Trump Tries to Bleach the Country

Summary

Runaway Country with Alex Wagner
Episode Title: Trump Tries to Bleach the Country
Release Date: August 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the Trump administration’s sweeping revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of immigrants—predominantly people of color—while simultaneously engineering pathways for white South Africans to claim refugee status in the U.S. Wagner foregrounds the personal cost of these policies, interviewing Harlane, a Haitian nurse and TPS holder now at imminent risk of deportation. Later, she is joined by Jonathan V. Last (JVL) of The Bulwark, for a probing discussion of the politics, moral failings, and racial motivations behind the administration’s immigration agenda.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: The New Wave of Deportation ([01:44])

• Wagner points out that 330,000 Haitians, all longtime U.S. residents with legal TPS status, are suddenly being told to leave.
• The Supreme Court has enabled the Trump administration to end TPS for 1.3 million people, including Afghans, Cameroonians, Hondurans, Nepalese, Syrians, Yemenis, Salvadorans, Sudanese, and Venezuelans.

Wagner (03:58): “Trump’s distaste for people of color is well established… The message to everyone else: this country is closed for business.”

• Haitians, she emphasizes, are deeply integrated in local economies, especially in caregiving roles, and their removal would devastate states like Florida and Ohio.

2. Racist Double Standards on Immigration ([04:11], [06:44], [07:16])

• Wagner contrasts Trump administration treatment of Haitians with their willingness to offer asylum to white South Africans, laying bare the racial animus at the root of policy decisions.

Stephen Miller ([06:09]): “Absolutely [Haiti is safe]. Haitians live in Haiti… There might be pockets of crime, but there’s also Chicago.”

Stephen Miller (on white South Africans, [07:00]): “This is race-based persecution… the president [is] returning the refugee program to what it was intended to be used as.”

3. Personal Impact: Interview with Harlane ([08:22])

• Harlane details the psychological and material devastation as her legal status vanishes overnight.

  • The uncertainty: hoping for extensions, only to be abruptly left undocumented.
  • The financial blow: losing the legal right to work means instant inability to provide for family ([10:48]).
  • The ripple effects: She cares for her retired mother and young son, now both dependent on her in a perilous legal limbo.

Harlane ([11:55]): “Finances and bills still have to be paid… This is $3,700 less on my survival.”

• The mental health toll:
  • Days spent in darkness, struggling with depression, while her child absorbs the stress ([15:53]).
  • Living with the constant threat of deportation and hearing about neighbors being picked up.

Harlane ([17:42]): “I was never illegal, but removing this has now made me illegal.”

• The horror of “returning” to Haiti:
  • Harrowing family history of gang violence, kidnappings, assaults, and murder ([22:29]).
  • Direct refutation of the administration’s narrative that Haiti is “safe.”

Harlane ([23:32]): “This is not hearsay. I’ve witnessed what I’ve witnessed… Violence is not new to us Haitians."

4. Faith in America, Against All Odds ([26:34])

• Despite everything, Harlane maintains hope in the American people and the ideals she’s experienced and passed down to her child.

Harlane ([26:34]): “I still have hope. I have not lost hope... I don’t feel this is the end all be all. All I can do is wait.”

5. Analysis and Political Context with Jonathan V. Last ([30:49])

The Blunt Racial Arithmetic ([32:58]–[35:49])

• Wagner and JVL agree: The administration's anti-immigrant crusade is fundamentally about race, not economics or national security.
• JVL doubts MAGA voters care if mass deportations affect them personally:

Jonathan V. Last ([34:17]): “All these old MAGA voters are gonna lose their nurse. Aren’t they gonna be upset? I just don’t think that is a thing that MAGA voters care about.”

• Even in communities dependent on immigrant labor, outrage is muted by partisan identity.

Wagner ([36:51]): “It is not as bad as it should be… if you just look, like, ain’t nothing going right, and it’s all a shit show.”

The Failure of Empathy and Political Consequences ([38:18])

• Wagner notes that Trump’s support on immigration has eroded somewhat, but emphasizes the lack of moral outrage compared to economic anxieties.
• JVL suggests many Republican voters view immigrant deaths as a feature of the system, not a bug ([47:20]).

Fox News and Immigration Fearmongering ([44:49]-[46:06])

• Wagner and JVL break down Fox News’ obsession with foreign migration crises (Spain, Morocco) to stoke domestic fear.
• They highlight the performative aspect—chasing “viral” moments of chaos to reinforce white anxiety.

6. White Welcome: The Afrikaner Refugee Double Standard ([54:06])

• Wagner details how white South African newcomers are greeted with tangible benefits and propaganda that minimize apartheid and promote white victimhood.

Wagner ([54:06]): “Afrikaners will get an Android tablet, an American flag, and copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence… literature that provides a sanitized, Trump-approved view of American and South African history, one that criticizes racial equity and civil rights laws and promotes claims of discrimination against white people.”

• JVL derides the surreal tick of not just welcoming white immigrants, but actively seeking out those “who really hate black people even more than we do” ([56:29]).

7. Policy, History, and the Arc of White Supremacy ([57:52]-[63:27])

• JVL likens Stephen Miller’s rhetoric to Nazi propaganda, underscoring the continuity between open white nationalism and the current immigration program ([58:30]).
• Wagner wrestles with why so much of the country seems numb to the administration’s nakedly racist agenda.

8. Dehumanization, Division, and (Maybe) Hope ([64:54]–[69:47])

• Wagner underscores the “degrading and dehumanizing” language used by Trump, emphasizing both its personal and societal cost.

Wagner ([64:54]): “The language he uses to describe people who are not like him… is so degraded and so dehumanizing… It is so bad for our democracy. He has so deeply divided us.”

• JVL and Wagner debate whether Americans have become tired of this divisive program, or if tribal loyalty will continue to triumph over empathy or evidence.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Donald Trump (2024 debate, [03:58]): “They’re eating the dogs…they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
• Mike DeWine, Republican Governor of Ohio ([05:02]): “It’s a mistake. It’s not good for the United States, and it’s not good for the state of Ohio. The Haitians who are living there and employed there…have created jobs as well as filled jobs.”
• Jonathan V. Last ([57:52]): “It’s white supremacy. And I feel like…I just don’t know what other accurate way to describe what’s going on.”
• Alex Wagner ([62:03]): “He loves race-baiting, he loves a race war. He loves the idea of turning people against each other.”

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Key Timestamps

• [01:44] – Wagner introduces Trump’s move to end TPS, scale and human toll.
• [04:11] – Contrast between rhetoric and reality on Haitian immigrants’ integration.
• [06:06] – Stephen Miller’s “Haiti is safe” logic.
• [07:16] – Miller’s differential advocacy for white South Africans.
• [08:22] – Harlane describes TPS revocation’s impact on her life.
• [15:27, 15:53] – Financial hardship, family struggles.
• [22:29]-[24:52] – Harlane recounts lived experiences of violence in Haiti.
• [26:34] – Hope and continued belief in America.
• [32:58] – JVL on the irrelevance of empathy for immigrants to MAGA voters.
• [47:20] – JVL: For some, deaths are a feature, not a bug.
• [54:06] – Wagner details the Afrikaner welcome packages.
• [57:52] – Open talk of white supremacy as core policy.
• [62:03] – Trump’s dehumanizing language against “blue cities.”

