wanted to project that he was a serious candidate ready for what was promised to be a grueling race. But just hours into his day one launch, the candidate abruptly announced a change of plans, according to three people familiar with the events. Forget dialing for dollars. Mr. Schlossberg said he needed a nap. Real who hasn't been there to Be honest.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

He then effectively disappeared for the day, keeping his team reeling. And they. It turns out this is. Evidently they write par for the course. They go on to say that he can't keep anybody on staff. They've described an operation so erratic and plagued by turnover that it raises questions about how he might handle himself as a member of Congress. Early on, he would regularly blow off weekly strategy meetings called for his benefit. He made a habit of disappearing for long stretches with little notice or explanation. He did carve out time to swim or paddleboard in the Hudson most days. So don't get too attached to Josh Losberg because he. He obviously must have contracted some hideous disease. No one swims in the Hudson. Don't do that. He's pushed boundaries on social media. Oh, that's one way of putting it. Talking about his jizz. Forgive me, but, like, making cocktails with it. Okay, yeah, that came out of nowhere.

[C]

He's never held a job. Like, end of story.

[A]

Hello?

[C]

Never.

[A]

Never. And they actually, they point this out like the. The Times is ripping him to shreds, talking about all. The only thing he's accomplished is he worked for Vogue as a correspondent for, like, a couple of freelance articles that went nowhere and then worked for John Kerry for four months at the State Department doing absolutely nothing. So, like, that's it. He's 33 by this point.

[C]

You should have something. Oh, for sure. I mean, 33, you've never held down a job. You think that it's. I mean, the fact that he says out loud, I need a nap tells you everything you need to know. I mean, try. Try telling your boss that. Okay? You're gonna get no sympathy. Am I.

[A]

Am I starting to like him?

[C]

Something's happening inside of me, but I

[A]

got a lot of years on him.

[C]

Well, you gotta at least appreciate that he's saying the quiet part out loud. I mean, there's so many politicians who think the same things and still do the same things but get away with it. So I don't know why the New York Times has it out for him, but I'm glad they do because it's important for people to know this. What gives him the entitlement to a House seat when he hasn't been able to prove himself in any place of work? He has never worked for anyone. What makes anyone think he would work for the American people in New York?

[A]

Exactly right. And Nancy Pelosi endorsed him.

[C]

Of course. Of course she did.

[A]

He's not qualified for this position. He's got the former Ted Kennedy people Advising him. He's got Ron Klain, who was Biden's chief of staff for a time, helping him out, advising him. Like he's got all these sort of luminaries within the Democratic Party because he's a Kennedy, although nobody knows that because his last name is Schlossberg, because he's, you know, it's. He's the son of a female Kennedy. Here he is. Apparently he got. Nobody paid attention to this candidate forum that he participated in because no one gives a shit who represents the Upper east and west side of Manhattan. But he did participate in one, and the Times went and reported on it. And he got rather irritated, Anna, when the subject of his lack of any credentials or experience came up. Watch.

[B]

The last six months, I've run a campaign that has introduced me to thousands of New Yorkers that I've met and gotten them incredibly excited about politics in a time when a lot of people feel very disillusioned. I think some people who know of you are wondering about your sort of your resume and what you've accomplished. And I think perhaps your answer to that question about your top accomplishment, citing the campaign, might. Might again raise flags for people about inexperience. Do you want to say a little bit more about qualifications in Congress? And I haven't met any of those people, but I'd love if you introduced me to them. I've been working in politics and in government since Obama ran in 2008, and I went to volunteer on his campaign. I worked at the State Department for Secretary of State John Kerry. I was a volunteer EMT in college. While you may not think that content creation and building a following based on speaking out for what you believe in at a time when others were unwilling, taking on your own family members, traveling across the country to every single swing state, serving as a delegate at the DNC is an experience I do. I participate in giving the Profile Encourage Award out every single year at the John F. Kennedy Library, and I passed the bar in the top 1% of the country.

[A]

Anna.

[C]

Painful.

[A]

He. He was a content creator. That's the public service. The question was, what public service have you had that would recommend you for this job? He's a content creator at a time when few wanted to do it.

[C]

Well, look, let me ask you a serious question about this, because I've been thinking about this issue for a few years now. I feel like we're having a very serious competency problem in the United States in our political class.

[A]

Oh, yes.

[C]

And agreed. What has definitely highlighted this for me yet again, is how the war against Iran is going. Because what I'm saying, and it's not about like, oh, let's put the question of whether or not we should have done what we did away for a second. Just talk about the two different sides, the United States and Iran, and how both sides are carrying out this war. Iran has been incredibly strategic, incredibly strategic, and they are winning this war as a result of that. And so it's not just Trump. Trump is surrounded by advisors. Trump is surrounded by career politicians in his ear telling him what to do. And I just. Do people understand how stupid our government looks on the international stage? And I don't think that's fair to the American people. I don't think that there are. I don't think our country is full of dumb people. I just think that our political system, for some reason, seems to incentivize or attract some of the dumbest people to raise their hands and say, I want to be a public servant. But they're never really public servants. Even if they wanted to be public servants, they wouldn't even know how. They don't care. They just don't care. They're not really educated on how our government works, what international law is. They don't care about any of that stuff. They just want a position of power. And for what? Insider trading? That's a lot of that's going on in Congress. So, yes, right now, the American people are furious. We look embarrassing on the international stage, and it's just not right. It really isn't. I mean, our fall for grace didn't happen overnight. And I think we really do need to invest in better schooling and education, and we got to bring back home economics. Like, we need to teach Americans civics. And civics, yes. Like, there's so many elements of public education, for instance, that have been cut out that I think we need to reintroduce again. So we raise people who can compete with people in China who can compete on the international stage. We can't do it when other countries rising superpowers are investing everything they have into future generations. We're not doing any of that here in the United States.

[A]

These are all excellent points. I mean, and look at. It doesn't matter where you go to school, because this guy, as I point out, is a Harvard Law or Harvard and Yale Law and business graduate. I mean, he's got all the credentials in the world. It didn't take. It didn't work. So it's not necessarily about where you get your degree. It's about actually learning and becoming a smart person and being attuned to what's happening around you. When you were talking, the thing that came to mind really was social media. But social media could be both the death and the resurrection of good people in Congress. I think, on the one hand, people don't want to run because they don't want all their mistakes or their, I don't know, missteps to be thrown in their face, you know, ad nauseam. People who have made whatever mistakes in their personal lives or their professional lives know that they're going to get dragged and they don't want to do it. It's so brutal. It's so brutal. And then at the end, even if you get the prize, what happens? You're not respected. It's not a position that's respected anymore, so why put yourself through it? And then if. Even if, like, the presidency is still generally respected, but you get that, you probably, you know, you might get a bullet in the head. Like, geez, this. This doesn't sound that great. Yeah, well, also, there's that problem. But I. But maybe on the other hand, just the second piece of it was like, our kids, they've. They've grown up immersed in social media. They're used to having all. Not mine in particular, but most have had their lives out there since the time they were tweens. And it's like, it's past embarrassment territory. Like, everyone's had all their thoughts and lives on the Internet forever. There's no embarrassing anybody or doing so. Maybe we'll get a better crop in about 10 years. When you get to these kids who are like, oh, fuck it, I'm good.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, I would. I would love for people to be able to see through the obvious political smears. Right. When people bring up, like, if you're showing me a post by someone when they were, like, 14 or 15. 15 years old, how about you fuck off? I'm not interested. Right. Like, we need to create a culture that stigmatizes that kind of dirt.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Right. And so. Because we do need to incentivize good people who want to improve the country to run for political office. And by the way, what's happening to Congressman Massie right now with these.

