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This is the Washington Journal for December the 26th.
On numerous occasions, President -elect Trump has promised to begin a mass deportation effort on his first day of his new term as top advisor on border issues.
Tom Holman said the effort would focus on deporting criminals and national security threats.
There are concerns by some on the effort's impact upon other U .S. migrants, also about how the effort could upset the U .S. economy.
To start the program today, How do you feel about these promised mass deportation efforts by the incoming Trump administration?
If you support them, call and tell us why at 202 -748 -8000.
If you oppose them, call us at 202 -748 -8001.
For immigrants in the United States, if you want to give your perspective, 202 -748 -8002 is how you do that.
If you want to text us your thoughts this morning, you could do that at 202 -748 -8003.
You can always post on Facebook at facebook .com slash c -span and on X at c -span WJ.
It was in late November that Scripps News, along with Ipsos, took a poll.
Talking about and asking people about their thoughts on mass immigration.
Here's the headline.
Support for those efforts drops when Americans consider potential consequences.
When asked generally about the idea of support for mass deportation for undocumented immigrants, those who participated in the poll, saying they supported that effort, 52 % said they support that effort,
42 % opposing that effort.
Those numbers change slightly.
When certain factors that were introduced in the poll, for example, support for those mass deportations, if it ends up in fewer paying into Social Security and Medicare, that support drops to 48%.
It drops to 47 % if it leads to labor market shortages.
It drops to 43 % if it results in prices to spike.
And support for mass deportations, if families are separated in the process of doing so, We're good to go.
I think?
We're good to go.
Talking to the Chief of Staff of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Biden administration, Jared Hauser, saying the number of officers needed to pursue those deemed a public safety threat are at direct odds with the goal of deporting people in large numbers.
Quote, you're not going to be able to do these things without the resources you have with the deportations officers you have.
Just the arithmetic, the time -intensive nature of those sort of arrests will overwhelm any ability.
To get to those large -scale numbers.
So those are some of the technicalities that faces the incoming Trump administration.
When it comes to this idea of mass deportation, if this is something you support or oppose, you can call and let us know.
Again, if you support those efforts, 202 -748 -8000, the number to call.
If you oppose those efforts, 202 -748 -8001.
And for immigrants in the United States, you can make your thoughts known, too, at 202 -748 -8002.
We're good to go.
But I've informed Mexico that it just cannot continue.
We're not going to let it continue.
The United States has lost 300 ,000 people a year.
Think of that.
I don't know.
I mean, how many people?
Everybody you meet said, I lost my daughter, I lost my son to drugs, to fentanyl.
Mostly to fentanyl, but to drugs.
Families are being destroyed and we're going to stop it.
We're not going to let that happen.
And we're also going to be doing something that's, I think, going to help a lot.
We're going to do very big advertising campaigns, just like a campaign for running for president.
We'll spend a lot of money, but it'll be a very small amount of money, relatively.
We're going to advertise how bad drugs are for you, how bad they are.
They ruin your look, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin, and ruin your teeth.
If you want to have horrible teeth, take a lot of fentanyl.
Do you want to have skin that looks so terrible?
Take fentanyl.
We're going to show what these drugs are doing to you.
Nobody's done that before, and we're going to do it.
So those are some more of the recent comments that the president -elect has made when it comes to mass deportation.
You can find others at our website at c -span .org, asking you about the level that you support or oppose these efforts by the incoming administration.
We'll start in Port Cray, New York, support line.
This is Rob.
Rob, good morning.
Tell us why.
Good morning, Pedro.
Well, you don't have to look very far to see that guy that set the woman on fire in the subway this week.
He was already kicked out of the country, came back and lit this woman on fire, then watched her burn.
I mean, this has happened all over the country.
They're killing and raping people.
This is ridiculous.
And back before the pandemic started, I remember hearing the press say, Well, there's 20 to 30 million illegals here now.
And what is it now?
It must be close to 40 or 50 million.
And these people aren't vetted.
Our government under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has really ruined this country.
And it's going to take decades to get these people the hell out of here.
The caller references that instance of New York.
It was the ABC affiliate out of New York City with this on their website Monday.
That 33 -year -old man.
Good morning, Pedro.
I just had a second look up, so I'm a little groggy still.
But yeah, I'm in support of getting rid of the criminals.
I mean, we've got to get rid of the criminals.
50 ,000 rapists, 12 ,000 murders.
They've already committed 14 ,000 murders from these illegals being here in the last four years that the media doesn't talk about.
You hear about Lake and Riley and certain people.
And then 380 ,000 children.
The number's just been updated.
380 ,000 children missing.
I mean, my God.
You know, 110 ,000 people last year died from the fentanyl.
We've got to secure the border, put the military, the National Guard, whatever it takes, and start with these hardcore criminals, gang members, and the people committing the crimes.
You know, if they're here...
If the numbers are as high as you say,
what gives you confidence that the Trump administration is going to be able to do all that deportation?
Okay, that's Guy there in Oklahoma.
Again, you can call and support these efforts.
You can oppose these efforts.
And then immigrants, if you want to give your thoughts too, special lines there for you.
Well, if that's the way you characterize it, then why do you oppose their deportation, or at least the mass deportation effort?
That's not a quick question.
You called in on our oppose line.
I assume that you want to talk about why you oppose it.
Tell me why.
Ah, he's gone.
Let's hear from Rod.
Rod on our support line in Ohio.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
Good morning, Pedro.
Morning.
Go ahead.
Yes.
Yeah, I support deportation in any form, whether it be illegal immigrants or people here that are on a legal visa that's expired or get in some trouble where it should be rescinded.
But anyway, I'm going to keep it kind of short and sweet.
With the immigration problem, it's integrated into our society, our culture, and it's...
Well, let's bring it back to immigration then.
Why do you support deportation on a mass level?
I'm trying to get my thoughts collected here on this, but it's like cancer.
You can go out and cut out a big chunk of cancer, but a lot of it will remain.
So you have to start with the obvious.
Everybody's screaming over the border, unchecked.
People coming in.
You have to deal with that first.
And then you can work backwards, hopefully, and start collecting all of it.
Because for every illegal immigrant that comes across unchecked, there are probably 10 people that came across illegally at one time that were lost track of, or something like that,
where they should have been.
Okay.
Okay.
Rod there in Ohio, on our support line.
Some of you posted, when we posted this on the Facebook page not too long ago before the show started, some of those comments, this is from Susan Eastman, saying when it comes to dealing with the issue of those already in the United States, give them all work visas,
adding that we need immigrants for our economy to function.
When it comes to the efforts, this is Timothy Crump saying he totally supports those mass deportation efforts.
We can't afford the cost of a whole class of lawbreakers.
David Jenkins this morning saying oppose.
Besides, I've yet to hear any realistic plan to actually make it happen.
Just more big talk from a little man baby, he adds.
And then Darlene Knight saying when it comes to these efforts, she supports them.
I'm not against immigration, but this invasion wasn't immigration or about refugees.
Again, that Facebook posting, facebook .com /cspan.
If you want to put those thoughts there, you can call us on the lines, too.
I just picked one that best represents you on our oppose line from Maryland.
This is Elizabeth.
Hello.
Yes, I oppose the mass deportation of immigrants.
Immigrants coming into this country just want to work.
Elizabeth, keep going, please.
Immigrants are coming in this country just to work.
What's wrong with that?
Our country is based on immigration.
People immigrated from Europe and all over the world to build this country.