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Tone and Takeaways

• Wagner is both outraged and empathetic, matching the gravity of her guests’ stories.
• JVL balances dark humor and clarity, offering blunt assessments of the cruel logic behind current immigration policy.
• Harlane’s testimony is raw, personal, and devastating, anchoring the episode in lived experience rather than policy abstraction.
• The episode closes on somber—if slightly hopeful—notes, questioning whether American democracy can recover its empathy and moral clarity.

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For listeners who haven't tuned in:
This episode strips away political theater to reveal the lived terror, grief, and resilience of immigrants now targeted by U.S. policy, exposes the administration’s open embrace of white supremacist priorities, and challenges listeners to confront the moral and civic consequences of these choices. Essential listening for anyone seeking to understand the real stakes of America’s immigration battle in 2026.

Transcript

[Alex Wagner]

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[Tommy Vietor]

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[Alex Wagner]

Hi everyone. If your eyes have been trained elsewhere on, say, the Michigan Democratic primary or Trump's never ending war with Iran, or the spectacular collapse of Republicans in the Senate once again. Well, you can be forgiven. There's a lot going on. But something else has been happening this week across the country that will not only affect millions of Americans in their daily lives, but also threatens to turn the great American melting pot into a solid block of ice. Another wave of immigrants. This time about 330,000 Haitians are being summoned to government offices, issued ankle bracelets, and are being informed that it's time to pack up their things and go. Okay, the Trump administration's mistreatment of migrants is not exactly new, but this group of people was here legally. They are recipients of Temporary Protected Status, or tps. Refugees who fled to the US in the aftermath of wars and earthquakes and epidemics. And yes, while their status was temporary, they have been allowed to make lives here in the United States for decades as they paid taxes to the US Government and started families and became inextricable parts of American life. And now Donald Trump wants them to disappear. In June, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to end TPS, not just for Haitians, but for all 1.3 million people in the US who are here under the humanitarian program. Afghans, Cameroonians, Hondurans, Nepalese, Syrians, and Yemeni residents have all had their legal status in the United States abruptly revoked. People from El Salvador, Sudan, and Venezuela, which, by the way, accounts for 600,000 residents alone. They are next on the list to be kicked out of America. People from all over the world with exactly one thing in common. Trump's distaste for people of color is well established by now, as is his particularly deceitful, racist attitude towards Haitians. Remember this from the 2024 presidential debate in Springfield.

[Donald Trump]

They're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country.

[Alex Wagner]

Despite a hateful campaign by both Donald Trump and J.D. vance to paint Haitians as creepy outsiders, the reality is that Haitians are remarkably integrated into the American workforce and American life. In Florida, about 158,000 Haitians have TPS, and a huge number of them work as caregivers to children, to people requiring home care and aging populations needing nurses. Big industry in Florida. In Ohio, where Haitians were not eating pets, There are about 45,000 Haitians, parents, workers and caregivers who must now flee the country. Trying to just disappear a huge part of the community and economy from these states will have a disastrous effect. Here's the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, talking to CBS last week.

[Mike DeWine]

Well, it's a mistake. It's not good for the United States, and it's not good for the state of Ohio. The Haitians who are living there and employed there, they came there to work, and they came there because there were jobs that were not being filled by other people. These are people who have opened restaurants, they've opened other businesses, they've rehabbed houses, they've created jobs as well as filled jobs.

[Alex Wagner]

The states being left behind here face significant challenges. But for the people being forced to go back home, this new policy is catastrophic. After Haiti lost 200,000 people in a 2010 earthquake. It was plunged into conflict. Since 2020, the country has been run by armed gangs. There's a do not travel advisory from the State Department. Given Haiti's kidnappings, terrorism and crumbling healthcare system, some analysts say that Haiti has the highest homicide rate in the world. But according to Trump's resident immigration psychopath, Stephen Miller, whatever.

[Interviewer]

Does the administration consider Haiti a safe

[Stephen Miller]

country now for Haitians? Absolutely. Yes. Yes. So for, I mean, yes, Haitians live in Haiti. It's not our position that Haitians should leave Haiti. I mean, it would be, it'd be crazy for us to say that Haitians couldn't live in Haiti. It's their country. Of course Haitians should live in Haiti. The there's no viable asylum, or use a technical term here, cat claim or withholding claim for any Haitian seeking relief from going back to Haiti, to their homeland. The fact that there might be pockets of Haiti where there's higher crime rates, guess what, there's pockets of Chicago with crime rates just as high.

[Alex Wagner]

Just for comparison, here is Stephen Miller's upside down logic when it comes to offering asylum to nearly 8,000 white South Africaners who faced social media hostility and angry rhetoric back home.

[Jonathan V. Last]

What's happening in South Africa fits the

[Stephen Miller]

textbook definition of why the refugee program was created. This is persecution based on a protected characteristic, in this case, race. So this is race based persecution. And so this is an example of the president returning the refugee program to what it was intended to be used as.

[Alex Wagner]

Which is all to say, if you are a white person, America will welcome you with open arms. But under Donald Trump, the message to everyone else is, is the opposite. For people of color the world over, and especially here in the United States, this country is closed for business. I'm Alex Wagner, and this week on Runaway country, how quickly can Donald Trump bleach the United States into something unrecognizable? I will be joined by one of my favorite thinkers on all things Trump, the great Jonathan V, Last of the bulwark, who has a lot to say about the real reason the right wing is just so angry about immigration. But first, to understand what it's like to watch your entire life disappear, I am talking to Harlane, a nurse who lives in Florida with her mother and son. She left Haiti and came to the US when she was just five years old. And she was a legal resident until last week. Here's our conversation. Harlane, first of all, thank you and welcome to our podcast. What has the last couple weeks been like for you?

[Harlane]

Last couple weeks? Well, it's still very, very new. Yeah, because I was still going with the motion. Just, you know, first we had like a four day extension, was, okay, good, there's hope. There's hope. And then they're like two weeks. I was like, oh, okay. And then I'm thinking, okay, maybe there'll be a longer extension after this. Two, two weeks. So I just kept moving along just as business as usual. I am a travel nurse, so I got a contract in Massachusetts and I spoke to my recruiter and then he's like, they're going to, they're going to give an extension. Go ahead, book your flight. So I booked my flight that Friday and flew out to Massachusetts on Sunday, worked on Monday. So this was orientation. And my recruiter, of course, he's on Edge, checking the USCIS website to see if there's another update. 5:00pm Hit, work is done. And he's like, there's no extension. I'm like, yeah, I know. So I asked him, what do we do? He was like, I'm going to go ahead and update. And he had already updated the hospital from that Friday, letting them know, and this is Massachusetts. I'm sure there's tons of other Haitian employees that you know is in the same situation. So they weren't blindsided with those.

[Alex Wagner]

They weren't, but it sounds like you kind of were.

[Harlane]

Yeah, I was really thinking there was going to be another extension. So I thought business as usual. Flew to Massachusetts. 5:00pm Hit nothing. 6:00pm Nothing. My recruiter is saying maybe they're on Pacific Standard time. I'm like, no, usually they give an extension by 5pm, close the business Eastern time. And he's like, let's be hopeful. So 9pm hit nothing. And I'm like, oh, this is really it. So I now had to book my.