[A]

No, we're going to talk about that next.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Because it just. I think it's sick. I think it's absolutely sick. And I'm saying this as someone who disagrees with him on a lot of policies, but what I love about Congressman Massie is that he's Real, he's authentic, he's a good faith actor and he's principled. It is nearly impossible to find anyone in Congress like that. So to lose him to, you know, a Israel lobby funded candidate would be absolutely awful.

[A]

But we could make perfect sense. I mean, wouldn't it?

[C]

I mean, it shows you how our elections actually work, right? How money in politics is really a terrible.

[A]

Wait, hold that thought. I want to do Massey. I want to do that discussion properly. But I just, I have one more for you, Schlossberg, before we leave him. So one of the other things the Times points out is that, you know, he's, he's got his famous social media feed which is very nasty and had some of the examples I just mentioned. But apparently as he's been running for office, he's been using it for, among other things, to plagiarize the posts of other Democrats he likes without credit it. So I guess Seth Moulton, a Democrat of Massachusetts, posted something after the Maduro raid. Can we, let's do we have the Seth Mo. We have it spliced. Okay, so I'm going to show you here Seth Moulton's post and it's spliced with, with the one Schlossberg posted like the next day, which was clearly copied off of Seth. Seth Moulton without credit or attribution. Watch.

[B]

I'm recording this today with a serious message and I, I have a serious message. This week we learned two disturbing things. Two things happened this week that should make you feel disturbed. First, President Trump's announcement this morning that airspace over Venezuela should be considered closed as he weighs military action. First, Trump ordered that airspace around the country of Venezuela be shut down as he considers whether to take additional military action there. The US does not have the authority to close airspace over another country. Trump is preparing for war, a war Congress has not declared. The US has not declared war on Venezuela, and the US does not have the authority to shut down the airspace around another country. Second, yesterday news broke that Secretary Hegseth allegedly ordered the joint Special Operations commander to conduct a second strike to kill two survivors. If we were at war, that would be a war crime. But we are at war, so it's murder. If we were at war, that would be considered a war crime. Since we aren't, some are calling it murder.

[A]

It's identical. He copied him almost word for word to the point where Seth Moulton's office noticed reports the Times and called Schlossberg's office saying wtf? And they had to admit that he did It. They were like, well, he liked it.

[C]

Oh my God.

[A]

So his excuse was. Well, I liked it. It. Yes.

[C]

I had to. I can't believe it.

[A]

Add an addendum that he copied Seth Moulton. He's an idiot.

[C]

Well, I was looking for. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Like, think about all the other possibilities before you assume that the person did the bad thing. Right. So we all know that when it comes to political parties or political groups, they'll pass around talking points and they'll literally just read the talking points or tweet or post the talking points. So I thought maybe there's a possibility that they were sent the same script and so they both read the script. But no, that's not what happened. This is unbelievable. I mean, how, how did this guy get into Ivy Leagues? I wonder. Gee, could it be his?

[A]

I know, I know. Wow. It's so annoying because think about it, you know, I. There are so many kids out there right now in like, lower to middle class communities who are working their asses off with like a dream of improving their station in life. Life by getting into one of these Ivy League colleges. Yeah. Like the thought of getting an education at Yale and Harvard, getting a law degree. Right. Is, Is truly, it would be truly life changing for said young man or woman and their family. And they don't get to go because this prick, for no reason other than his mom is who she is and his grandparents were who they were, takes the slot. And what does he do with it? This, this, this rich asshole entitled jerk does absolutely nothing. He futzes around with it, does some tour in a van, pumps up his social media, works for John Kerry for four months. And yet another role that probably should have gone to somebody else, does some limited stint for Vogue writing about the Democratic National Convention and then wants to think, thinks that he's entitled to represent a very large community with, by the way, a lot of heavy hitters on the Upper east side and Upper west side of Manhattan. And it goes beyond that district. So like, fuck him. Is in his entitlement. I, I really look forward to his humiliation. And honestly, if the, if the residents of upper New York, Upper Manhattan vote for this guy to represent their interests, they, they, they're going to get exactly what they reserve what they deserve, which is to be embarrassed. He will implode. He will not make it past the first year in office. He won't. It's very clear to me, and I've said before, he's mentally ill. He's not Just weird. This guy is very obviously mentally ill. He was reportedly urged by his own mother not to do this. They, they knew within the family, he's off. There's something wrong with this guy and it took only time for it to be exposed. It's. We need to worry more about the ones who, for whom it's never exposed until they get into office and then they unleash their crazies on their proposed legislation. Okay, so let's talk about Massie, because that's actually the most interesting story, I think, of the news today. So Thomas Massie has easily won his prior elections and he's beloved as a Republican in the state of Kentucky. However, this time around, thanks to two factors, I think it's fair to say he could lose his primary. He might not even be the Republican nominee. And I think those two factors, you tell me, you've probably been following it more closely, but are President Trump, who's very annoyed that Massie has continuously bucked the President's demands, whether it's on Epstein or other matters. Like I don't think he voted for the extension of Trump's tax cuts. You know, he's like a fiscal hawk and that and so on. And the Israel lobby, which he's been critical of Israel, which is like, like very, very rare now for a Republican. And he's had the full power of the Israel Lobby, whether it's AIPAC or Miriam Adelson and other pro Israel, pro Jewish groups who are just unleashing cash to promote his primary opponent, who's been backed by the President in the again Republican primary that's about to take place. So now as we inch up to that vote, we get, of course, the 11th hour drop of, of a woman alleging he was somehow emotionally abusive to her. His, he, it's like he was dating her for a couple of months. He was emotionally abusive and he offered me $60,000 hush money. And then Thomas Massie has a lawyer come out to say she was alleging this about her ex husband and their divorce proceedings at the same time. And the judge found her so not credible. He threw out the allegations. So spare me. But man, the heft of the campaign that's been unleashed against Massie tells us

[C]

what I mean, it tells you that our elections are bought. And if you don't play nice with the Israel lobby, they'll do whatever it takes to crush you and they'll have smear pieces written about you. I mean, that's what's happening right now as we speak. I mean, you look at the Campaign funding for Gal. What's his name? Galperin, I think. I don't even know.

[A]

Galbraith.

[C]

Yeah, Galperin. Most of his money is from out of state and it's from people who prioritize Israel over the American people. I'm kind of shocked to see that his challenger is rising in the polls. In fact, yesterday for the first time there was one poll that showed that he not only closed Massie's lead, but he has now passed Massie in the polling. And so what this communicates to us is that our elections and our so called democracy isn't real. Right? That moneyed interests are the ones who control everything. They get to decide who they elect. And a lobby that is far more concerned with a foreign country has more power than ordinary Americans who live and care about this country. Live in and care about this country. So we really like. I just, I am terrified that he's going to beat Massie in the primary. Not only because I think it's unfair to Massie, who's a principled politician, a unicorn really when you think about it. I'm worried that this is going to disenfranchise voters to a point where they're just not going to participate in any election. And then what? And then what happens? Right. So there's. I just don't know how to solve this other than calling for a constitutional amendment that takes money out of politics. We shouldn't allow corporate interests, we shouldn't allow pharmaceutical companies or defense contractors who are just loaded with cash to buy our elections. We shouldn't allow a lobby for a foreign country to buy our elections. But it's happening on a regular basis. And if people are wondering why Americans have lost trust in our institutions, this is a big reason why

[A]

it's so true. I want to correct myself. The opponent is G Rain Gall. G A L L R E I N and he has received form at least $4 million or they've spent it on ads supporting him from the Republican Jewish Coalition. He has received money, 2.6 million at least has been spent on ads supporting him by aipac, by the AIPAC super PAC United Democracy Project. All according to Ad Impact. And then there's more. This is one example of an APAC super PAC ad against Massie that's airing now. 17.