And what's wrong with having people from all over the world come to this country to work?
That's all they want to do is work.
And mass deportation would break up families.
Children would be left here without a parent.
Kids in school would be left without a parent.
It would just be terrible.
I oppose it 100%.
That's all I want to say.
Thank you very much.
Goodbye.
Elizabeth Fair in Maryland giving her thoughts.
The Associated Press adding, when it comes to this effort that will be made by the administration, how local law enforcement factors into that.
Their story highlights the fact that some cities and states work with the Immigrations and Customs Enforcements to turn over people in custody who aren't U .S. citizens, but many left -leaning states and cities have so -called sanctuary policies.
That limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
In New York City, for example, ICE used to have an office at the jail to easily take custody of non -citizens in 2014.
Then -Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation kicking out ICE and restricting police cooperation.
His successor, Eric Adams, has shown willingness to revisit some of these policies.
He recently met with Tom Holman and told reporters they agreed on pursuing people who commit violent crimes.
It goes on from there, just some of these efforts.
By the way, if you're at Newsweek publishing a map on their site, if I can get it to come up, it comes up those who support this idea of mass immigration,
or at least mass deportation that's planned by the Trump administration.
The map is here.
Those in the green that are shaded green saying yes, they generally, those states going along with ideas or at least concepts of mass deportation, those in the no states, that orange, reddish color, blue states are limited,
it's unclear.
If you tap the map and go state by state, it gives you the state if it supports deportations and the estimated undocumented population.
Good morning.
You can hear me?
I can hear you.
Go ahead.
Okay, I oppose this because I don't think it's possible to do it.
Cost -wise, staffing -wise, and people got to be educated.
There is a process for deportation already.
And the reason why it's not possible to do mass deportations because, one, you need enough staff to deport one person.
You need two.
To follow enforcement, to escort that person out of the country to their country of origin.
And people are just thinking about, oh, you just drop them at the bottom, Mexico.
No, you have folks that are here from countries as far as China, as far as Iran, as far as Brazil.
You're going to need two to three law enforcement officials.
Air marshals to escort them out of the country.
It's very costly.
Number two, you have to process those criminals.
Or you have to process those individuals right, they have to go through immigration judge.
Some of them have to go through the federal judge, the federal or state judge.
If they have any offenses, any crimes they they committed, they have to go through that process, then go to immigration judges.
It's not possible to do it legally.
The easiest way, and A foreseeable way, is to impose laws that punish those who employ those individuals, right?
You need a seven -year background investigation to work for the federal government.
You can impose the same type of law to private sectors, right?
You can impose those laws and put the burden on them and say, look, if we find this type of individual in your entity, you'll be fined $1 million plus...
Yep.
That's Ben there in Virginia.
Ben mentioning those costs.
Doc Holliday, or Doc Brian Holliday from Facebook, as part of his opposition, saying it's not a real plan.
It'll cost billions in the effort and to the economy.
When it comes to cost efforts, it was the New York Post two days ago.
Hey, good morning.
Hey, I just wanted to say that first off, your list that you have of callers, I would imagine a lot of illegal immigrants are really upset that they're grouped in with illegal immigrants to call you.
Because I think there's a lot of people that are immigrants that are not happy with what's going on in our country.
And what's happening is we're completely changing our culture.
And 20 million people coming into this country, we can't sustain it.
And like...
Biden changed the laws and made that Haiti, the 20 ,000 that went to Springfield, were legal immigrants.
But how would anyone like that to happen to their town and have their culture completely changed by this amount of people coming from the government?
I thought we were the land of the people telling us what to do.
I just want to say that, you know, if it was in your town or in my town, I wouldn't be very happy.
Okay.
Steve, again, we've set aside a line for immigrants.
202 -748 -8002.
That number.
Let's hear from Mara in New York.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How are you?
Fine.
Go ahead.
Well, I came here from another country and we've been here for 40 -some years and we were sponsored.
And it took my family over 10 years to become citizens.
My father had to go to night classes every week, twice a week.
We had babysitters, and they had to learn how to speak English.
They had to learn history, and I think people should do it the right way.
What was their country of origin?
Italy.
My father came here for work.
He didn't have any work in Italy and he came here for a better life.
But he did it the right way.
So when I see what's happening, it makes me sick.
As far as the deportation efforts that the incoming Trump administration has talked about, to what degree do you support those efforts?
I think you have to be here legally.
I think they've all broken laws, and unfortunately, I don't like what's happening to these children.
They don't know where they are, and that's very sad, but they came here illegally.
My family had to do it the right way, and it took...
Okay.
Thank you for the perspective.
Let's go to Richard on our oppose line.
Hi there.
We don't know how far that's going to go.
In other words, you know, you have people here from Afghanistan, from Ukraine.
Are these laws going to spill over and apply to them as well?
I think we have to take a critical look at, you know, what Donald Trump is proposing.
And we have to be very careful because, like I said, they can use this type of power.
The next thing you know, they may be rounding up American citizens under something like this.
So I just think we need to take a more critical look at this and be more careful about how we go about trying to get these people out of our country.
May I ask, why would you think it would start with those not supposed to be here, but why would you think that would extend ultimately to American citizens like you just said?
Well, because this country has a history of using things such as mass deportations.
And then, you know, you will see it will start to ripple out and, you know, go out and start to affect, you know, American citizens or whomever they may wish to do it, you know?
That's Richard there in New York on our oppose line.
One of the people asked about deportation efforts and...
In December of last year, border crossings were at record highs.
Now they've dropped to the lowest level of the Biden administration.
How much of that drop -off is because Mexico is now stopping migrants from even getting to that southern border of the United States.
That is critically one element of it.
It is not the only element of it.
The president took executive action in June of this year.
That has been a key driver of the low number of encounters at our border.
We are now delivering.
Yes.
Oh, and it is, Margaret, it is one element.
Right.
Yes.
All that time passed.
Why wait until five months before the U .S. election to put in place those asylum restrictions that did cut off the flow?
That ended a crisis.
Margaret, remember where we were when the president took office.
We were in the midst of the COVID -19 pandemic.
The prior administration had imposed Title 42.
Which is a public health authority and enabled us to expel individuals to continue to expel individuals at the border as the prior administration had done.
There was tremendous pressure to maintain the workings of Title 42, which we did.
That held until May of 2023.
We then turned to Congress.
Mm -hmm.
Again, that full interview available at the CBS News website.
When it comes to plans for mass deportation by the Trump administration, the incoming administration, do you support or oppose those plans?
If you support them, call us and tell us why at 202 -748 -8000.
If you oppose them, 202 -748 -8001.
For immigrants this morning, if you want to give your perspective, 202 -748 -8002.
Is how you can call that number and let us know in the time that we have.
When it comes to taking a look at enforcement efforts, that was the Department of Homeland Security.
They released a report that you can find online taking a look at their deportation efforts for fiscal year 2024.
And they'll show you as far as the administration, or at least what the Biden administration has done, how that effort has gone 271 ,000 plus.
Sir, uh,
sir, um...
Okay.
And that's why you support the effort?
Yes.
Okay.
Martinez there in Oklahoma.
Martinez, you said we need to control it.
What does that mean to you?
Okay, Martinez there in Oklahoma.
Nicky is next up in New York State on our oppose line.
Hi.
Throughout the world, we celebrate Christmas that people oppose immigration, even illegal.
Jesus Christ was an illegal immigrant, for God's sake.