[Alex Wagner]

What was that like? I mean, I just can't. I cannot, I can't. What? I mean, this is really. It means you can't live in the United States anymore according to this government.

[Harlane]

Right. But worst of all, it's the removing our only source to eat. For many of us, I mean, if the rest of America is struggling financially, you can only imagine us, we're all in this together. This is America as a whole. So we're all struggling financially. We're all living paycheck to paycheck. Many of us, many of us don't know when, you know, like we have to calculate groceries or rent. So this is every day for America. So not just Haitians. So to remove work, the only way to provide the only way to eat. That is the hardest part. So I know like, deportation is like the biggest thing to many people who are not in this situation. Their fear is like, oh, deportation. But to us, it's beyond that. Not being able to provide.

[Alex Wagner]

It's immediate.

[Harlane]

Yeah, yeah. Because deportation comes after what.

[Alex Wagner]

So what does that mean for you? So you haven't been working, I assume, since this.

[Harlane]

No, no. Finances and bills still have to be paid because even after that situation, I still had to pay the insurance on my home. Hurricane season is coming up, so I had a major decision. And these are, these are huge finances. We're talking about $3,700.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Wow.

[Harlane]

So this is not a little 200, 500. This is $3,700. So I had to determine, do I pay the insurance on my home and risk hurricane season or do I just take a leap of faith and pray for the best and pay. Pay it. Because this is $3,700 less on my survival.

[Alex Wagner]

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[Harlane]

I do. So I have my 19 year old niece, I raised her as my own and then now I have my 18

[Alex Wagner]

month old son and he's born in the United States. He's an American citizen, I assume,

[Harlane]

and my mom is retired, so it all depends on me.

[Alex Wagner]

Well, but so how are you thinking about your life right now?

[Harlane]

Right now it's a lot of dark days where I am stuck in a dark room, I'm inside of my room, I don't get out of bed and I try to have positive thoughts because your mind is going to how can I make another paycheck? How do I get some form of income? But at the same time, the United States is telling you you're not allowed to. Your bills are still here, but you're not allowed to make any type of income. So if you don't have it, you don't have it. So my thoughts are always that what do I do next? Because I don't have a, oh, I'm not allowed legally, I'm not allowed to make any money in this country. I live here, my bills are in this country, my child is in this country, but I am not allowed to generate any income in this country. So it's a dark room, a dark cloud. And my poor son, he sits in the room with me and I try to push myself for him to be A great mom to get him out of this dark room because he shares my emotion. Whatever I'm feeling, he's feeling. And God forbid I. My circumstances build this depressed child already. He's a baby. Yeah. You know, so whatever I'm going through, he's unfortunately going through it as well. So what. What do I do? I can't force myself out of depression.

[Alex Wagner]

I mean, not only can you not work, but if you stay in the country, you're theoretically at risk of deportation.

[Harlane]

Right, right. So, yeah, in reality, yeah, because we. I'm. I was never illegal, but removing this has now made me illegal. So, yeah, I do risk that. They know where I live, so I don't know that. It could happen any day. They can knock on my door, they can send a letter that they've been sending to everyone else. To me, anything can happen. I am no different than the other 350,000 Haitians. On TPS. What.

[Alex Wagner]

What does the letter say? You.

[Harlane]

I have not received a letter, but I do know it's a letter stating they want you to report to ICE and check in. And they're putting this ankle monitor on individuals. I have not heard anything about Florida, but I have heard. Heard rumors about individuals being picked up down the street from me. So maybe five miles away from me, individuals were being picked up, according to a friend of mine, and being detained. So, I mean, they have my address. You know, I'm not in hiding.

[Alex Wagner]

Do you have a plan if you get picked up?

[Harlane]

I have been watching social media where it's basically where individuals. I've been seeing, like, they have this little verbiage of what to say to remain silent. So I've been practicing that, and I'm very glad that people are putting it out there for you to just remain silent. It's. It would be a very expensive situation because at that point, I would have to hire an attorney, I would have to pay bond. So this would further put me into deficit.

[Alex Wagner]

Wow. But I mean, like, okay, just to, like, I cannot. You. How long have you been in this country?

[Harlane]

31 years. Wow.

[Alex Wagner]

So you got. You were granted TPS status after you'd been in the country for a little while, right?

[Harlane]

Correct, Correct. But I was always.

[Alex Wagner]

You're an American, right?

[Harlane]

Pretty much. I was always legal. I've never fallen out of status. God always worked things out. My mom applied for green card for me, and just as I was denied for my green card is when TPS happened. So there was never any lapse in my status. And even if there was, I would have Been a child.

[Alex Wagner]

Right.

[Harlane]

So. But my mom, she's always been on top of these things. So I've never been illegal. So this is honestly the very first time since I've been in this country in the 31 years that I can honestly say that I am considered illegal.

[Alex Wagner]

Wow. And in the time that you've spent here, you've been raised in America, you have a child who's an American, and you've been working as a nurse, right?

[Harlane]

That is correct. That is correct. A trauma certified emergency room nurse, and

[Alex Wagner]

you worked during COVID too, is that right?

[Harlane]

That is correct.

[Alex Wagner]

What is, first of all, what's the mood inside the community, or at least your community right now? I can imagine that people must be terrified. Are they angry, too? I mean, I just cannot imagine doing jobs like so many Haitians in Florida are caregivers. They've been literally caring for America's sick, ailing and elderly or the youngest and most vulnerable for decades now. And this is how we're repaying that care. I mean, what's the mood like?

[Harlane]

The mood is, this is because I lived through Covid and was very upfront. I was in a front line for Covid. I can describe this as Covid for the Haitian community. So what? The entire American or worldwide, nationwide, they all experience that uncertainty, not knowing what tomorrow brings, life or death, all of that is really what we're facing now where we don't know what tomorrow brings. We're uncertain of what's going to happen next. We fear going back to Haiti because we. We fear that our life could be in jeopardy. I'm actually going to share something with you. The bandit taking over Haiti. This is not new. This has been for as long as I could remember as a child, my family was. We had Bennett's Rob, my family at gunpoint. My aunt and uncle got shot in the head, left to die.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Harlane]

I had an older female cousin. She was raped. She. We had two older cousins, adult cousins. They fled the scene. They were able to leave before any harm was done to them. And meanwhile, my little cousins, who were about 5, 6, 7 years old at the time, they all hid under the bed and witness all of this. So violence is not new to us Haitians. We have not been fleeing. This is not new. Where we're fleeing from gun violence. This has been decades upon decades of the same situation. This is not new. It's been at my front door.

[Alex Wagner]

Stephen Miller, who is Trump's sort of right hand man on immigration, was asked about his Haitians losing temporary protected status and he said Haiti is safe for Haitians and that's their home. And it would be crazy to say that Haitians can't live in Haiti. What do you say to that?

[Harlane]

It's very unfortunate because it's our reality. This is not hearsay. I've witnessed what I've witnessed personally with my family. I have many friends who just fled Haiti recently who told me they had to leave everything behind. They would hear gunshots over their head and would have to just leave with the clothes on their back because they're at war. Yeah, it's civil war there with the gangs and one of my mom's cousin, the only family that I actually have in Haiti, elderly men, he has to be in his 70s. Despite this being his home for so long. This has always been his home. The biggest respect that these gang members have for him, despite them breaking into his home. He called me and asked me to help him re. Re repurchase some of the things that they vandalized some such as laboratory equipments and etc. One of the gang members told him we're going to borrow like into his laugh. We're going to borrow your home. When you are ready for it, let us know.