[B]

What happened to Thomas Massie? He's flipped. Massie started out as a conservative Republican but now votes with liberal Democrats. Democrats. Massie flipped and voted against funding Trump's border wall. He voted against increased border patrol and on Israel. Massie votes with AOC and Ilhan Omar again and again. Massie's a flipping disaster. That's why President Trump supports Ed Gel Rhine for Congress. UDP is responsible for the content of this ad.

[C]

We're 40, $40 trillion in debt. Debt, $40 trillion. The Pentagon wants us to believe that the war against Iran is just going to cost, you know, somewhere between 25 billion to $29 billion. That is a lie. And it's going to add to our devastating federal debt, which we are spending a trillion dollars a year servicing at this point. So, I mean, we're.

[A]

We.

[C]

Go ahead.

[A]

I was just going to say we also just got the latest inflation numbers. It's up 3.8%. Just to go back and see. When President Trump took office In January of 2025, the inflation rate was 3.0. But then by January of 26, he had gotten it down to 2.4%. And now it's up at 3.8%. And it is because of energy prices that's obviously related to the war. Gas is up 28.4%. These numbers just came out yesterday. Food is up 3.2%. Shelter is up 3.3%. So all these costs are factored in. Inflation's going the wrong way. And, yeah, we're worried about, you know, Massey and some woman who obviously is trying to take him down a week before the election. I don't know what's going to happen in this race, but I do. I agree with you that a super Pack, that's whose number one concern is the dollars that we send to Israel and what the United States stance on Israel is, should not be determining what's good for Kentucky or Kentucky voters or the United States of America. I mean, this is just, you know, we allow it, we allow CARE to spend, we allow AIPAC to spend. It's just fucking bullshit because they spend and they spend a lot. And it's not for domestic interest interests at all. It's for their own interests. And, you know, there's just the other thing I was going to say when you were like, why do we get such shitty politicians? Is I remember where I was at Fox News. I was sitting in my office, which I shared at the time with Major Garrett, when Citizens United was decided by the U.S. supreme Court. And it was this decision that declared it's free speech for these companies to spend as much as they want in these political elections. And I didn't disagree with the ruling as a legal matter, but it was a watershed moment, not just in our, like, political Spending, but in the, the way politics would be and who would be in them in America? Because now, Anna, what we have is like every jurisdiction is just controlled by big money donors.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

You don't have to make deals with people across the aisle because your little jurisdiction is going to be funded by two or three very rich Republicans or Democrats, depending on where you live. And you really just have to answer to them. And oftentimes they don't want you to make any deals and they're your, they're your daddy. So like, you fucking do what they want and it doesn't matter how much pressure gets put on you. And it allows things like this, for groups like this to spend unlimited amounts and, you know, get you to bend the knee for them. Now, if this guy gets, you know, the nomination, how's he gonna vote when it comes to funding for Israel, which is actually becoming one of the issues that they're debating in more and more political campaigns, given the changing sentiment on Israel in America, it's like this is how it's done and this is a massive problem. And I don't know what the solution is to that.

[C]

Well, I mean, like I said, I think that it's important to rein in the money in politics through a constitutional amendment. That's really the only way to do it. Okay, so let's go back to the Citizens United ruling, which I agree with you was a watershed moment. I just find it strange that the argument in favor of that ruling was that, well, you know, corporations are engaging in free speech by spending unlimited amounts of money in these elections and on these particular candidates. But what about the speech of the ordinary citizen? How is the ordinary citizen supposed to compete with a billionaire or a group of billionaires, or with a well funded lobby that is far more concerned with a foreign country than our own? How are you supposed to compete? And don't our speech rights matter as well? And I mean, one of the issues.

[A]

Well, that's a policy argument.

[C]

You're right.

[A]

I would totally support a constitutional amendment along these lines, but you know, the Supreme Court can't. They're. You basically, you have the right to speak, but you don't have the right to have your voice be the loudest one in the room. And so they wouldn't factor that in on how it's going to affect the little guy. That's for our lawmakers, who are a bunch of P words. You know, there's just no leadership. There's no leadership. And that's, I mean, I gotta admit, I don't know that much about Thomas Massie. I know he's been a thorn in the president's side, and I've seen people I respect on the right say they can't stand him because he hasn't backed the president's agenda, and they found it really frustrating. But I would say on a personal matter, like, I respect that he has principles and he votes them. That's what I like about Rand Paul, too. He doesn't go with the wind. He seems to have a real world view and he sticks by it when he's in office. You know, I like that in my politicians. I do. It's like I'm much more amenable to the latest argument because I'm a lawyer. And so, like, I'm always trying to upgrade my information and my opinions. Politicians, they run on a platform, and then they. We expect them to govern based on what they promise. So I. And I see what's being done to him. It's. They're clearly trying to tear him apart because of his stance on Israel, or at least that faction is trying to tear him down. And they're pouring so much money into this race. And it's working and it's disturbing.

[C]

It is disturbing. One final thing I'll say about Massie. You know, people keep bringing up that he is authority in Trump's side, but make no mistake, this isn't because they have, like, significant ideological differences per se. The only areas in which Congressman Massie votes against Trump's agenda is when he sees that the legislation is going to add to our federal debt, which is a problem. It just is. And, you know, to be honest with you, Megan, I mean, ever since I've been an adult and I've been working in the field I work in, I've heard Republican members of Congress talk about the federal debt, talk about the deficit over and over again, but they never seem to really care about it after they get elected. Thomas Massie, though, they don't care. Thomas Massie is different. And so that principled stance I think is relevant, and also so he's willing to work with the other side when there is common ground on behalf of the American people. And yes, I'm talking about the release of the Epstein files that was promised to the American people by the Trump campaign. But Trump didn't wanna release the files, and Massie was brave enough to step up to the plate, work with Marjorie Taylor Greene, work with Ro Khanna, do what was necessary to get those files released. Now, we don't have the full files yet, but still, what he managed to do is admirable. And there's no way in hell his political. Political opponent in this primary race would do the same.

[A]

Yeah, and we have seen actual things happen as a result of it, more so in the UK than in America. But a lot of folks have been outed as doing nefarious things in those files. And we wouldn't know about it if it weren't for the push to make that law. Now that the law has a huge exception in it that they're exploiting to withhold certain documents. But, I mean, they should be careful in withholding too much because. Because when we get a Democratic administration in there, if they're holding withholding stuff that makes Republican donors look bad, et cetera, what do you think the next administration is going to do? So in any event, it's good that we got the law passed. We'll see what happens with this. With this particular primary. I want to mention we talked just a second ago about inflation and how much it's rising now. And obviously everyone's looking at this just because they care about their wallet and they also care about it politically. What is it gonna mean if it keeps going, you know, through the summer, into the fall and into the midterms? Well, President Trump was on camera on Monday and he was asked, was it Monday? Yeah, I think so. He was asked a question. Do we have it? Yeah. About whether he thinks about Americans financial situations when he's dealing with the Iranians in the context of these settlement talks. And this has gone everywhere now as a potential campaign ad that's gonna be used against him. I have my own thoughts on it, but I want to get yours, too. Sat 21.

[C]

When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are American financial situations motivating you to make a deal?

[B]

Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't. Don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all. That's the only thing that.

[A]

Okay, so there's no question that that answer will be cut and will wind up in ads by all Democrats opposing any Republican going into the midterms and maybe beyond. Right. Anybody who worked for the Trump administration may have to answer for that in 28.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I don't think about the concerns of Americans at all, the financial concerns, but I do think the president is being taken out of context a bit on this because the question was about when you're doing the negotiations with Iran in trying to settle the war. And I think it's fair for a commander in chief to say in that moment, no, I'm just thinking about, I can't let this opponent, this, this country I see as an opponent, as an enemy, get a nuclear weapon. That's why I launched the war. This is Trump's story. So I actually think he should be more careful with his language because it's going to get used against his people. But I do think on this particular one, the President's being unfairly bashed. However, it's also true that he needs to be more focused on what's happening with the people's economy, with their, with their pocketbooks, Anna. Because that's all they seem to care about. They don't like this war. They don't like what he's doing on virtually any issue and not virtually on any issue. He's not above water on any issue. And we've got six months to go for him to try to change that. Your thoughts on it?