But the ridiculousness that you pointed out at the beginning of this show, 6 ,000.
Do the math.
Do the arithmetic.
6 ,000.
Let's say there are 12 million illegal immigrants that you want to deport.
6 ,000 ICE agents.
Do the math.
6 ,000 goes into 12 million.
How many times?
I mean, this is just mean -spirited, and you are being promised something that Donald Trump is very good at.
Promising you pie in the sky, the greatest economy, and that he's going to solve...
He is your new messiah.
So I hope you enjoyed this Christmas, because the next one...
Doug there in Chester, Pennsylvania on our support line.
You're next up.
Good morning.
Okay, well then let me stop you there.
And if you would, call in and pick the line, our Pose line.
I invite you to call right back on that line.
Hi.
Yes, I oppose it because Trump does things without thinking ahead or planning ahead.
And then he changes his mind later.
But the main thing is, people do not have labels on their foreheads.
How is he going to be able to tell who's who?
There's a lot of people that have been, that are citizens of this country, that he could just round up and then we'll have to figure it out later.
And he won't care about that.
So I'm opposed to it because of that.
And he got in there with money from Musk and all these other billionaires.
And he just bought his election.
So if anything's fake, that's fake because of that.
Do you think as far as the issue specifically those here illegally and particularly those that prove a threat, do you think the administration has a point on that front?
Yes.
Yes, they do.
I know you talked about the writing on the forehead thing, but how do you know that there's no sense of the ability to identify those who are not here, who are not supposed to be here, and yet prove a threat?
Why do you think that can't happen?
Well, if they're out running around now and they're illegal and doing crimes, which that's a low percentage, by the way, then how come they haven't gotten them already?
So I just think it's going to cause a lot of chaos like it did with the children locking up in cages.
And he's okay with that because that makes him feel powerful.
And, you know, this president or this incoming president...
Okay.
Elaine there in Colorado.
This is Edward in New York, New York City, on our support line.
Hello.
The legal immigration, to the lady caller before who said her family took 10 years to come in, and I'm helping someone right now with a green card application.
So I think the legal aspect is something that he'll tighten up.
But I think more importantly, right now, I go to the monthly police community meetings here in New York and Manhattan, and we're given to understand that there were 58 ,000.
Right now, criminal migrants here in the city, 58 ,000, and that about 75 % of the arrests in New York are of criminal migrants.
So, you know, New York City is a blue city, blue state, and I'm sure this is playing out in blue communities all around the country.
You know, this pattern.
The last thing I'll say quickly is, you know, Biden, people don't, they don't talk about this for some reason, but Biden has enabled the travel business.
The cartels have two businesses.
They have the drug business, about $50 billion, and they have the $25 billion travel business.
And the travel business is very well organized.
So, Edward, if I may ask, you listed off that 58 ,000 number in New York City.
Just taking a look at that number alone, what convinces you the Trump administration has the resources not only to handle the issues there in New York City alone, but the United States overall?
Edward there in New York City giving us his perspective.
You can continue to do the same on the numbers there on your screen.
Some of you deciding to post on Facebook when it comes to Lucy Howard saying, I don't support the mass deportation plan.
The only people... I want removed from communities are violent offenders, including domestic abusers and those guilty of sexual assault.
This is Joe Ellen, Arabido, saying that in support of the plan, we are a republic, a land of laws, and obviously they did not adhere to our laws.
The left always cite fairness in their arguments.
Well, how is it fair to those who follow the rules and entered legally?
And then Loretta Knott.
Hey, good morning.
Excuse me.
Best of the holidays to you.
The reason why I oppose this, I found out some interesting information over the holidays.
Somebody in my huge family did a 23andMe on our very own family.
And so it turns out we're all immigrants.
Forget about even the humanitarian part of this.
Let's just pretend nobody's a real Christian.
In this country, let's just pretend.
And think of like about four examples.
I know that your audience is probably mostly even like older than me.
So you have a cultural memory.
How much money did it take just to get one very rich alleged murderer, probably a murderer, to go from Pennsylvania to New York State?
There must have been about 85...
Federal, local, state people to get that Luigi Mangione or whatever his name is.
Just to go from one state to one state.
You could have put him in a Volkswagen and had one cop, you know, do the whole thing.
But no, that's not the way our country works.
You always have to have about 80 cops to do one job.
Think about Elian Gonzalez, the little Cuban boy, five years old or whatever he was back in the end of the Clinton years.
Federal, local, state, just to get the kid reunited with his father, took a military operation because of all the locals that were up against a reunification to his proper father.
Think of David Koresh, holed up, abusing kids.
The federal government allowed him to kill five of their own agents, and we had a whole...
So if I may, if I take those examples, then it's a manpower and a resource issue.
That's what you're saying?
If you don't like to accept essentially Native American...
I'm sorry, you're fading out on me.
CJ, I'm just saying, what's the point then?
For all those examples, what's the final point as far as your opposition to these efforts?
Well, it's impractical to go and to think that, like Trump says, we're going to have the biggest mass deportation in history.
Did he ever hear about the Mexican Repatriation Act?
Okay.
That's CJ in Virginia.
Let's hear from Ronald in North Carolina on our support line.
You're next up.
Hello.
Yes.
Can you hear me?
You can.
Go ahead.
Okay.
I'm against these immigrants coming in and the reason why they're taking most of the Trump won.
The election is so good.
They've taken all the black people's jobs, all these mills I've been in.
They've taken all their jobs.
And they hired two Mexicans to do their job.
And that's wrong.
And I think that that's what's wrong.
That's how I want Trump warned over that part.
But Biden has shipped flew men and plane loads and bus loads coming in from the border.
And that's illegal.
We need to charge Biden.
Okay, our line for immigrants, this is Charlie in New York.
You're on, go ahead.
Yeah, back in the mid -80s, I left New York to do some construction work in California.
And I had a hard time finding work because a lot of the illegal immigrants, I was living in San Diego at the time, were taking a lot of that work.
So I've always been kind of opposed to immigration, especially illegal immigration.
But, you know, ironically, two years ago, I met a woman who was here illegally and we fell in love.
And so my immigrant story has become more mixed, in my opinion.
As much as I oppose people entering the country illegally, there are times when it's necessary for persecution reasons, for religious freedoms.
And the immigrants I've met in the communities are hardworking, honest people and want no part of getting in trouble with the law because that's going to get them kicked out right away.
So this whole talk about Biden immigrant crime is really a bunch of nonsense.
You could find people committing these crimes that they amplify on Fox with any color of skin and any immigration status in America and paste them all over the news.
So that's my opinion about it.
I think people need to be open -minded about the situation and not just have a black and white opinion on this issue because it comes in lots of shades.
...industry are part of those plans.
That's the headline from a recent story, just to read you a little bit, saying private prisons and other companies that provide detention services are getting ready to cash in on what President -elect Donald Trump has billed as the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.
That includes scouring for as many detention beds as possible with their network of facilities and scouting sites for new buildings to house migrants.
Some executives are considering whether to take up...
Controversial work of detaining families or unaccompanied children.
Others are prepared to hire new staff and snapping up well -connected lobbyists.
Quote, this to us is an unprecedented opportunity.
That's George Zoli, the executive chairman of the GEO Group, a private prison company, telling investors on an earning calls days after the election.
This story adding that pulling off a deportation on the scale that Mr. Trump has promised But constitute an unprecedented logistical feat for the U .S. government involving identifying, locating, arresting, detaining, adjudicating,
and transporting potentially millions of men, women, and children.