[Alex Wagner]

Wow.

[Harlane]

So basically letting him know we're taking over, this is ours. So the biggest respect they gave him is by letting him know when you want it back, let us know. But we all know what that means. We're not, we're not idiots. Letting him know that we've taken over. The only thing, the most respect we'll give is we won't kill you, we'll allow you to stay here, but we're taking over. So this is Haitians reality in Haiti right now.

[Alex Wagner]

Do you, I mean, do you think you're going back home? I mean what do you, what do you, how do you grapple with the idea that our government is saying you belong in Haiti, this isn't your home.

[Harlane]

I am not going to jump to conclusion because I still have faith and hope in the American, the Americans that I've learned and lived and loved and served. My, my, my niece slash daughter that I've raised, I've raised her to be American, not Republican or Democrat. And what I've taught her is to be loving and to be a humanitarian and to serve and to help to love. Because that's what I've known America to be. So, so I still have hope. I have not lost hope. I don't feel this is the end. All be all. All I can do is wait. Because if I jump to those conclusions what am I telling myself? I don't have anything left in Haiti. I never built anything in Haiti. I left the country. I was five years old. So there's nothing to go back to. So how do you go back to something that you don't have but you

[Alex Wagner]

still believe in America?

[Harlane]

I do. I do. And I am hopeful that they're gonna come through. Something's gonna happen. They're not gonna send 350 people to go die.

[Alex Wagner]

350,000? Yeah.

[Harlane]

Ugh.

[Alex Wagner]

Harlane, I am like, really, I'm high. I'm. I am really hoping for you and for all the Haitians that this situation is not the permanent, that this isn't the end of the story. And as someone who is lucky enough to be born here, it's just a twist of fate, right? You never know. I mean, I'm so grateful for the work that you have done to save American lives and to be an essential part of the fabric of our society and our community. You know, we are Americans first and you're such a beautiful reminder of that and the promise of this country too, you know?

[Harlane]

Thank you.

[Alex Wagner]

Good luck. Please, please keep us posted. I know everybody who listens to this podcast is gonna wanna know what happens, but like I said, we are putting all of our chips on your side of the table and hoping that this ends in the best way possible for you and your son. We will follow, you know, the story as it develops and God, good luck.

[Harlane]

I appreciate it.

[Alex Wagner]

Thank you. After the break, putting this all into context with the bulwarks. Jonathan V. Last, AKA JVL Runaway country is brought to you by One Skin. One Skin is not your typical skincare brand. And that's why I keep coming back. Most anti aging skin care is built to react to smooth over lines and wrinkles after they show up. But One Skin started somewhere different. Working to address how skin ages in the very first place. I use it every day. Really I do. I love using it. It's simple. It's a great moisturizer. The feel of it is really nice. It's hydrating, but doesn't feel heavy or greasy. I did not know what I was getting into, but I'm glad I got into it. This is not just my experience, friends. One Skin's results are backed by focus. Four peer reviewed clinical studies, over 10,000 five star reviews and they have been recognized by Bloomberg and Fast Company as a leader in skin longevity. Born from over 10 years of longevity research, Oneskin is helping you unlock your healthiest skin now. And as you age for a limited time. Try OneSkin with 15% off using code Alex at OneSkin co. Alex that's 15% off at OneSkin C with code Alex. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support this show and tell them we sent you. Runaway country is brought to you by Forkful. Eating well can be difficult when life gets busy. I know I often eat fruit rolls for lunch, but what about this Forkful chef cooked fresh, never frozen, ready to eat meals made with high quality premium proteins including grass fed bison, wild caught salmon and fresh vegetables. There are delicious menus that will fit your lifestyle and meal preferences including gluten free, dairy free keto, plant based GLP1 and low carb meals. There's no meal prep or cooking or cleanup. Just clean flavors that are ready in under three minutes. I am so excited to try my forkful meals. I have ordered some and I like chimichurri filet mignon. You had me at chimichurri filet mignon with truffle Mac and cheese. Who doesn't love a truffled Mac and cheese? Don't say you don't like truffles. You know you do. I am so excited. I do not like to have to cook a single meal. And that's where Forkful comes in. You can explore their plans and menu of fresh ready to eat [e-mail] and use the code Alex to get 50% off your first order. That is forkfulmeals.com Alex and use promo code Alex for 50% off. Thanks to Forkful for sponsoring this episode. Joining me now is America's Tara Chad. Chad is a smart, attractive, handsome man. A Tara Chad is the. Well, the ultimate chad. I would assume Jonathan V. Last.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It's what people say on the Internet.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah, I mean I say I'm on the Internet. Tara Chad jvl Jonathan Vlast of the Bulwark Fame.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Appreciate you Alex.

[Alex Wagner]

I appreciate you. I Emma, as we know, I'm a big booster of jbl and especially in this moment, there are some behind the scenes machinations that none of you need to know about. But suffice it to say there is one king here and his name is Jonathan Vlass. And I owe you a pinball machine for your endeavors.

[Jonathan V. Last]

You my queen.

[Alex Wagner]

Oh God. Let's take it on the road.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I'd be so into that I can't even tell you. I love you guys. I love the crooked guys so much. And what's funny is, but I'm a crooked one. I don't know any of you. I know, but I don't. The only ones I know are you and Lovett.

[Alex Wagner]

Well, those are arguably the best ones to know.

[Jonathan V. Last]

No, I guess they. I guess you must be.

[Alex Wagner]

But we're the most fun, no question. I think even Favs Pfeiffer and Vitor and Rhodes would say, no, they're the most fun. All this levity needs to be checked for a moment because, as you know, we live in hell, jbl. We live in a hell. Hellscape. And I really don't begrudge people for not having clocked the purge that's underway at the hands of the Trump administration, because there is so very much. There's so much chaos that demands attention or distraction. And yet I really wanted to dedicate some time to what is happening to over a million people, hundreds of thousands of people in everybody's community, integrated in a way that I think isn't necessarily always the story when you talk about communities of migrants that are getting kicked out of this country under Donald Trump. The Haitians in particular are the folks that we focus on. In the beginning of this episode, we spoke to a Haitian resident in the US who's been here since she was a kid. She was a Covid nurse on the front lines. She is a healthcare worker. She risked her life to keep us well. And because of Trump's order to rescind TPS protection for her entire community, she is being told she needs to pack up and go back to Haiti, a place that she has no relation to, that is incredibly dangerous.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And because of the Supreme Court's decision to pretend that Trump's order wasn't racist,

[Alex Wagner]

the other half, which is it is, I would say, exclusively racist. We'll get to that in a second. But I do think I was talking to your colleague Sarah Longwell the other week, and she said voters haven't clocked a lot of the brutality of these immigration policies because it hasn't affected them deeply and personally. And until. And unless that happens, until it's like, but they're taking away Carol. They tend to sort of. They're numb to it. But I actually think when you have a home healthcare worker, right, there are a lot of Haitians in the healthcare sector. A lot of them are nurses, caregivers. They're like surrogate children to the people that they take care of. I think this one resonates. It maybe not in the national dialogue, but in specific communities. I don't know. Am I being overly empathic here?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yes.