[C]

I definitely disagree with you in terms of him being taken out of context because he's the President of the United States and so he has to consider the context of what he's doing and he genuinely believes. And I can't even believe this because the whole thing with the enriched uranium is a cover story by the Israelis. Israelis just wanted to goad us into war so we do regime change or turn Iran into a failed state. But I guess he has been surrounded with so many pro Israel people fear mongering and pretending to care about Iran's enriched uranium that he's starting to believe it and to the point where he thinks that is more important than the absolute devastation and destruction that he is bringing to the American people by being involved in this illegal war. So I just, I'm not gonna give him a pass on this at all. Any President who says, I don't think about Americans financial situation, not even a little bit, that's not a good president. Your number one priority needs to be

[A]

the American people saying macro. Mm. You know, he was saying in this particular context. That's not where I think. I think if she had phrased it, do you ever think about Americans economic situation? Question mark. The answer would have been very different.

[C]

I hope so.

[A]

He's got to be careful. He's the President and it's going to be held against him. Right. I hope so too. Always a pleasure, my friend. Great to see you. Keep giving him hell.

[C]

Thank you. Good to be here.

[A]

All right, up next, really looking forward to my very first conversation with Gregory Bovino. He's ready to talk very openly about the Border Patrol, what happened between Nome and Homan and Trump, and where our actual deportation strategy truly stands. Now, our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet and now they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack. And that Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall want to change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards can keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. The Electronic Payments Coalition says the Durbin Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. Find out [e-mail] and consider telling Congress to guard your card. The essential carrot puree, made with organic carrots, bit of green apple and a touch of ginger, served still slightly warm and fed mostly to 7 month old Harper and her 3 year old Doodle named Arthur, who helped clean up any remainder. The essential first bite made possible by Vitamix only. The essential. So good, so good, so good. Everything you want for summer is at Nordstrom Rack stores now and up to 60% off. Stock up and save on the brands you love like Vince, Sam, Edelman, Frame and Free People. Join the NordicLub to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free.

[B]

Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

[A]

Gregory Bovino was one of the most visible faces of the Trump administration's hardline border strategy. If he had it his way, there would not be even one illegal immigrant left in this country. Right on. So it made him the perfect fit for the Trump administration. And earlier this year, at the height of the immigration crackdowns, it was Bavino serving as President Trump's Border Patrol commander at large. But after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Preddy in Minnesota, which they brought on themselves, Bavino was sent back to California. And then in March, he retired. A total loss for us. So now he's on the outside and he's not holding back, giving the inside story about where the promise of mass deportations stands Now. Gregory Bevino, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you on.

[B]

Well, Megan, thanks for having me. It's good to see you.

[A]

Yeah, you as well. And thank you so much for your service and for taking the PR beating that came with your very difficult job. I mean, it was of course going to happen, but, but it was particularly nasty and it was undeserved and you were doing something truly noble and brave. Let me start it off right where we are as a show because we were shocked to hear Tom Homan go on CBS News and sound like the door was potentially open in a Trump administration to amnesty. Here he was on CBS on May 5, Sat 58. Would you support a compromise, sir, that

[B]

involves giving legal status to the millions of people who are here illegally but

[A]

are otherwise law abiding, including dreamers.

[B]

I'm not going to get ahead of the President on that. You know, I work for the President so you know, that's. But something has to be done to address that population or is a solution to deport them all. I'm not going to get ahead of the President. That's in, I know the President's talking to various members of his cabinet. There's discussions going on. I'm involved with some and not others, but not going to get ahead of the President on this.

[A]

So he says he's not going to get ahead of the President. When asked if they're getting ready to give amnesty to some faction of the illegals, which, you know, everybody was like, what is, is did somebody jump into Tom Homan, who we love, into his head and like reprogram things? What's happening? And then he came out with Will Kane over on Fox and suggested that he'd been taken out of context. In that exchange. We went back and looked at it. There was nothing out of context. The question was very simple. The answer was ambiguous. He wouldn't just say we want all the illegals out and that's our goal. He said, I don't want to get ahead of the President when specifically asked whether there's an amnesty deal potentially in the works. So then I asked my team, Gregory, I'm pretty sure that Homan has said in the past when asked the same question, no, all illegals have to go, and was never hesitant to say all illegals have got to go and didn't try to hedge like I'm not going to get ahead of the President. And this is what we found when we look back to see his rhetoric on that issue.

[B]

If you're in the country illegally, you're on the table. Every time you enter this country illegally, you violated a crime under Title 8, United States Code 1325 it's a crime. So if you're in the country legally, you got a problem. If you're in the country legally, it's not okay. It's not okay to violate laws in this country. But when we find them, he's going to be with others. Most likely, many times they're with others. If they're in the country legally, they're coming too. We're going to have a mass deportation, but we're going to prioritize the arrest of criminals and public safety threats. I said from day one, if you're, if you're in the country legally, you're not off the table. No one's off the table. If in this country in violation of law, we will deport you when we find you. It's that plain and simple. If you're in the country legally, you're never off the table. Let me say this. If the message we send as you enter this country illegally, it's a crime, don't worry about it. You can have your due process, show up in court. Not show up in court, get ordered, move. Don't worry about it. Unless you commit a serious crime, you could to go. If that's the message we sent to the world, you're never going to fix this problem.

[A]

Okay, so how did we get from that to question? Would you support a compromise that involves giving legal status to the millions of people who are here illegally but are otherwise law abiding, including dreamers? Homan. I'm not going to get ahead of the president on that. I work for the president.

[B]

Megan. The first thing I would say on that is don't be a politician. Border czar's not a politician. Border patrol agents aren't politicians. It's black and white, as you said. That's a black and white subject. You're either here illegally or you're not. If you're here illegally, then those mass deportations make sense for everyone. Every single one of those illegal aliens here going back and hedging on that or not wanting to get ahead of another politician on that, that vastly different than what we heard a year ago. And when we heard that a year ago, we heard that loud and clear. Not just from Tom Holman, but all through the administration. We heard that loud and clear and we acted accordingly. It does seem like things have changed over this past year and whether that's towards amnesty or less deportations, I think the book's still open on that.

[A]

Not there is reporting, including from the Atlantic that reports in January the Labor Department's foreign labor certification office announced it would cut the number of approved visas for seasonal workers by about 50%. Stephen Miller had been trying for a long time to get these things cut. He did not want a lot of seasonal workers coming in. But they report that after those two people were killed in Minneapolis, Trump reversed the visa cut cuts and that Miller was not even aware of the walk back, that Trump made the decision with Homan. And they write the reversal was one of the earliest signs that Stephen Miller's influence is on the wane. Others have followed the president, for example, dismantling the roving border patrol strike forces, his turning unknown and ejecting of her from the administration and handing of control of the deportation program back to career law enforcement officials. These are signs they write that, that the softer wing of the immigration deportation issues is winning and the more hardliners like Stephen Miller are losing. Is that your belief too?