It goes on from there, that story in the Wall Street Journal.
Back to our calls.
This is Doug in Chester, Pennsylvania on our oppose line.
Hi.
Hi, thank you again.
I'm glad I got back through.
I think this is a very, very serious issue, and I've been concerned about this whole Trump immigration thing since his first term.
It's only gotten scarier to me as I've listened to people's spirits sour in the aftermath of COVID, and everybody's memory's gotten very short.
You know, during COVID, when then -President Trump and Wilbur Ross ...intervened with Tyson and the other meatpacking plants to ensure that those plants would stay open no matter what as the virus began to intensify.
Many of those people who are our American countrymen were people who are of questionable documentation, who were making sure that food still stayed on our tables.
Similarly in the tech industry, with the H -1B visa, there were people who suddenly found themselves when Trump began monkeying with the visas.
I think that, you know, I agree generally,
but what I'd like to posit here is that Perhaps these people, who we know feed on chaos, are announcing to us that what they intend to do is to allow people to take extrajudicial matters into their own hands,
should this plan not work the way that they anticipate.
It most certainly does sound logistically impossible to try to forcibly eject people from American cities and to try to employ even something like the National Guard, which would involve Many,
many proud Americans who were born here but are, you know, parts of families that are immigrant in nature.
You know, you're not going to have these people go and eject their own families from their own cities.
That's not going to happen.
But maybe what they're trying to say to us, man, is that they're ready to just let the brown shirts come out and do their thing.
That's what we should be concerned about.
These people have not demonstrated in the very last administration.
A modicum of concern for the dignity of human life.
They let a million of us die, and they will do it again.
Okay.
That's Doug there.
Chester, Pennsylvania, on our oppose line.
And continue to call in.
Again, the line's there on your screen.
Don in Sacramento on our support line.
Hello.
Hello, Pedro.
Man, these people sound just like these old back -in -the -cowboy days, how they used to treat them Indians and stuff.
And now they're trying to get them Mexicans the same way.
Same way they did the Jews over there in Europe.
Now they're going to be acting like the brown people are the only people that's doing all the crime here so they can send them out of America mass deportation.
Well, Don, let's clarify something.
Do you support this idea of mass deportation?
Yeah, I support it.
But are they just...
Well, aside from the clarifications you're making, why do you support the effort overall?
The Arabs, the Mexicans, the white folks coming from Europe.
Okay, okay, yeah, we'll leave it there.
Washington Times this morning, this takes a look at what Mexico is planning on doing, at least parts of it.
This is the headline, shelters to open in Mexico to prepare for Trump deportations.
It quotes the Baja California governor saying the Mexican government will open 25 new shelters to house illegal immigrants deported.
From the United States, in preparation for that crackdown, Baja California Governor Marina de Pilar Avila -Omeda said in a meeting Monday that the country is taking Mr. Trump's threat of deportation seriously.
According to Nexstar's border report, five of the shelters will be in the city of Tijuana, the others in the Mexicali, the capital city of Baja.
This story from the Washington Times adding that the migrants will only be able to stay in the shelters that can house up to 500 people for a few days.
Good morning, Pedro, and Merry Christmas to everybody.
I just want to say that I don't think he's going to be able to do it.
Congress isn't going to give him the money to do this.
No way.
Economists estimate it's going to cost over a trillion dollars.
You really want to add a trillion dollars to our national debt?
And I'm afraid this is why he wants to lift the debt ceiling.
Because he knows Congress won't give him the money.
Also, if he lifts the debt ceiling, he's putting it on America's credit card.
You know how credit card debt works.
We'll never get it paid off.
Besides that, we need these people to pick our strawberries and lettuce.
I'm here in California.
I see it every day.
No one's flooding across the border.
Just stop with all that and stop, please, stop being so greedy with your freedom.
That's Mo in California.
It was at a recent Senate hearing.
That the Judiciary Committee's ranking member, Lindsey Graham, talked about the Republican control of the Senate next year in the 119th Congress as part of the judiciary plans when it comes to immigration.
He had some things to say about specifics.
Here's a portion from that hearing.
Most Americans are sympathetic, kind -hearted people who feel like the Biden administration was criminally negligent in protecting us by having a broken border.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
Taken up and passed by Budget Committee.
Increasing the number of bed spaces available to detain people instead of releasing them.
Increasing the number of ICE agents to deal with people who should be deported.
Finish the wall and put technology on the border so we'll have operational control of the border.
That's going to be our top priority.
I want to cut taxes, we will cut taxes.
But as to the Senate...
Transformational Border Security goes first through reconciliation.
Over 8 million people were encountered during the Biden years, 4 million released into the country.
The non -detained docket that we have as a nation is over 7 million people.
There are 600 and something thousand people on that non -detained document that have criminal records.
We're going to start sending people out of the country.
That presented threat to us and should never have been here to begin with.
That's Lindsey Graham from that Senate hearing.
You can find that on our website at c -span .org.
By the way, on our companion network, C -SPAN2, at least for the time being, for 24 hours of hearing previous statements by expected members of the Trump administration, one of those, Tom Holman.
We're good to go.
Yes, my name is Nina Montoya, and my comment about the immigrant mothers,
it's wrong.
Okay.
All right.
Anything else you'd like to add?
Nina, is there anything else you want to add?
And they should not be separated from their mothers, the immigrant mothers.
Okay.
That is heartbreaking.
That is suffering to the children and the mothers.
Calvin is next in Alabama, a supporter of this effort.
Hello.
Hello.
The main thing that I'm against or opposed...
Not opposed, but are far of the mass immigration, because the many people that are legally trying to come into our country and immigrate are being...
cheated upon.
They are all spending money and their time and doing everything that's legally possible for them to do to get into our country and become legal citizens, and to me it's like uh, the ones that are just crossing the border, the millions that we've had that have came into our country, that Biden has allowed to come in, are cheating, They're jumping ahead of the line.
They're not even taking the test.
They're like taking a test and not having the answers provided to them.
And the others who are really studying to pass that test to get their citizenship, are being uh downtrodden.
They're, they're being cheated upon, and I think it's wrong.
We have a young man in our neighborhood that is working for his citizenship and uh, we've done all we can do to help him and uh, many of the people in our community are helping him.
It is not an easy process and a cheap process to achieve this.
I think, if our government is going to do anything, they need to revamp the whole process to where getting in here because of a solid
We're good.
Okay.
Okay.
Got your point, Calvin.
Let's go and hear from Dorothy.
Dorothy in Louisiana on our oppose line.
Hello.
Hello.
Listen, man.
Dorothy, you're on the air.
Go ahead.
Yes.
I was calling from Louisiana, Dorothy, and I think it's wrong people, immigrants, the ones that live, it's not right.
And Joe Biden did all that he could.
Okay, Dorothy there in Louisiana.
One more call and this will be from Thomas.
Thomas is in Georgia on our support line.
Go ahead, Thomas.
Hey, I'm tickled to death.
I finally got in here.
I've been waiting for quite some time.
Look, this illegal immigration is a real problem.
Just talk with our hospitals.
Talk with our schools.
We got teachers who were trying to teach class with a bunch of kids in there that cannot speak English.
Our teachers cannot speak Spanish.
It is a tremendous problem to our school system and if look at our education system today, we are probably number 35 or higher where we used to be number one in the in the Okay.
Thomas Theron, Georgia, finishing off this hour of calls.