[Alex Wagner]

Okay, well, tell me more, because yeah, yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So I, I have a lot of thoughts about this. And there is so mainstream people and people in the center left look at this and are saying like, so there's 335,000 Haitians here in America under TPS. About a third of them, it's like 110, 120,000 of them work in home health and healthcare professionals.

[Harlane]

Crazy.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Which is not all of these old MAGA voters are gonna lose their nurse. Aren't they gonna be upset? And what. And I just don't think that that is a thing that MAGA voters care about. You may recall that During COVID Texas, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick was like, yeah, shit, old people should be willing to die to keep the economy open. Yeah, there is, there is no empathy for, from Republicans during COVID for the million Americans who died, especially old people. No empathy for the number of older folks who died in nursing homes, especially very, very early in Covid. And to the extent that you have responsible people like Mike DeWine, the governor in Ohio, who is out there saying, this is bad, it's going to blow up the local economy of Springfield. These people are integrated into the economy. The economy depends on them. If you just start rounding people up and disappearing them, then a whole bunch of businesses are going to be hurt. Real estate's going to be hurt, factories are going to be hurt. Demands. It's going to be very bad for the local economy in Springfield. And I don't think that any Republican outside of Springfield will give a shit.

[Alex Wagner]

Well, I'm not saying any Republican outside of Springfield will give a shit, but people inside Springfield who previously didn't give a shit might actually give a shit. And to me seems like though incremental, meaningful, you just think it's numerically not enough to really change public opinion.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, I just don't think it's enough to change public opinion. This is one of the things that we have seen over and over again and we've learned it through the Trump years. It is not enough for the people in Alabama to have the Alabama schools run the way they want. They can't abide the idea that some local school district in Marin county, out in California, in the San Francisco suburbs would have different priorities. Some woke public school in San Francisco wants to change the name of their school to something stupid. The people in Alabama watching Fox care about that deeply. And this puts into very stark relief to me the contention of my best friend Sarah Longwell that, well, once people start feeling direct personal consequences, I don't know, like they're feeling direct Personal consequences. And Trump's popularity is down, but it's only down, like, 35%.

[Alex Wagner]

Well, you know, or 32. It's bad. It's bad.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It is not as bad as it should be. It should be by the objective measures, Right? If you just look like ain't nothing going right, and it's all a shit show.

[Stephen Miller]

But.

[Alex Wagner]

And he has also meaningfully lost support on an issue he used to be strong on, which is immigration. And that's not nothing. You know, it's not that he's just doing worse. It's gone the other direction. It is inverted. His support on the issue is inverted. And it. It does. I mean, I. I get your despair, and I maybe that I'm reading too much into this, but I understand why. It's like, we've sort of given up on this country giving a shit about black and brown migrants and the just absolute brutalizing of those communities. But at the same time, I mean, I don't like, the reason he's underwater is because enough people have said, this is fucked up. Like, what you're doing is fucked up. And whether they are actually in the streets and protesting the way they need to be to meaningfully change that policy, I mean, that's a totally different question. But politically, it hasn't worked out for him. And I guess I just think in Florida, which is the, you know, you have a lot of old people with a lot of caregiving needs. I don't know. I think it's just another data point that he's really misguided on a policy that is gonna implicate the entire party ultimately. I don't know. I do think it's an issue for the midterms in specific communities in specific states, but states like Florida and Ohio, possibly.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And yet, imagine we jump back to 2016, and it's like October of 2016, and we're facing down the barrel of a potential Trump presidency. And I tell you, Alex, I have just hopped out of a DeLorean and I come to you from a future in which Donald Trump is president and he has created a nationalized police force to round up immigrants in the street by force. These police are armed and very lightly trained. Many of them are white supremacists. They are always masked, and they are just killing people left and right, American citizens. They're grabbing people off the tree. Alex, what do you think the president's approval rating would be in that scenario? Oh, also, like, gas is running at 440A gallon, and inflation is running at 3.5%. And unemployment is ticking up. Like I would say, you would have said, I think 18% or something. Like, it's not. And in fact, when we had our, like, three weeks of, hey, maybe the war is off, his numbers have floated back up, right?

[Alex Wagner]

No, no, they went up. They went back down. But they did go up. There was a lift. Which means that ultimately the indictment there is a very deep moral indictment, which is. It's like the gas prices that are really driving these numbers, which is personal, you know, discomfort rather than giving a shit about thy neighbor. I mean, it's like, for our good godly Christian nation, it's decidedly unchristian, these attitudes.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And it's not even real discomfort. If I could say the economy is not good right now, but it's not horrible. Again, this is not January of 2008, where the bottom is falling out and we're in financial crisis. And what. And what we have is we had a very good economy. Donald Trump was elected. He did a bunch of tariffs. He started a stupid war, and he fucked up the economy. But he could basically fix it anytime he wants. All he has to do is drop the tariffs and end the war. And things aren't horrible. Inflation is hotter than it should be. The affordability stuff is still a problem. Gas is more, but it isn't terrible. We're not at, like 8% unemployment. We're not having the bottom half home. Right. Being foreclosed on or something like that. And that it's. People respond to the annoyance of higher gas prices more than the moral outrage of we have white nationalism running amok in our country.

[Alex Wagner]

I think it is worth. I mean, we talked about the Haitian community, but the. The administration is working to end TPS status for, I believe, 13 of 17 countries that currently have the designations. They've already ended TPS for people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Yemen. The Supreme Court decision that you mentioned also affects people from Syria and Venezuela. These are all in addition to being places with brown people, which we'll get to in a moment. They're all countries in crisis, in large part, and we are just ripping people out of this country, where they may have been for years, if not decades. They may have children who are American citizens. They may have been. They are almost uniformly paying taxes as gainfully employed people in our economy. They are integrated into the fabric of our society, and we are just disappearing them. And not just disappearing them and sending them to Canada. We're sending them back to some very dangerous places where they could die or otherwise be seriously harmed. And have probably presumably very little relations left in those country. I don't know. Nothing surprises me about the inhumanity and brutality of Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. But this is so bad for. I mean, this is being done as in our name as Americans. And I just wanna register my disgust at that because fucking nobody else is. Like, this is not what we're about. And it galls me that this is the message we are sending around the world to people who look to America as a beacon. I just wanna say that for a moment. This is horrible what is happening to these people.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And in the case of Afghanistan, we're the ones who created the mess over there. Donald Trump signed this ludicrous fucking surrender towards the end of his, which Joe Biden had to carry out. And so the mess in Afghanistan that we're sending people, many of whom fought for America, that we're sending them back to, Trump made. That's the extra level of moral disgust in all of this. And I just don't know. I mean, America has a long, long history of racial misdeeds and ethnic misdeeds, from slavery and the Trail of Tears to Jim Crow and internments during World War II. So it's not like this is new, but for people who are your age and my age, it's new to us. We've never had to live through something like this where the federal government was the bad guy stuff.

[Alex Wagner]

Totally.

[Jonathan V. Last]

You've had state governments who were bad. You've had individual racist political candidates or governors or senators. The idea that the eye of Sauron, the federal government was bent towards trying to harm people who had come here and who had assimilated and were making lies for themselves, that is new for us and awful.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

States rights, states rights, states rights.