[B]

It is. It's definitely a softer approach now. Much softer than it was a year ago when we hit Bakersfield in Operation Return to Sender, that softer approach. But what's really happening here is that softer approach means a much harder approach for US Citizens, for MA and PA America, the ones that are going. And it's going to happen as sure as the sun rises today, Megan, American citizens are going to die at the hands of illegal aliens as well as many other terrible crimes against American citizens. It's going to happen. That's what the softer approach brings. If you know what happened in all six of those cities that those roving patrols that you just mentioned were taking place, what happened in all six of those cities is you didn't see a lot of this, of these heinous crimes by illegal aliens. They were too afraid of either being apprehended and deported or they just buttoned up and wouldn't even come out. That's what we want to do with roving patrols, with mass deportations is make it so hard on them that they don't harm American citizens and then they self deport. The softer approach does not do that. Increasing visas does not do that. It's black and white. It's a very simple concept. And it does seem like things have changed, that we're going towards that softer side.

[A]

But again, the Atlantic reporting that we've dismantled the. The roving patrols that you. Of which you speak, that we decided, I guess because of Minneapolis that we were going to take the pedal way off of the gas gas. Take the foot way off of the gas pedal. And this is a distinctive shift in policy that they didn't Announce Gregory. They don't really want us to know because after this interview with cbs, Tom Homan gave a separate interview where he started to amp up his rhetoric again and he started to sort of talk tough again. And the administration reportedly doesn't really want to own explicitly that they, that they've gone softer, but it seems very clear they have. So why did they, did the Democrats win? Did the crazies on the streets of Minneapolis win?

[B]

You know, I think it's got a lot to do with those that are advising Trump. I've always said that President Trump was the best case scenario we've ever had for both border security and that interior enforcement piece. And I still think he is. It's just those individuals advising him, including many of those politicians, that maybe they're in bed with big labor. I call those rhinos. I think you know what a rhino is, Megan, And I think that he gets a lot of pressure or a lot of bad advice from some of those individuals that don't truly see what's at stake or perhaps they don't care what's at stake. So when they dismantle a roving patrol, when they dismantle that hardline immigration enforcement, the effects are noticeable immediately. Look at the border numbers now. They're actually moving border patrol agents, actually the second iteration of several hundred border patrol agents to Laredo, Texas, because that border is starting to get out of control. Look at our border numbers just two days ago, about 490 border crossers. If you take a look at approximately a year ago when we were doing those roving patrols in the interior, oftentimes his border crosser numbers would be 90 to 100 a day. Now they're 490 approaching 500 a day and a lot more gotaways coming across the border.

[A]

So, and, and the reason, the reason why you stated it and we pulled this article, which I, I feel like you're, you're going to agree with every word of this, but you'll tell me is as follows. This is posted to the substack Old Patrol HQ. Old Patrol HQ is a retired Border Patrol agent of 25 years who just delivers unfiltered truths. And this is what he wrote. He wrote an article about you. Why Gregory Bavino had to go. He writes as follows. For decades, the US has operated under an unwritten but ironclad understanding. If you manage to sneak, sneak past the Border Patrol agents and CBP officers at the border, you've effectively bought yourself a ticket to stay. Call it what it is, a social contract with illegal aliens, the message is clear. Play by the rules of this unspoken deal, no other crimes or any other serious crimes, and the system leaves you alone, they write. He goes on to say, let's say I'm just going through the highlights. Men like former ICE director and borders are Tom Homan and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott are widely respected and revered for their careers in immigration enforcement. And their public stances are on immigration, especially during the Biden auto pen presidency. And they've spent years sounding tough on tv. They say publicly how all illegals everywhere are, quote, on the table, but then says, and while it's absolutely true that the border has been more shut down, secured is another matter entirely in this administration, even they are firmly loathe and reluctant to break the boundaries of this social contract. Enforcement priorities have almost always focused on criminal criminals. Recent border crossers with detainers are those already in the system. And then reiterates, though, that illegal aliens have to commit rape, murder or some type of heinous crime before they are targeted for arrest and deportation. Because we've agreed, we've basically agreed that if you don't commit an additional crime, you can stay. And he goes on to say, this is exactly why you became radioactive, because you were pushed out, because your approach exposed the uncomfortable truth everyone else had been ignoring. America no longer seems to have the will, the stamina, the drive, or the desire to chase down millions of illegals who are now already on detainers or warrants. The country has quietly accepted a de facto amnesty for anyone who stays out of trouble. That's so true. Is it? Is that totally true, Gregory?

[B]

It is in many aspects. I'll tell you, it's easy to talk tough when Biden's in office or Hussein Obama was in office or Billy Clinton in office. It's mighty easy to talk tough. But when it comes to actually putting hands on those illegal aliens and deporting, you start seeing it, start separating immigration officers from politicians, immigration officers from people that like to talk tough. But when it comes down to actually doing that work, missing in action. A lot of those individuals you mentioned, I never heard from them for a year. For a year while we were in the field at operation, at large throughout the six cities, never heard from them for an entire year. It was on us, on us to do this. Mass deportations, which was fine, that's good, we will accept that. But a lot of work to be done. As far as the will, do we have the will to do this? Well, if you talk to everyday citizens, it sure Seems that we do. I run into citizens every day that say, hey, you're going back in the field to do that. Right? This isn't over. Right. 90% of the, of the people that I talk to want that done. 95% of all immigration officers. I'm talking the rank and file there. Let's make a distinction here. The rank and file, they want it to be done. So there's a lot of will. It's just, I think that will gets lost in the talking points of those who have lost their will, the rhinos, the politicians, the people that it scares to get outside a status quo. And that's what this is all about, is outside of status quo. How are you going to move the ball down the field? Moving the ball down the field sometimes is a very difficult, unpretty dirty process. And you know, you've got to get your, got to get your britches dirty, in other words. So I think that scares a lot of people. It puts them outside their comfort zone. What happens to bureaucrats and politicians when they're outside their comfort zone? All they see is risk. And a lot of them don't do well with risk. Life's a risk, working's a risk.

[A]

What you're doing right now, what made the difference here? What made the difference here? Because President Trump doesn't scare easily. That's true. And, and, but, you know, the stories out of Minneapolis were dominating the news. The lies that were being told about those encounters with Renee Goode and Alex Preddy. I mean, we're used to that, though. We're used to the mainstream media, so called lying about anything having to do with border enforcement or deportations. So, and the President's poll numbers on immigration were going down, I mean, not unexpectedly, as a result of what the media was doing around these protests and what the Democrats did in Minneapolis in particular. So I could, I could understand from a political standpoint, which he does have to consider how he was like, at least for a while. We got to take the temperature down and we got to get this off the front page of the newspaper. But what, what should he have done, in your view?

[B]

I think he should have went harder. Some things in Minneapolis that perhaps he doesn't know, though, is those roving patrols that were so instrumental in quelling that same type of violence in Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, New Orleans and many other cities was largely absent for those first several weeks of that Minnesota campaign. I tell you, I would love to have.

[A]

Who was there?

[B]

That was Border Patrol and ice. ICE was there first. Border Patrol came to assist ICE on a two day operation. It's just Megan on that two day operation while we were in the air in those Coast Guard aircraft on the way to Minneapolis, that's when Renee Goode was killed. And that changed everything. That two day operation then turned into a several week operation with the Border Patrol. However, those roving patrols did not take place. And I think that.

[A]

Who made up. Sorry to keep interrupting, but who made up the roving patrol? Like who was in them?

[B]

Roving patrol, that's a term specifically for U.S. border Patrol. That's our ability to conduct what we call total spectrum immigration enforcement. That means everything. That means we go out on patrol, we do targeting. You've heard of the targeting. We do special operations, use aircraft. That is a total enforcement package that goes after anything immigration related, not just one specific subset like targeting or worse. The worst or something like that. So that is in essence what a roving patrol is. And we really didn't, we never got to the roving patrol. That also includes crowd control, riot control, that type of thing. And if you look back at Los Angeles or Chicago, we did very well with that crowd and riot control to the point they didn't test us at all in Los Angeles after that very first day. Same thing in Chicago. You may have heard of the Broadview facility, the riot control there year. They didn't test us. They didn't march downtown Chicago like everyone was worried about because we set that standard very soon. That did not happen in Minnesota. The ICE folks, they do a great job. Their leadership looks at things at, you know, at a, on a different, a different plane than we do, a different way. And when you let those rioters and those anarchists get out of control, you've got to put that genie back in the bottle at some point. We didn't do that, that. So I think Mr. Trump, I think he would have done that had be, had he been advised correctly. But I, I don't think that he was getting the, the proper advisement from whoever was advising him. And that's too bad because, and I

[A]

don't mean to be dense, Gregory, just help me understand because I genuinely want to get it. So would there be a Border Patrol group that's there and an ICE group that's there and a separate group from Border Patrol called the Roving Patrol?