For those of you who participated, Thanks for doing so.
If you've joined us during this holiday period, you know that we've been having a bit of a series, our author series that we do year after year about this time of year, inviting people of various political stripes to come in and talk about their books and talk about the issues revolving around those books.
Coming up next, we're going to hear from Jonathan Alter, an opinion editor at Newsweek.
He'll also talk about his book American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial, and my own.
We'll hear those thoughts when Washington Journal continues.
American History TV, Saturdays on C -SPAN 2.
Exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
This weekend at 3 .15 p .m. Eastern, author Stephen Puglio with his book, The Great Abolitionist, discusses the career and life of abolitionist and politician Charles Sumner.
We're good to go.
American History TV looks back at famous inaugural speeches.
This weekend, speeches by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, Harry Truman's 1949 address, and Dwight Eisenhower's 1953 address.
Exploring the American story.
Watch American History TV, Saturdays on C -SPAN 2.
And find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
I think?
Stay with C -SPAN throughout January for comprehensive, live, unfiltered coverage of the 119th Congress and the presidential inauguration.
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Created by cable.
Washington Journal continues.
Washington Journal's Authors Holiday, Authors Week series continues on.
If you've been joining us again, authors of various political stripes joining us for conversations about their books and other topics.
Eight days over the course of a total that we're going to talk about these public policy and political topics.
Today, we invite author Jonathan Alter on.
He is the author of the book American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial.
And my own Jonathan Alter.
Happy holidays to you.
Welcome to the program.
Happy holidays.
So great to be here.
This trial that you highlight in your title remind people about what you were writing about.
So the trial that I covered every day in the courtroom was the hush money trial that took place at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.
And it resulted in the conviction of Donald Trump on 34 counts.
...of business fraud.
And that conviction, as we speak, still stands.
He's a convicted felon.
We're waiting for the judge to determine sentencing.
It's pretty clear that he's unlikely to try to have President -elect Trump serve any of his sentence, given that he was just re -elected president.
But he might freeze the case and return to sentencing in four years.
We're not sure exactly what's going to happen.
But this trial was, I guess you could call it a bittersweet experience for somebody like me, who I think feels very strongly in it.
I think I speak for a lot of people, obviously not everybody, in believing that Donald Trump is a threat to our republic, a threat to our values, and that it was important to try to hold him accountable for the crimes that he committed.
I'm still idealistic, but it turns out that I have more illusions about this country than I thought I did.
I aim instead to show how a tawdry trial about a hush money payments to a porn star became an inspiring if provisional locus of democratic accountability, a place where for the first time since his father died 25 years ago, Donald Trump was forced to sit down,
shut up, and face the consequences of his actions.
Can you elaborate?
Is that part of the trial of your own that the title of your book highlights?
And can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, so I grew up in an intensely political family in Chicago.
My mother was the first woman elected to public office in Cook County.
And I loved everything and continue to love everything about the presidents.
And I have Pez dispenser presidents at home.
I have a collection of presidential spoons.
I revere...
The only one I missed was Ronald Reagan.
I was a little too young when I was at Newsweek to interview him.
And so I've studied the presidency and I...
I assumed wrongly, and these were my illusions, that the American people would not elect a con man as president of the United States.
And so I was, you know, I was wrong.
And people simply didn't care as much about his rather long record.
You know, this was only one trial.
The others are now being thrown out because he was reelected and he won't.
We're good to go.
I think?
I respect people who are for Trump.
I just think that they are, you know, not looking at the totality of his character in in making a judgment, but this experience was in some ways very inspiring in the courtroom because, as you mentioned in in in your, you know, excerpt from my book, um he this was a kind of a partial accountability, no matter what happens eventually to this case.
You know, even if he doesn't serve in jail, even if he doesn't which he's Very much not going to.
Even if he doesn't end up getting probation.
Every day in the courtroom, he had to answer, for really the first time in his adult life, to Judge Juan Merchan, who controlled the courtroom.
And I got a front row seat on this accountability.
The trial wasn't televised, so while it was highly publicized, the Stormy Daniels trial, Nobody really got a good sense of what was going on in that courtroom if they weren't there.
And this is the only book about this case.
It was a fascinating case.
There was overwhelming evidence of guilt on Donald Trump's part.
So I walk the readers through, you know, I kept a very barbed, acerbic... Diary during the trial and I start the book explaining You know what I brought to coverage of this trial,
which was not legal expertise But as I mentioned, a long history of studying and appreciating the American presidency and American politics.
Republicans, 202 -748 -8001.
Democrats, 202 -748 -8000.
Independents, 202 -748 -8002.
If you want to call in and ask questions of our guests, Jonathan Alter, if you want to text him your questions, 202 -748 -8003.
Mr. Alter, you listed those various legal fronts.
Well, actually, I was originally credentialed for Jack Smith's case against Donald Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election,
the first time in the entire history of our country that we haven't had a peaceful transfer of power, or at least...
Trump's lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court on the basis of immunity and we all know what happened in that case.
The Supreme Court ...ruled that a president could not be held accountable for acts while he was in office.
And this delayed that case so long.
It didn't kill the case, but it delayed the case until after the election.
And now Jack Smith has canceled that case.
Because um, you know, Trump has indicated all along that he would not allow the Justice Department to move forward with either that or the Mar -a -lago case, which related to his refusing a request to turn return classified documents that belong to the?
U .s government.
So he's indicted on that.
Those cases are dead.
The Georgia case is probably dead.
So this was uh, the hush money trial I I thought of it as kind of the runt of the litter you know in terms of uh cases but um, it was uh, nonetheless of you know, an important case, the first time in American history that a president of the United States has gone on trial and obviously the first time a president of the United States has become a convicted felon.
Just to give you a quick sense, I know a lot of people out there, Very interested as I am in The history of the American Presidency.
So in 1872, Ulysses Grant was given a speeding ticket for driving too fast on 13th Street in Washington in his carriage.
And in 1953, Harry Truman got a ticket for driving too slow on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Nixon was pardoned.
Bill Clinton lost his law license.
You know, through the disruption of our politics and our values that Donald Trump represents.
So I try to give voice to what that feels like.
Obviously, I'm not giving voice to the way conservative Republicans feel and others who voted for Donald Trump.
But there are still, you know, tens of millions of Americans who I think share my views about Trump.
We'll ask you to highlight some of those as we go across the next 45 minutes, but we do have callers lined up ready to talk to you.
Let's start with Tim in Georgia, independent line.
You're on with Jonathan Alter, again, the author of the book American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial and My Own.
Tim, good morning.
Go ahead.
Good morning, you guys.
I have two questions for you.
Well, really, one.
In the hush money trial, I think the majority, and I'm an independent, so I have, you know, I'm just an open -minded individual,
but the majority of people that I talked to looked at it in two ways.
One, they looked at it as this is a man that committed adultery and was trying to cover it up.
They could not see where the government or any trials should be brought forth on him for that.
And two, the majority of them uh, also saw it as the way of them trying to keep Trump from becoming president again.
So what i'm saying is is that in the most of the public's eyes, independence and We're conservative Republicans and maybe some Democrats that this trial was basically a sham to keep him from becoming president again.
I want to get your opinion on that because that seems to be the going thing with the hush money trial.
A lot of people don't even count that as a conviction.
That's why they voted.
Excellent questions.
So, you know, people say, well, this was selective prosecution.
You know, actually, there are more than 100 cases a year that just the Manhattan prosecutor brings, not to mention other jurisdictions.