[Alex Wagner]

When we talk about how and why the debate is where it is in this country, it is worth bringing up the other thing that's been unfolding, especially on Fox News, which is this migrant crisis in Spain. For people who haven't keyed into this, last Thursday, I think it was 720,000 migrants crossed the border from Morocco to Ceuto, which is a Spanish enclave that's not actually in Spain as part of North Africa. 88 people died in the process. There were stampedes. There was, I believe there was some shooting. The far right in Europe, but also here at home has very much capitalized on this. This is how Fox News has been covering a migration crisis here at home. Let's take a look.

[Nick Shirley]

Explain that. The point, women stay at home, like Islam says. This is. This is conquest. This Is not just looking for a better life. This clear. They got a goal.

[Interviewer]

Every European country now has open borders. And if these people flood into one country, they can flood into the entire eu.

[Jonathan V. Last]

He has a knife. He has a knife.

[Nick Shirley]

Was that a Moroccan? I mean, who was that guy? Were these migrants that were still hanging around or who were these people?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, it was a group of people

[Alex Wagner]

that were still hanging around, some of

[Stephen Miller]

the Moroccans that hadn't gone back yet.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, they think it's there.

[Stephen Miller]

Yeah, but it's.

[Nick Shirley]

And there's theirs, but it's never been theirs.

[Interviewer]

You know, there's been such a focus on our country when it comes to ICE and their enforcement right now. This guys, this did happen. Yeah, this did happen to our country. The border was the same way. The U.S. mexican, Texas border. And they crossed and drove. This is the danger. What can happen in our country if we don't have strong enforcement?

[Jonathan V. Last]

I mean, he wasn't scared enough to stop taping, right, Nick?

[Alex Wagner]

Charlie.

[Stephen Miller]

Fear.

[Alex Wagner]

Fearless. Fearless.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It's terrible. The guy's got a knife. Keep rolling, though. I'll just keep the selfie stick out. Come on.

[Alex Wagner]

He died with a selfie stick in his hand. Defending democracy.

[Stephen Miller]

Yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

The people of watching Fox News have never even heard the name of Max Miller, but they know all about where is the island of Ceuta in Gibraltar. And they are dialed into what matters. Kitchen table issues.

[Alex Wagner]

Alex, Kitchen table issues. Just for clarification purpose, there's a lot to unpack. Number one, the outrage about ICE has actually not been focused on the borders. I think actually you've seen a total recalibration from Democrats saying we need to secure the border full stop. However, we also shouldn't be launching racist dragnets featuring roving death squads yanking people out of cars and killing the wrong people, or shooting and murdering unarmed fathers and mothers and sisters and wives, like, in front of their children. In some cases, that's the issue. It's not really the southern border. It's everything else that's happening beyond the southern border. Right. Is that a distinction without a difference? Jbl?

[Jonathan V. Last]

No, I don't think it is. And here's the real. Here's a. Here's a sort of nasty question. Do you think for MAGA voters and Republican voters the deaths are a bug or a feature?

[Alex Wagner]

Oh, that's such a great question.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So when they look at. And obviously like no group is a monolith, and the answer is for some of them it's one thing and for others of them it's another, but it does Seem that for some percentage of that pie. Right. If your pie is all Republican voters, some percentage of them look at the deaths and the death squads as a bad thing and others look at it as proof of concept.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah, deterrence. That's exactly what they're supposed to do. And those people shouldn't be here in the first place. Good riddance. And then it's coupled with coverage like what you just saw of hundreds of thousands of migrants trying to, you know, get into a new place and leave the old place, oftentimes violently or certainly unlawfully. And that just reinforces, it makes, first of all, it makes immigration reform, I feel like impossible because it's, it's not. Because as for Democrats and for progressives and for people that don't like Trump's policy, it's like there's a distinction between securing the southern border and what your immigration policy more broadly looks like for, for the rest of the MAGA coalition and most Republicans, it's all wound together and separating these things being more, I guess, thoughtful about a domestic immigration policy. What you do with the 11 million undocumented, however many are left undocumented residents in this country is different than what you do on the border. But I think for them it's just militarized. Militarized. Militarized. Militarization.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah. And I think we have a pretty clear example of why this is true. So the Biden administration negotiated with a super hawkish Republican senator and got an immigration reform bill that was the, the most hawkish, toughest immigration reform package ever offered in America. And they got to yes on it. And then Republicans flinched at the last second, said, no, no, we don't want to do that. Right. They don't want to pass like reforms. They don't want to reform the immigration system, but they do like having all these guys in tactical gear punching and shooting brown people. Right. And isn't that the tell that there was, there was no Republican paid a price for pulling the plug on immigration reform. Somehow that was the Democrats fault because they didn't do it soon enough. Like if they had done that in February of 2021, then it would have been good, but it was bad when they did it in the spring of 2024. I don't know, people keep telling themselves and showing us where their priorities are

[Alex Wagner]

and we keep trying to argue past it.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And the fact that again, foxes, foxes really, you know, they want to drive up immigration fear and so they'll go to Spain if they have to do it, they'll go to Gibraltar if They have to.

[Alex Wagner]

They spend special correspondent Nick Shirley in a selfie stick, right?

[Jonathan V. Last]

And they don't, you know, they can't do it in America, so they'll just go abroad. Like, none of this is serious. Like, the idea that we would take these people at their word, that they have like real concerns about policy. I just don't see any evidence that that's the case.

[Alex Wagner]

You gotta imagine that there was some subset of like Trump advisors who were like, Spain, let's play all the time, let's go, let's make. I mean, they're just so desperate and like Nick Shirley being chased down the street by like a group of like, you know, rock throwing migrants is like exactly the content that they want. That's like, they're like, Shirley got the migrants throwing rocks. You can almost hear the newsroom chatter, like, can we get the video? Get Shirley on. Like the thrill they must have had. Just like, just for edification, this is how Trump has been talking about Spain. In case you're interested.

[Jonathan V. Last]

You can imagine the ghost of Roger Ailes just tugging it like a fucking freight train to that big.

[Alex Wagner]

Shorter skirt. More Nick. Shorter skirt, more Nick. That's what he's telling Laura Ingraham, more of my conversation with JVL in just a moment. But first, if you have not gotten tickets for Crooked Con yet, what are you doing? There are some very exciting new faces joining us at Crooked. We believe the answer to right wing authoritarianism is a big, welcoming, fun, pro democracy movement. So we have invited some of the biggest, funniest voices online to all day crooked con. At CrookedCon, you will have the chance to meet creators and new media personalities who make sense of the news with humor and hot takes. They'll be bopping around the Washington Convention center hosting happy hours, Q&As and workshops for attendees. They will also be making content because what happens at CrookedCon ends up online for every political nerd to see. Check out which creators are joining us so [e-mail] and grab your tickets today. See you in DC. Runaway country is brought to you by Quints. Does anyone feel like August is the Sunday of summer? It totally is. I mean, when the end of August comes, just like Sunday night, I get the Sunday scaries, just like the September scaries. But August is the perfect time to hit reset before that autumn rush. And for me, that always starts with clothing and accessories. Quince proves you don't need a crowded closet to look incredible. You just need the right pieces. Quince specializes in effortless, high quality essentials. Like ultra soft organic cotton and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They are very beautifully tailored, they are built to last and they transition seamlessly from morning meetings to dinner. I am very excited. I have just purchased a and like am enthusiastically waiting for the delivery of some of Quint's jewelry which you will probably be seeing on camera here at Runaway country and on podcasts across the Crooked spectrum. It is lovely, it's classy, it can be dressed up or dressed down just like much of the clothing on their website. Upgrade your everyday Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com runaway. You get free shipping on your order and 365 day return. They are now available in Canada and the UK too. That is Q-U-I-N c e.com runaway hey