[B]

No, Border Patrol is the Roving Patrol. That's one of the tactics or strategies that they use for that total spectrum immigration enforcement. Remember, the Border Patrol is your uniformed law enforcement agency. They have uniforms on, they're sort of like your street cops. Think of Border patrol as your street cops. Street cops say in New York City, for instance, they go out and they knock down street crime. The detectives in New York City, which are, are more akin to ICE in Homeland Security investigations, they investigate, they do targeted enforcement, that type of thing. Would you send your detectives out to do street crime? No, you would send your uniformed border patrol agents, your uniform cops out to do those roving patrols, to take on that street crime, to take on those everyday duties, to take on those millions of illegal aliens walking the streets of impunit. That's definitely a uniformed law enforcement mission, something the Border patrol has done for 102 years. And you know, I think that that sort of got upended there in Minneapolis and I hope it comes back because that's the key to all of this is total spectrum immigration enforcement, mass deportations. You have to have a uniformed law enforcement agency on the streets doing that.

[A]

Remind me, if memory serves, ICE was involved maybe in the Renee Goode death and Border Patrol in the Alex Preddy, is that correct?

[B]

That is correct. Renee Good used a vehicle and then Alex Preddy was in the streets attacking border patrol agents while they were conducting a, a law enforcement mission. They were after an aggravated felon who actually got away because of Alex. Brad, I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize is that individual that Border Patrol was actively seeking ended up getting away because Alex Freddie injected himself into that situation.

[A]

One of the things that went wrong in the wake of those deaths was the messaging around it. I think Kristi Noem, my own belief is Kristi Noem in what I think was a well meaning effort to have the backs of her guys overstated the defense. You know, she went hard against Alex Preddy in a way that the facts just didn't support, like that he was there to kill a bunch of cops. I can't remember her exact language, but it went too far and there wasn't factual support for it. How do you see what Kristi Noem said around those two incidents? Because I believe you're a fan of hers. But what do you make of the messaging?

[B]

One of the things I think the Secretary, Secretary Noem wanted to do there, there was get information and messaging out as soon as possible. In many of these shootings that we see throughout law enforcement, you wonder what happened. Those conspiracy theories and stories start percolating up rather quickly. She wanted to get out ahead of that and I thought that was pretty, a pretty smart move on her part is to get out ahead of it, get some information out there as soon as possible where she got her talking points from what higher entity that she collaborated with for those talking points. I understand that did take place and she put those talking points out there. I think that was in a good faith effort to put information out there so that the American public could understand that one, there was a problem there in, in Minneapolis and that there were responsible parties for that. It didn't just happen.

[A]

So she didn't, she didn't come up with that on her own. You're saying somebody gave her those so called facts. Who?

[B]

You know, I think that she, she worked with individuals on that messaging within the administration and I think White House

[A]

people or ICE or border Patrol people,

[B]

probably all of the above. And that was with the best.

[A]

Do you know. But you're just being diplomatic.

[B]

Yeah, no, I think that's the best information. Remember, there was a lot of information that no one had at that point, like what type of a weapon Alex had or you know, what exactly was going on. So she put that information out as soon as she could and based on what information was available at the time. And you know, I think that that was definitely a good faith effort on her part to put some information out regarding the situation.

[A]

Yeah, you can't. That's the problem is like putting information out is great, but don't say facts you can't support because then it undermines everybody involved. That's what happened. Do you think? I mean, how would you describe your departure from the administration?

[B]

Well, I tell you, I certainly miss my mean green team. A lot of folks said I was man, I was up for mandatory retirement, actually had a year left, so I had some more gas in the tank there. For mass deportations. I would say that I'm a mass deportations kind of a guy and many in the administration are not. So we definitely came to loggerheads on how we go about deporting individuals from the United States. I'm ready to go at it. Cause self deportations. And if they don't self deport, then we'll deport them ourselves. And I think a lot of folks saw that as maybe overly aggressive there in the administration. And I'm not a politician. Those poll numbers you mentioned earlier, I

[A]

don't care about Gregory. This confuses me. President Trump seems to be on board with that, at least. We think Kristi Noem was certainly on board with that. Tom Homan may not be totally on board with that, but he was an equal. He was a lateral to you. Right? So it's like, who, who, who wants the illegals to stay?

[B]

Sure. I think that goes back to the influences that surround Trump. And again, I'm not, I wasn't in the White House. I was more in the field and not on Capitol Hill or engaged in a lot of those discussions. But I think the rhinos that came out and attacked Christy Trump, I think that's probably a good starting point. I think that Christine Ohm. Yes, Christine. And I think that there's a lot of folks there that did not believe in mass deportations on the scale that we were ready to put that into effect. And whether that was Tom Holman, Rodney Scott, you know, it certainly I didn't hear from him for a year during that operation. So what was neither one of those. Not once. Not once.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So. Wow. You know, I think that, that it's probably, you know, two different strategies, and I guess they were mutually exclusive. I think they should have been integrated, but probably mutually exclusive.

[A]

Well, Tom Holman came out and said, once he swooped into Minneapolis named Paul and said, you know, I'm, I'm going to handle it, and said, I, I'm going to get these. I've gotten the attorney general to agree that these sheriffs can cooperate with ice. And before they release anybody from jail, whether they've been arrested temporarily or they're actually getting out of serving a prison sentence, they now can. He said he got the AG to acknowledge, call ice, work with ICE on effecting any ICE detainer that may be on that criminal, so that before we just sent the loose out on the street, after they've bailed out or they've served their terms in prison, they'll give ICE a call if there's a detainer or there's a deportation order, et cetera, for this person. Now, ICE will swoop in and arrest them to have an immigration proceeding on them. But we pointed out at the time, Gregory, that that's not gonna happen in Minneapolis and St. Paul because they're sanctuary cities by law. They don't cooperate with ice. And so we actually paid very close attention to see whether Tom Homan had pulled a rabbit out of a hat that we. He had underestimated his ability to do. And there wasn't. The sheriff of the Minneapolis main lockup facility came out and said, I'm not doing that. We haven't changed one word of our policy. We are still sanctuary. And our policy is not to cooperate with federal immigration officials on detainers or anything else. So nothing's changed. I don't know why he's saying that.

[B]

Of course not. It's a complete capitulation in Minnesota. And what that does is that emboldens other sanctuary cities, other blue states. It also emboldens those transnational criminal organizations to guess what, Traffic more people across the border into the interior because there is no interior enforcement of meaningful impact taking place. Mayor Fry there in. Good old Mayor Fry there in Minneapolis, he was calling for people to fight border patrol in the streets. Now, if it's going from that to, hey, all of a sudden, we're gonna. We're gonna start turning illegal aliens over to ice. You know, we scratched our head at that one. You know that that was never going to happen. And that was why we were in this community in the first place, going after that fraud, the leering center, the illegal aliens walking the streets with impunity, just like we did in every single other city.