On falsification of business records, which is what this case was about.
And um uh, you know prosecutors federal, state and local they have offices of public integrity because they do use more resources to go after politicians to send a message that no one is above the law and that politicians should not break the law.
So some people are going I think this was part of what you were hearing oh, this is just a a bookkeeping thing.
He was just trying to cover up uh, you know, this fling that he had with the porn star.
Um interestingly, the people who are arguing that years ago with Bill Clinton, they believed that when he was lying to cover up an affair, that he should be impeached and removed from office from that.
So they now are on the other side of that issue, those Republicans who believe that about Clinton.
But just setting that aside for a moment, the the problem with that is it's not just a bookkeeping error, and I was made aware of this by a Professor at the Harvard Business School who told me something I hadn't thought of.
He said, you know, the integrity of business records, the fact that you're not allowed to use fraudulent business records, just lie in your business records,
is actually the foundation of our successful economy.
That if you just let people falsify, We're good to go.
To say that these, you can have a legitimate argument about whether these charges should have been bumped up from misdemeanors to a felony, to felonies.
That's something that you can kind of argue about.
But I don't think it's as easy to make an argument that he didn't do anything wrong because he was clearly breaking the law.
And interestingly, just last week, Judge Mershon ruled that the You know, the immunity decision by the Supreme Court, which protects presidents from being prosecuted for their official acts,
things they do while president, that it's true that there was important testimony by a woman named Hope Hicks about some things that Trump said about Stormy Daniels in the White House that you could argue would be protected by that immunity decision.
But what the judge ruled, I believe rightly, is that there was such, quote, overwhelming evidence of guilt.
So many witnesses who pre corroborated and then corroborated Michael Cohen's.
You have to look at it.
Should the former president be above the law?
If evidence is brought to your attention, and the evidence kept coming in right up until the trial started in April.
We're good to go.
No.
The president shouldn't be above the law.
And that's one of the issues that I deal with in this book, is how did we get to a place where so many people, including many independents, believe that some laws, yeah, okay,
if he's trying to overthrow the government, maybe prosecute him on that, but on other laws, Don't.
I agree that the Jack Smith case was more important, much more significant than the Stormy Daniels case.
But, you know, you want to bring the defendant to justice where you can.
Right.
Okay.
Let's hear from Edward in Michigan.
Democrats line, hello.
Yes, the whole idea of this hush money to the two women, to Stormy Daniels and the playmate Karen McDougal, the whole idea was to keep those affairs out of the news so that the voters wouldn't have that information in 2016.
Because Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 to Hillary Clinton.
It was an extremely...
Well, it was a close in the Electoral College.
It was, you know, a nail -biter in the Electoral College.
Trump lost the popular vote.
So the whole effort, the whole money payment, the whole using, what is it, the National Enquirer or whatever, David Packer's thing, the whole idea was to keep this out of the news, to not lose votes.
I assume that Trump had lost more women's votes.
Yeah, if you're interested in any of this, I really do recommend my book because this was extremely important.
We're good to go.
October of 2016.
This whole case is about the 2016 election.
It's been a lot of focus on 2020.
This is about him affecting the outcome of the 2016 race in illegal ways.
And so the Access Hollywood tape comes out, and at that point, if Stormy Daniels and Trump plummets in the polls, and he only...
Because the subject kind of changes to Hillary's emails.
And so people, they don't care that much about Access Hollywood after he says on Melania's advice, as I report in the book, it was just locker room talk.
Well, if Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal had come out just before the election, it wasn't locker room talk.
This wasn't locker room talk.
This is what he did to me.
He would have lost the election.
It's hard to see how he would have survived that.
So Trump was desperate to pay this hush money.
He got Michael Cohen to do it.
And then he covered up that he got Michael Cohen to do it by pretending falsifying records that Michael Cohen was just working for him in other capacities and that this money wasn't going for hush money so a lot of the case was really a paper trail it wasn't even really reliant on Michael Cohen who did lie about a lot of stuff it wasn't even We're good to go.
A critical presidential election, maybe the most consequential in our history, if you look at how Trump is changing the country, turned on this cover -up.
I think?
Let's go to Bruce.
Bruce is in Chicago, Republican Line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I would like to ask the guest what his legal background is.
He's expressed a lot of opinions on Judge Marchand being the next...
You know, the next great Supreme Court justice.
But anyway, I appreciate the American reckoning, and I just wondered if he's planning his next book on reckoning what happens with the person who's in the political office and taking money from our enemies abroad and distributing it through sham corporations and distributing it amongst his family.
And I just wonder if...
You know, if you had an answer for that, and I just wonder if that'll be your next book, if you're going to go and delve into the crime family of the Bidens.
Okay, well, so a couple of things.
First of all, I'm not a lawyer, but there have been many people who've covered many trials for many, many years who are not lawyers.
I had a retired judge.
As far as...
The Biden family goes.
You know, Hunter Biden was prosecuted, and I think it was wrong for President Biden to pardon him.
But the allegations that you just mentioned of this being a crime family, there's never been any evidence of that that has been presented anywhere.
That is all just right -wing ...spin and, in some cases lies, and to just throw these charges around based on you know allegations which, in the case of some, some of the Russians, have been retracted.
These allegations of what Biden supposedly did in Ukraine.
They've been retracted and it just assumed that you know this man who you know.
I was very critical of President Biden for Running for reelection.
I thought that was a historically wrong decision.
And in American Reckoning, I tell the story for the first time about how Nancy Pelosi maneuvered him off the ticket in July of this year.
But, you know, to go from that kind of legitimate criticism to just assuming that the craziest conspiracy theories about Joe Biden are true.
When nobody has ever found any evidence to support them, I think does not contribute to our debate.
All right, if you're joining us, we're in the middle of our author series here on Washington Journal.
Joining us, Jonathan Alter.
He's the author of American Reckoning Inside Trump's Trial and My Own.
Mr. Alter, the New York Post had a recent editorial.
It took a look at the recent decision to remove Fannie Willis from the Georgia case, but it did make this point regarding Judge Bershon.
I want to read this to you, saying, The once -packed mob of legal hitmen gunning for president -elect Donald Trump is down to two notable holdouts.
Man, Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan is refusing to toss out the 34 -count conviction in the bogus, quote, hush money case, while also refusing to sentence Trump so that he can finally appeal.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg wants to keep the case on hold, while Trump serves his second term effectively putting a ticking time bomb over the sitting president's head for four years.
As the last men standing at the witch hunt, Merchan and Bragg ought to wake up, drop the pitchforks, and focus on actually serving the cause of justice.
What do you think of that assessment?
Well, needless to say, I don't agree with it.
It's a right -wing assessment.
They were not in the courtroom.
They did not see that Judge Mershon, while not suggesting as an earlier caller, said that he deserves to be on the Supreme Court.
But he did an excellent job in this case, very judicious, backed up all of his decisions.
And so this is not, you know, a ticking time bomb.
It's actually rather common.
For cases to be frozen.
When a criminal has been prosecuted in various different jurisdictions, sometimes sentencing is postponed in one of those jurisdictions, even for years.
There's no statute of limitation on sentencing.
So I hope that Judge Marchand does go along with Alvin Bragg, postpone the sentencing until after Trump leaves office.
That seems to me to be an appropriate um response to this, but to just throw it out uh because uh, you know, an election went one way.