[Tommy Vietor]

it's Tommy from Pod. Save America and Pot Save the World. Last year, 2500 people joined us at Crooked Con for conversations with some of the smartest organizers, least annoying politicians, and most interesting voices in politics to talk about how to fix this mess. Even President Obama made a surprise appearance. We're doing it all again November 5th to 7th in Washington D.C. with even more podcasts, panels and workshops. Plus there'll be drinks, which we'll need after the midterms. No matter which way they go, get [e-mail] if you're a friend of the pod, you get a discount too. See you there.

[Alex Wagner]

At the same time that we're bleaching the country because that's what's happening by kicking out the brown people, we're also bringing in a select group of white folks, Afrikaners to be exact, who previously ran South Africa under apartheid. This is not a disenfranchised group of people historically, and he's letting them in as refugees, accusing the South African government of discriminating against them over a law land law called the Expropriation Act. It is a tell. This is the group of people this administration is most concerned about. This is also a telling he's giving them goody bags when they arrive here. JVL and here's the New York Times reporting on what's in the goody bags. Afrikaners will get an Android tablet, an American flag, and copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They'll also receive a packet of literature that provides a sanitized, Trump approved view of American and South African history, one that criticizes racial equity and civil rights laws and and promotes claims of discrimination against white people. You know, slavery was just a whole big it was all about giving it to the whites. The welcome bags include a report commissioned by Trump during his first term that downplays the role of slavery in the country's founding, our country's founding, and a children's book accusing South Africa's government of favoring the black population. Not really the takeaway most people have after apartheid, but hey, the story. One of the stories in the book, Lwazi's Hard Lesson, describes Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in South Africa's first post apartheid president, as a, quote, South African lawyer and activist who sought to end apartheid with acts of sabotage. Okay, cool. This is, I think, what they call white supremacist brainwashing, or I guess in the Trump administration, it's just an immigration welcome back.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It is darkly funny that the administration's idea isn't just, we gotta get more white people. Could we send a delegation to Sweden and maybe go to a bunch of Swedish universities, try to get some PhD students and tell them, hey, you know, we'll set up a program for you to come and do research over here. Think about immigrating to America. No. When they say, like, we gotta get more white folks, they're like, are there white folks out there who really hate black people even more than we do?

[Tommy Vietor]

Those.

[Jonathan V. Last]

We want them.

[Alex Wagner]

Not the swords guys. They're libs.

[Interviewer]

We.

[Jonathan V. Last]

We want to find. Are there any Rhodesians still around? Is Rhodesia still a thing? Because we'd love to bring the Rhodesians.

[Alex Wagner]

They're like, what's the most recently? Where's the country where we have the most recent history of, like, venal white racism? Where is that? Oh, South Africa. Elon. Elon.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Those are the white people we want. It's crazy. It's crazy. And not just bring them in, but bringing them in and giving them the goody bag is a detail that we wouldn't believe if we were watching the satirical, comedic version of this. Right? If we're watching a movie that is, like the Veep version of the Trump administration, it's a dark comedy and there's a goodie bag with fucking Prageru.

[Alex Wagner]

Prageru is actually the company that wrote this, like, smut. This racist smut.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It literally is a picture book. It's a little picture book.

[Alex Wagner]

It's a coloring book about how Nelson Mandela is an enemy of the state.

[Jonathan V. Last]

That's the thing that we would have looked at in the movie version of this and said, okay, come on, you're laying it on a little thick now. And this is the real world we live in.

[Alex Wagner]

It's Literally all you need to know about how this administration sees everything, like what it wants, what its goals. It's white supremacy.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Just white supremacy. And I feel like, you know, I feel like a crazy person who's being incredibly reductive, but at the same time, like, I just don't know what other accurate way to describe what's going on. And did you, did you catch. I wrote about this last week, the Stephen Miller remarks at the conference that he and Marco Rubio put on about the resurgence of left wing terrorism. And Miller just, I mean, he's barely paraphrasing Hitler and Goebbels.

[Alex Wagner]

It is, as you said in the original German. He might as well.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And I just went and pulled, like, a bunch of stuff from Stephen Miller and just put it side by side with Gordon Goebbels and Hitler and you. I'm telling you, they're indistinguishable. Talking about sub humans and how, you know, it is this. No, it's not even this close to the calipers and the physio. Look at the cranial eugenics. Yeah, it is literally that he says, you know, look, you. All these people, these antifa types, they're ugly and mutilated and disgusting and they revolt you because you know what is beautiful and right when you see it,

[Alex Wagner]

I mean, God, it's like it is verbatim, like Hitler, Aryan youth, the genetic superiority of the Aryan race, which is strange coming from someone whose parents or great, great uncle fled the Holocaust. I mean, the Stephen Miller psychology here is the most twisted thing in. I mean, well, within the Trump administration. Yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

This is the way it always is, though, right? I mean, the same was true of the Nazis, right? I mean, Goebbels was not this, like, big, strapping Aryan, you know, ubermensch.

[Alex Wagner]

Neither was Hitler.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So I just don't see a way in which this isn't. And again, I feel weird saying it because it sounds maximalist and not nuanced, but the program is just white supremacism. And I don't understand how everybody else doesn't see it too. Do you ever find yourself like that? Like, why doesn't everyone else see this?

[Alex Wagner]

Well, because I think we get distracted by, like, Iran and gas prices, and it's like, oh, those, those are moving the numbers. And we start talking about the sort of economic motivation of Trump voters. But then you point out, like, but if it really was anything other than just white supremacy, wouldn't the numbers be a lot lower? Like, how. How are they even. Why are we Talking about the 30s and not the single digits. This is a violation of core principle and happening in everybody's front and backyard. I take to heart what you mean about the language he uses to describe the other, and I think it extends past migrants. And I want to play some sound from Trump in the Oval Office this week talking about blue cities. He was Talking about Washington, D.C. my home city, also known as chocolate City for a while, but. But now it's been gentrified beyond that designation. He loves race baiting, he loves a race war. He loves the idea of turning people against each other. This is Trump from earlier this week.

[Donald Trump]

I said it the other day and it maybe doesn't sound that important, but when a country goes bad, like, look at the blue cities. What do they have in common aside from massive crime? Much more crime. The Republicans have very little crime. But what do the blue cities have in mind? And also, you can say this with nations, when they go bad, the blue cities have something in common. Crime, high crime, vicious, violent crime. But what do they have in common? They're all dirty. They're filthy dirty. Their streets are dirty. Their streets smell. Their storefronts are burned, broken. Their trees are all gross. Everything about the place is dirty. And I don't want to mention any specific city. It's really all of them. But you go into these cities that are blue, they're crime ridden and they're filthy dirty. They're like Washington D.C. was a year and a half ago.