[A]

Yes. Okay, so I'm. I'm just trying to pull the actual date statement from. From the local sheriff. Let's see. Looking for it. Where is that? Deb, I'm. It says. Yeah, I can hear you. Sorry. Okay, stand by, because I want to read the audience exactly what the Hennepin county sheriff said. It's. This is not Megan Kelly's interpretation. This is from the sheriff directly. You know, they're not doing what Homan suggested they were doing. And here it is. Per the Henneman County Hennepin County Sheriff's website, as of May 4, in our jail, we do not honor administrative detainers or administrative warrants. These documents are not criminal warrants signed by a judge. We will only comply with a judicially signed warrant, which is. That's. That's sanctuary city policies. That is not at all consistent with what Homan is saying. Now, he may have gotten an agreement from other lesser sheriff's office around in terms of size. I mean, around the state of Minnesota. I don't know that. That. But the big one in Minneapolis, which we had all the fights over, has not changed a thing. It seems to me we have just waved the white flag there, and you seem to be confirming that. Can you spend another minute on Laredo? Because this story hasn't gotten a lot of attention. President Trump just keeps declaring the border's closed. Absolutely no one's getting through. And unfortunately, I think because of that, you know, I read the blog post, the substack post, because of that unspoken de facto amnesty that we have actually been offering, even under President Trump. Trump, which is we're only going to get rid of you, if you commit an additional crime, like if you come, if you, if you make it past border patrol and sneaking in, and then you don't commit an additional felony, we're going to leave you alone. There's a lot of employers who need you in the hotel industry, some other construction industry, retail, what have you. We're going to let you stay. We're going to allow you to go on the public dole if you need it, and we're not going to bother you. And therefore, the incentive to sneak across the border is kicking back in.

[C]

In.

[A]

In the wake of our downshift, it's kicking back in, which is why what's happening in Laredo matters. Can you explain that exactly?

[B]

What happens in the interior directly correlates to what happens on the border. So interior enforcement, those roving patrols, those mass deportations in the interior, that directly affects what happens on the border. You know, for many years, Megan, we heard, you know, we have to cut the, the spigot off. We have to, to. To shut the border down before we go into the interior. Us in the border patrol, we always knew that was a fallacy. That was not. That was not true. And you know what? It's been proved now. It's proven. That's a proven fact. Now, what happens in those cities and in that, in the interior, as far as interior enforcement is going to either encourage or discourage folks from coming across the border. Now that meaningful, large scale interior enforcement stopped, you're seeing places like Laredo start to spark up a bit. And this is just the beginning of that, because this is worldwide now. Immigration's worldwide. It's not just folks, say, from Mexico or Central America. This is worldwide now. And you have drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations that are keeping a close eye on what's happening there in the interior, because they make a lot of money smuggling illegal aliens across that border, you know, eight, $10,000 ahead for just your run of the mill illegal alien. And a lot more than that if they come from, say, Red China or from some of those other countries. So that's what's happening there in Laredo. Again, we're on our second iteration of border patrol agents. I believe approximately 200 Border Patrol agents were taken from other parts of the southwest border, piped into Laredo to quell that part of the border down. But what we're going to see, if these mass deportations and this interior enforcement doesn't kick back on in the interior, we're going to see other parts of the border. It's like Whack a mole. They're going to shift to another part of the border and another and another and another. And pretty soon it's going to be just like what it was, a very chaotic environment with a lot of people coming across the border. Because if they make it past the Border Patrol, there's nothing else in the interior that they have to worry about. And let me tell you, they're not worried. They're not worrying about targeting or worse to the worst. That's the least thing they're worried about, is targeting or worse to the worst. Because, again, they don't look at themselves as worst of the worst. They say, I'm here to work in the hotel room or in the fields or collect welfare. Whatever they're coming to do. They're not looking at themselves as worst of the worst. And that just begets more immigration or, I'm sorry, more illegal migration. And then, you know what? We've got that de facto amnesty. We've always said that's de facto amnesty. They get past the Border Patrol, what's next? Amnesty. That in itself begets even more illegal immigration. It's game on for the bad guys right now.

[A]

Yeah. What if they don't really care about becoming a citizen? They don't actually have to become a citizen. They want to live here, they want to work here, they want to possibly go on the public dome, and they want to send checks home to Mexico. And we're allowing it. We're allowing it. The. The shipping the prisoners off to see COT in El Salvador, that was the kind of stuff that scared people, like Kristi Noem going down there, like, doing the. The selfie video in front of all those prisoners. It may have been sort of in rough taste, right? Like, it was a little jarring to see, but. But that was the point to make it uncomfortable. Everyone's gonna see, like, that could be me behind those bars. This episode is sponsored by Veracity, whose founder and CEO, Ali Egan, has a story you should hear. She is a certified hormonal health coach who experienced the effects of compromised metabolic health firsthand. For years, she struggled with undiagnosed Hashimoto's. 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They customize their math instructions so kids who are struggling are able to catch up and get ahead. And advanced kids are challenging challenged to reach higher. Mathnasium makes math fun, so kids learn to love it. Parents say that Mathnasium has not only improved their kids grades, it's given them a new level of confidence in math and in school overall. Visit mathnasium.com to find a location near you. Hey everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on SiriusXM. It's called Megyn Kelly Channel and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered, with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin, link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily jasinsky, Jesse Kelly, RealClearPolitics, and many more. It's bold. No BS news only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the SiriusXM app. What the stats show, Gregory, is that that now under Trump's presidency, we've gotten more than 3 million illegals out of the country. That's 713,000 deportations. This is per the Department of Homeland security as of March 2026, 713,000 deportations, an estimated 2.2 million self deportations. So the self deportations dwarf the actual ejections by, you know, Homeland Security and Border Patrol, et cetera. But the reason those numbers are going to go down is because of the softer touch because we seem to be returning to de facto amnesty. You make it past Bavino's, guys, you're good. No one's coming to find you.

[B]

How many times have you heard of the CBP Home app used since I left Minnesota, I've heard it one time. I think Mullen mentioned at one time the CBP Home app. Something that I think would be interesting for your viewers is Secretary Noem actually listened to us as far as those ads that she put out. One of the things we said is when you get on there and you talk about the CBP home app, the $2,600 and the free plane ticket and all that to self deport to whatever country you came from, that is having an effect. And we knew it was having an effect because we talked quite closely with our partners there at the ports of entry, whether that was an airport or an actual land port of entry, and the lines going south out of the country, whenever she would get on, whenever she was on TV talking CBP home app or myself talking CBP home app, it was having an effect that Coupled with that good tough, hard nose immigration enforcement, hey, that's what we wanted to happen. And Megan, we want them to self deport. We would rather them self deport rather than me put handcuffs on 100 million illegal aliens. Let's just have them self deport for us. But for that to happen, it has to be so very tough on them here in the United States that they can't work, they can't recreate, they can't go to the grocery store, they can't do anything. And we proof tested that in Los Angeles operation at large. That whole city was locked down for almost a year. Unfortunately, I talked to some, some of my border patrol colleagues who are still active. Many of those areas in Los Angeles now, specifically the fashion district downtown Los Angeles, they're back flourishing again. They were not flourishing while we were there for that year of occupation there in E Verified.

[A]

What about E Verify, Gregory, where like you can't hire this person unless they actually produce proof of citizenship. Many people believe that would be the greatest thing to lead to self deportation. But it won't get implemented across the board.