That's very, very important, and I do think that what I call the big jury, the electorate that their view on this needs to be very much taken into consideration in the way we assess its historic importance.
So basically, the American people have decided and i'm comfortable, I'm not happy about it, but I accept their verdict that Trump's legal problems should not prevent him from being president of the United States.
But they didn't vote for a judge to dismiss a jury's verdict, you know?
The jury deliberated.
They were very, very attentive.
I looked at them every day, in some cases through binoculars, which one of the jurors didn't appreciate me looking at him, checking him out through my binoculars.
I really wanted to see how they were reacting to the testimony.
They rendered...
I think?
Were inspiring.
They helped restore my faith in our system and the way they handle themselves.
And to just say, oh, because of, you know, their verdict should be thrown out because the judge is a hitman and the prosecutor is a hitman.
How about the jury?
Are they hitmen and women?
Or did they listen to the evidence and decide that Donald Trump should become a convicted felon?
I believe it's the latter.
Let's go to David in Michigan.
Democrats line for Jonathan Alter.
Thank you very much for taking my call.
Jonathan, back in late September, early October of this year, the Supreme Court told all 50 states that it was okay for them to purge as many valid votes as they wanted.
144 million Votes for president should have been at least 170 million votes because 30 million teenagers turned 18 years old by 2024.
And last voting 2020, 155 million voters voted.
This time only 144 million voters voted and it should have been about 170 to 175.
That's how Trump won because of the Supreme Court telling all 50 states to purge votes.
I think Vice President Harris should not certify votes on January 6th.
And let's see what happens.
What do you think?
Thank you.
Thanks for the call.
I don't agree with that.
I think she very much should certify this election.
It was a legitimate election.
If people are interested in my views on why Donald Trump won, I wrote a pretty long article on my Substack newsletter, which is called Old Goats, because I'm an old goat.
And I believe in a multi -causal explanation.
I have 10 different reasons why I think Trump won the election.
And actually, the Supreme Court decision is not one of them.
There was a dampened turnout for reasons that had to do way beyond...
The purging of certain voter rolls.
There were two, I think, main reasons why turnout was lower than it was four years ago.
The first is that during COVID, during that COVID election, it was super easy to vote by mail.
And so really, like millions of people, they didn't have to do, including a lot of younger voters, they didn't have to do anything.
And a number of states sent them I don't know.
At least at the margins for Harris.
uh what you uh mentioned i thought were decisive and i think the idea of imitating what trump wanted in in 2020 to have uh you know the vice president not certify the election that is a ruinous idea this is what we really need to avoid in this country is is you know after the electoral college has met which is you know and After it's clear what the election returns are,
even if they're extremely disappointing, we have to accept them and then do what we can after Donald Trump becomes president again to hold him accountable for his acts that hurt the economy.
And they, you know, they started just yesterday on Christmas where his tweet was like, his Truth Social post was, it was unhinged.
He's not saying, you know, Merry Christmas, everybody.
He's attacking his enemies and, you know, doing all kinds of very unpresidential things.
So we're going to be back into this.
It's going to be a very bumpy ride, and I think we need to focus on that rather than looking backwards at this election.
On our Republican line, here's Bill in Connecticut.
Yes, clearly the DOJ, in my opinion, has been weaponized, and it's a Democrat.
Just the fact that the charge was changed from a misdemeanor to a felony shows what a sham this is.
It's for Trump.
This is the type of prosecutions done
That's Bill in Connecticut.
So, in answer to your first question, you talked about weaponizing the Justice Department.
This was the Manhattan DA.
Not the Department of Justice that brought this case.
Now, it's true, they did have one lawyer from DOJ who helped them out.
And I remember as we're waiting for the verdict, Rudy Giuliani's son pointed to this lawyer and talked about how wrong that was, never been done before.
In fact, it's quite common for DOJ to...
You know, help out in a big case.
But this case was brought by the Manhattan DA.
So that's one thing to make clear.
The decision to bump it up to a felony, which Trump did not contest.
He made many motions, but he didn't make a single motion.
His lawyers didn't make a single motion against bumping it up from a misdemeanor to a felony, which is done in many cases involving business fraud.
This was not some, like, unique case.
To bump this up from a misdemeanor to a felony, there's certain aggravating conditions that apply and that have been upheld by higher courts.
And so, you know, a lot of the armchair legal analysts, many of whom didn't spend a day in the courtroom or in the overflow room, or maybe they spent one or two days there,
didn't read the motions, didn't read the judge's decisions on the motions.
They're, frankly, not as informed as I am about the legal complexities of this case, and I believe it will all be upheld on appeal.
As to what Bill Clinton, who was, by the way, impeached, you mentioned John Edwards, he was prosecuted,
so you're making it sound as As if Clinton and Edwards got away scot -free.
And by the way, there's not any evidence on them coding hush money payments as legal expenses.
Their cases differed somewhat from the Trump case.
So each of these cases, they vary a little bit.
This one was a very exciting case.
Quite fascinating, not just because of the legal...
So there are a number of statutes that were applied and it's why So many people agree with the judge, so many people who are in the courtroom agree with the judge that there was overwhelming evidence of guilt in this case.
Patty in New Jersey, in Atlantic City, Independent Line.
Good morning and thank you for taking my call.
I so appreciate being able to ask a journalist this question, which is my theory.
Because I watch a lot of news and you don't really get to talk to the journalists.
And my theory, Mr. Alter, is I feel that the media kind of elected Donald Trump in an effort to be fair with the media,
with the help of the Democrats who did nothing but bash President Biden for the last four years.
We're good to go.
His womanizing.
He got me at the sexual assault.
I don't understand how somebody could be elected, but I feel that the media kind of elected him.
I think of a Walter Cronkite moment where he would take the piece of paper and say what President Trump said and say, no, I'm sorry, this is a lie, and throw it in the trash can.
When you normalize I think we got your point, Patty.
Thank you.
We'll let our guest answer.
Yeah, I think you're on to something.
I'm a little reluctant when we talk about the media as a whole because there were a number of good stories and there were a number of bad stories.
And so going back to the days when I was Newsweek's media critic in the 1980s and 90s, which I write about some in the book, you know, you need to draw distinctions.
But I agree there was a tremendous amount of misinformation.
and normalization and the misinformation resulted from a kind of a new structure to our media which is siloed now and so a lot of people didn't even get basic information because they were just you know following twitter to have their views validated and they weren't getting some of the um reporting that you you mentioned um they in other cases they were getting it We're good.
into what I think historians will call the Trump era.
Take what he did in the last couple of days.
He called up Wayne Gretzky, the Canadian hockey star, and urged him to run for Premier of Canada so that he could have one of his people, like another celebrity, running Canada so that he could run Canada too.
He's referring to Canada as a state, like he called Pierre Trudeau, the governor, he's trying to threaten Panama on the canal,
which was legally turned over to them 25 years ago, and they've done a great job managing it, and they've said that they will always continue to manage it,
not let the Chinese or anybody else take it over, including the Americans.
And so he's returning to issues that have been...
Resolved and just acting in non -normal ways.
And so when the caller talks about normalization, she is really on to something.
And this is what we have to be on guard for in the next four years.
He said that he would suspend the Constitution in certain cases.
He said that during the campaign and used the government to seek retribution.
Quote, unquote, against his enemies.
These are unconstitutional things, and we shouldn't be normalizing them as we move forward.
Mr. Alter, I want to ask you, we don't have time to explore it all, but when it comes to that media criticism and former President Trump, you wrote a recent piece taking a look at the Disney ABC News decision when it comes to that settlement.