[Alex Wagner]

What do you make of that? Jbl?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Some of Trump, I think, can be understood as just the. You know, a lot of us are frozen in amber at, like, a specific developmental point in our life. And he's frozen in amber in, like 1975 New York.

[Alex Wagner]

New York.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, right. And so in his mind, it's still the Central park. Was it 6, 7, 5? I forget the Central Park 5. It's still Bernie Goetz. It's still Dinkins era New York. It's still all of those 70s grunge, Dirty Harry, Death Wish movies. And nothing has changed in the world around. That's just the way it is because this shit is so disconnected from reality.

[Alex Wagner]

It's like New York City is all finance bros and swing in restaurants where entrees are $55 a pop.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, so is Boston. So is Atlanta. I mean, you know, like, Philadelphia is amazing. Our cities are great on the crime stuff. Crime is way, way down. We did have a surge in violent crime in American cities. Do you remember what year that took place in? It's impossible to remember who was president in 2020. This is the, you know, the hardest question to answer in American politics is who Was president in 2020?

[Mike DeWine]

No.

[Alex Wagner]

Donald Trump. No.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah. And, you know, ever since he got out of office, all that crime has gone way back down again. Some of the rural areas in America, which, by the way, have you been to rural America? Much of it is lovely, some of it's not. Some of it is bedraggled and depressed. But also a fair amount of crime.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Fair amount of deaths of despair.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah. Drug addiction.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I mean, you know, at least Trump is trying to cover his racism in euphemism though.

[Harlane]

Right.

[Alex Wagner]

And I think that's what, like, I'm not, I'm not a psychologist. I play one on podcasts. This, I feel like this is just the subtext is they're all those people of color. They're just like this, this, this, oh, this muck, this, this, this, this mire. I don't want nothing to do with all them and their swirl, all this interracial commingling and just this. But it's also the language he uses to describe people who are not like him, who live in cities or who are journalists or who are migrants, is so degraded and so dehumanizing that it's like, it is so bad for our. I mean, well, there are two things. On one hand, I'm like, this is so bad for our democracy. This is so fucked. He has so deeply divided us. He has made this such a hateful dynamic between the people who still support him or support the Republican Party and everyone else that like, the language they've used is so beyond dismissive. It's like really brutalizingly dehumanizing. And then on the other hand, I'm like, you're a fucking crank. You're an old fucking man that has 32% approval rating and fuck you, this language isn't gonna work. And the next president is gonna be someone who's able to communicate to the American public that we're in the project together.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Maybe if we're looking, I don't know, maybe.

[Harlane]

I have a question.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I have a question for you, Alex.

[Stephen Miller]

I have a question.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So America has become increasingly urban and suburbanized. I don't have the statistic at my fingertips, but there is some census fact that is something like 70% of America lives within a three hour drive of a major city. How is it that lies like this about what cities are like finds purchase? The people who watch VOX just never go into a city.

[Alex Wagner]

They never go out like have do.

[Jonathan V. Last]

They just never go To New York or to Houston or to San Antonio or Chicago or. They've never been to Atlanta, they've never been to Charlotte. Like, I don't. Because all you have to do is show up in these places and realize, oh, it's really nice. This is why everybody wants to live here. It's really nice.

[Alex Wagner]

I think that, I mean, that's a broader question about how isolated Fox viewers are. And people in the conservative sphere are looking for some kind of community that exists beyond their four wall, their screen and their television set. And there's a deep and abiding loneliness that finds purchase in a narrative that is ultimately tribal. Right.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I mean, Laura Ingraham's not moving to Mississippi.

[Alex Wagner]

Mississippi. A Linton or Laura Ingraham. Well, maybe certain parts of Mississippi.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Certain parts of Mississippi would. Yeah, you know, like this is part of all these fucking conservative elites who live high on the hog in Manhattan and I just. To have them traffic in this shit when like, you know, I'm sorry, Sean

[Alex Wagner]

Hannity, Megyn Kelly lives in New York City.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Megyn Kelly, right. Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity. All these people, if it was so bad, they would be living in a gated community in Florida. Right. But they're not.

[Alex Wagner]

They're in it for the profit. Well, I mean, I don't know. I, I guess I think on one hand there's like, so, I mean, there obviously is a ton of work to do and unwind. If we ever get to the option of being able to unwind ourselves from these years in these narratives, we're gonna like Democrats, progressives, people who give a shit about us having a future as a country are gonna need to find a compelling narrative that somehow stitches us back together. But I also think that people are a little tired of this shit. I'm hoping they are.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I mean, we thought that and 2020 and 2024. Right. I mean, this is the fact that, that America reelected him after 2020. Like, I, I just can't get my head around and still have not been able to get my head around the idea that after a catastrophically bad first term in which he left the American economy in tatters and a million people dead and he was defeated, and then he attempted a coup and all this. And then we had four years of a pretty good run where unemployment was under 4%, the economy was again, there was some annoying inflation for about 14 months, but only 14 months. And then we got a soft landing and everything was pretty much fine. America chose him again.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah, all your bets are off.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I just think if that is, that data point looms so large over everything else that I think might be able to come after this. Because if they would do that, I

[Alex Wagner]

mean, right gas station, really, they'll do anything. You're like, reminder, people were there was mass death happening in the United States when he left and he got reelected. So like $4.87 gas doesn't really compare to that. Or maybe it does. I don't know. It's. It's a sign of the times that the gas prices may be the thing that pushes him over the edge.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Can you imagine?

[Alex Wagner]

Like that's the thing. We will continue to talk about what's happening to the rest of the country in the meantime and I will continue to ask you to come on this podcast because you are the greatest and my friend and our king, our resident king always for this hour and all hours. I like that we have a slightly opposing dynamic as far as our belief in what is to come. It makes for, I think, good conversation and I'm going to remain hopeful about some things, especially you coming back on Runaway country.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And I will try to kill that hope.

[Alex Wagner]

Jonathan V. Last of the Bulwark, thank you for your wisdom and grievance.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Love you, friend.

[Alex Wagner]

Love you too. That is our show for this week. Don't forget to check out the show and our rapid response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway country with Alex Wagner. And if you are not sick of me yet, please take a look at my substack. How the hell with Alex Wagner. Last but not least, if you've been impacted directly by the Trump administration and its policies, please do send us an email or a one minute voice [e-mail] and we may be in touch to feature your story. A big thanks to everyone who has written in already. Runaway country is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Ilona Minkowski, Emma Ellich, Frank, Hayley Jones and Aneesh of Energy, with help from Eric Shoot, Kenny Moffett and Charlotte Landis. Production support from Ben Hethcoat, Katie Long, Adrian Hill and Matt De Groat. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hey, it's Tommy from Pot Save America and Pot Save the world. Last year, 2,500 people joined us at CrookedCon for conversations with some of the smartest organizers, least annoying politicians, and most interesting voices in politics to talk about how to fix this message. Even President Obama made a surprise appearance. We're doing it all again November 5th to 7th in Washington D.C. with even more podcasts panels and workshops. Plus there'll be drinks, which we'll need after the midterms. No matter which way they go. Get [e-mail] if you're a friend of the Pod. You get a discount too. See you there.