[B]

You got to implement it first. That's the number one thing. If you implement it, that's going to be one facet. But remember immigration enforcement and that's why we call it total spectrum Immigration Enforcement. E Verify would be one facet it of total spectrum immigration enforcement. You've got a whole bunch of other things. Shutting down remittances, making it difficult for an illegal alien to own land, mass deportations, a whole slew of things. Anything you can bring to bear to cause those self deportations. So E Verify is great, we need it. Big fan of E Verify and work site enforcement, definitely that would definitely have an effect. But there's a lot of illegal aliens who are on the dole who don't go to a workplace. We got to cut that off also Total spectrum Immigration enforcement. It's not that hard, Megan. We've got a great strategy there in the Board of Control. We spent years writing this strategy before we went into those cities. That's one of those things I would love to have talked to President Trump on. I think he got bits and pieces of that strategy. He's getting bits and pieces of things that sound good to him and I think he acts on those bits and pieces. Is again, he's the best president we've got for immigration and that type of thing. But I don't think he's getting the whole story. He hasn't gotten the whole story over the past year. So there's a lot more things we can do e verify being just one of those things that we can do to cause people to self deport and say, you know what, I think I need to do this the right way. If you remember, Noam always said, hey, go back to your country, do it the right way and you still have a chance of immigrating illegally to the United States. You never hear that now. I never hear that message now. And that's why our self deportations are plummeting as we speak. They're plummeting. No one's scared. They're just going to say, you know what? De facto amnesty.

[A]

Well, and the other problem we have is there's no wall. We did not build the wall. And when President Trump leaves office, there is no guarantee that a Republican is going to replace that him. So we're, we could have a situation where other than Rahm Emanuel, I don't hear any of the Democrat candidates talking about holding onto Trump's border policies, which have been so much more effective than any of his predecessors. No one's talking about doing that. So more than likely we're going to get, if a Democrat wins, another open border situation, which we wouldn't have to worry that much about if we had a wall we just spent. The administration says it's 25 to 29 billion on this war. The true estimates, according to people who are watchdogs of what we're actually spending is more like double that. Over $50 billion on this war. The Pentagon is back asking for well over a trillion dollars for its budget. I mean, for a fraction of that, we could complete the wall at the southern border and set ourselves up for decades of a more successful border policy down there. Gregory, why, why don't we have a wall wall?

[B]

Because the war is not here at home. That war needs to be here at home. That war is those 100 million illegal aliens here that are sucking us dry are culturally changing our society. That's the real war that that needs to be fought here. So once that is taken into context as the real threat to America, then perhaps we can get that wall built. When you speak of the wall, the wall is not just the wall, it's the wall and all the accoutrements associated with the wall, all that detection, technology, all those things in people that make it so very difficult to cross that border. So you're right. A completed wall with all that technology and infrastructure and workforce that would make it very difficult. Even if there was a Democratic administration that came into office, it would make it very difficult for another mass migration to occur. I'll tell you what, quite frankly, it scares the heck out of me to think what could happen if another liberal administration came in. Because guess what? They're going to take a look at what Joe Biden did with those tens of millions of illegal aliens that came across. And I think we've seen nothing yet. I think we could see a lot more than that because they come across. And what, we're going to wave the white flag yet again and not conduct mass deportations? Well, you know what? You've got an America that has been made over into something that you, you and I will not even. Will not even recognize. That's what scares me.

[A]

Do you think the numbers are that big?

[C]

A hundred.

[A]

You think there are a hundred million illegals in this country? You're saying on top of the 330 million American citizens? So we've got 430 million in the country, 100 million of which are illegal?

[B]

I do. I do believe that. Megan, let's look at the numbers from 1975, 1975, Pew and all the other ones were talking 12 to 15 million when I came into the Border Patrol 30 years ago. 12 to 15 million. 20, 15. 12 to 15 million. But the only thing that was, that was not making sense is working on the border, seeing this mass incursion of illegal aliens every single year coming into the United States. We all knew, well, there's no possible way it's 15 million. And in my research, I looked at some other folks that had done some research, Bear Starnes, and then that Yale MIT study. Those were two of the first studies to put that at above 15 million. I believe theirs was approximately 25 million. And wow, for them just to say 25 million in 2016, that was, that was, that was huge. Definitely still too low. And since then, look at what came in under Joe Biden. 80% of that border was wide open. 80%. A lot of. We don't even know what came. 80% of your entire southwest border had no detection, no border patrol agents, nothing. And there is no telling what came across that we didn't detect. And then what we did detect was in the millions, many that were still unvetted. But the millions that came in on top, yes, I do put that number at 100 million. And what we saw in those major cities, those six cities, as well as many other regions in the United States, what we saw there, as far as traffic patterns, children attending school or not attending school when we were in those cities, correlates pretty Pretty well with that hundred million. Take a Look at Charlotte. 153,000 commuters. 30 to 40% of that 153,000 quit commuting when we were in Charlotte for Operation Charlotte's web. On that four day up. That was just a four day operation. Four day operation. And when you've got 30 to 40% taken out, well, that correlates pretty darn well with 100 million. Same thing with the school children. They just revamped that estimate. Not a lot of people know this. They just revamped the estimate of absence of absenteeism in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. 30% plus while we were there for that four day operation. Look what a four day operation did to that two state area. Area completely shut it down. I would say there were probably a lot of self deportations getting ready or already occurring there in Charlotte. So 100 million. Absolutely. I stand by it. And a lot of people are saying, well that's too high. He's crazy. Oh, Chief Bovino is absolutely crazy. Doesn't know what he's talking about. Well, you know what? Show me another number. No one else is even daring to throw another number out because it's. Because it's definitely looking like that 100 million alien is a quite definable and achievable number as far as the number of illegal aliens here in the United States.

[A]

Your use of the word chief reminded me to ask you. The current border patrol chief, Mike Banks is resigning, effective immediately. This is just breaking per Fox's Bill Malusian. He says it's just time. I feel like I got the ship back on course. From the least secure, disastrous, chaotic border to the most secure border this country's ever seen. Time to pass the reins. 37 years. It's time to enjoy the family and life. I must mention that in April the Washington examiner did a report on him allegedly taking regular trip trips abroad to engage with in sex with prostitutes like to Colombia and Thailand, which doesn't sound like a great idea. I don't know whether that's true but. But maybe it had a hand in his decision to step down. What do you make of the resignation of Chief Mike Banks?

[B]

Several things there, Megan. I talked to Chief Banks about 30 minutes before coming on your show and he was quite gracious in what he was saying there. What I will say is that Chief Banks and I are both mass deportations people just like Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski and others. Mass deportations, folks. And we're all no longer employed by Department of Homeland Security. What does that tell you? So when we talk about politicians and politics, none of us were politicians or engaged in politics. But that's a very dirty business, a very tough business. We're all no longer working for Department of Homeland Security. We are all mass deportation hardliners. And I use that term with great pride. Am I an immigration hardliner? You bet. Mike Banks was a fantastic immigration hardliner. And the same thing that happened to Christy Noem is now happening to Mike Banks. All of a sudden they pull a rabbit out of their hat and these individuals, you know, oh my gracious, they're the worst, worst thing since sliced bread. That's what I think about what just happened to Mike Banks. As a matter of fact, I think that prostitution thing had been. That had been investigated many years ago and he was cleared. So that's what they're not telling you there.

[A]

There's a reason that that wound up in a conservative newspaper, Washington examiner, when it did. In other words, weeks before he would resign.

[B]

Absolutely. You. You bet. You bet. This stuff doesn't happen just by chance. This doesn't happen by chance. There's a lot of snakes, a lot of swamp creatures still out there. So careful, America, still some swamp creatures out there. And before we go mass deportations and before we return to immigrant to hardline immigration, those snakes need leaf.

[A]

Gregory, thank you. Can you please come back? I love talking to you.

[B]

That was fantastic, Megan. Thank you for having me.

[A]

Thank you for your service to our country too. We need. You need a lot more just like you. Wow. We're back tomorrow with Glenn Greenwald. Thank you all for being with us today. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda and no fear. The essential carrot puree, made with organic carrots, bit of green apple and a touch of ginger. Served still slightly warm and fed mostly to 7 month old Harper and her 3 year old Doodle named Arthur, who helped clean up any remainder. The essential first bite made possible by Vitamix only. The essential.