Weave that into the conversation as far as how the media, as you see it, treats the former president, particularly in this case.
Well, you know, that case, the ABC News case, involved George Stephanopoulos interviewing Nancy Mace, who had been a victim,
she said, of rape.
And Stephanopoulos said that there was a Finding in this civil case in New York, not the case that I covered, a civil case in New York involving E. Jean Carroll,
who recovered $83 million because a jury believed that Donald Trump had committed sexual abuse against her.
The judge in that case said that you could, even though New York law defined I think?
To get on Trump's right side.
They caved and they settled when they would have, according to almost most accounts, they would have very likely won this case.
And that was another act of what experts on dictatorship call anticipatory obedience, obeying in advance.
This is what strong men all over the world rely on.
Obeying in advance.
So they don't have to throw people in jail or do all kinds of things that we associate with dictators because a lot of people will just bow down to them in advance so they don't get hurt.
Now some of this has been, I think, wrongly portrayed.
Like giving money to his inaugural committee.
That's done with every new president.
That's not a big deal.
But when you fold your cards If you're a news organization, when you don't really have to, you send a signal that people should censor themselves.
Not just be careful, as all journalists should.
You don't want to libel and slander people.
You need to have the facts on your side.
But what it does is sends a message to pull in your horns and not aggressively cover the president.
To the 1790s, to the George Washington administration, we've relied on the press, which is the only industry that is mentioned in our Constitution, to aggressively cover the president.
And we can't, we really should not be doing things like folding our tents in advance.
Hello?
Hello?
Can you hear me?
Yeah, I wanted to ask Mr. Alter what his opinion is regarding why so many people of the electorate voted for an obvious Con artist.
I think of Herman Gehring waiting trial in Nuremberg when he was interviewed by an American journalist, an army captain, and asked, how did the Nazis, such a small group of Nazis,
manage to persuade the German people to eliminate a major minority, the Jewish people, the handicapped and others, and persuade them to take over Europe?
Which obviously was a hopeless cause ultimately, and cost the German people so much in life and reputation.
And the answer that Hermann Goering, who was of course appointed by Hitler to be his head of the Luftwaffe and the second in command of the Third Reich, he answered very briefly, lies.
If you tell the same lie often enough, Time and time again, little by little, people begin to believe it.
And I'm wondering what your opinion is as to how this obvious con artist managed to fool such a major proportion of the electorate, and whether or not technology, changes in technology, for example,
the disappearance of small town newspapers that people used to rely upon, and the replacement of this form of media.
With these social media run by billionaires, essentially, such as the one that Trump has made his buddy -buddy.
Gotcha.
Gotcha point, Robert.
Thank you.
And Mr. Alter, let me narrow the question a bit.
Why do you think people were willing to look past Mr. Trump's legal issues in order to vote for him?
You can answer the caller's question, but I'm interested, in light of your book, why do you think that is?
Well, I think that immigration and inflation just became more important.
For voters than Trump's legal situation.
And I understand that.
I mean, inflation hits everyone.
It's in some ways worse politically for an incumbent.
You know, and I wrote a biography of Jimmy Carter, which the cover is right there.
You know, and it destroyed his presidency, because it hits a hundred percent, whereas unemployment hits fewer people.
So inflation is disastrous politically and and it really hurt Biden and Harris, uh.
And then immigration, you know, um Biden didn't start soon enough on trying to address this problem and uh, he and later Harris paid.
So those were more important for voters.
I get that.
I get that your pocketbook, Or your sense of what the United States should be in terms of immigration, might take precedence over, you know,
even choice or whether the president is a con man.
But I share the caller's puzzlement about this.
And I think historians will be grappling with this for So
I try to put Trump in the context of these strongmen.
And why?
Why do they succeed?
Because demagoguery works.
When you play on people's fears, it works.
Not all the time, but a lot of the time.
And what we had never seen before was a demagogue who told lies and played on people's fears at the very top.
We'd had Joe McCarthy and Huey Long.
You know, one Republican, one Democrat, and other kind of local or state demagogues in our history, but nobody at the level of Trump.
And then the caller also raised a really important point.
So local news, and I made a documentary for HBO about two fine local journalists named Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill.
Local news.
Are the lungs of democracy and have been since the birth of the republic, because if you're not informed, you can't make good decisions at the polling place.
And all over the country local newspapers have closed and some have been replaced by local websites, but not at the same level, and you can actually draw a map of news deserts where they don't have any.
Uh, you know weekly, much less daily local newspaper And Trump country.
And it's almost a perfect fit.
Congruent.
The Trump map on top of the news desert map.
And this is alarming because democracy requires at least a semi -informed electorate.
And I'm not saying that Trump voters were not informed.
In many cases, they were very informed, like a lot of We're good to go.
He says, the guy in the MAGA cap, the Trump supporter, says, you know, how can you oppose Trump?
He's the best.
He's the best for veterans.
And Kelly says, well, you know, General Kelly, no relation, who was his chief of staff, said that he was a fascist and his secretary of defense said he was terrible for veterans and that he would mock our war dead and say they were suckers and losers.
And this is first -hand testimony.
Senator Kelly is telling the guy in the MAGA hat.
And the guy in the MAGA hat says, he's been really on fire, pro -Trump.
He says, I never heard that.
I never knew that General Kelly and General Mattis said this.
I never...
Because he's just in his silo.
He's not watching C -SPAN when Democrats are on.
He's not watching anything except FOX and maybe listening to...
talk radio and whatever.
Whatever his sources of information are, he didn't even hear that Trump had called our war dead suckers and losers, and that's not an allegation, you know.
Do you believe that Trump's longest serving chief of staff just made that up?
You have to be pretty far in the Trump tank to believe that Trump never said that and never disrespected our veterans.
So I just mentioned that to give some sense of how siloed our information has been, and I deal with this in American Reckoning.
One more call.
This is from Jay in Florida, Republican line.
Go ahead.
Yeah, hi, how are you?
I'm kind of glad I'm the last person that called because now I've gotten to hear it.
What you've had to say in between all the callers.
And I want you to know that if you do a little research on this particular author, you'll see that his bias is worn out on his sleeve.
And it is on the show here.
It's extremely disturbing to see that what I guess they call Trump derangement syndrome has been kicked up a notch or two by this author.
Man, you have quoted a lot of things that are not true, but what the worst thing is, is since I've been here listening to this entire program, you have called him a rapist, you have called him a con artist, you have compared him to Hitler.
These are the things that divide America, and if you want to continue to divide America, keep writing books like this, and keep having C -SPAN promote this for the last month since he's been elected.
This is ridiculous, C -SPAN.
Stop the hate.
Call or check the record.
Check the record on what we put on air as far as Mr. Trump is concerned.
But Mr. Alter, go ahead.
Yeah, so a couple of things.
First of all, I'm paid to express my opinions.
I've been a columnist for 40 years.
Okay, so I'm not like a reporter for the Associated Press.
You can call that bias.
I call it opinion backed by reporting and fact.
And you talk about hate.
And you say that it's people like me who are introducing hate?
I write in my book about my too -close relationship with John McCain, Republican, okay?
The idea that people like me are introducing hate when we've had a hate monger in our politics for a decade?
You know, this is not really, I don't think, a fair -minded...
It takes a lot of nerve for Trump.
We're good to go.
I think?
I interviewed him in the 90s.
He threatened to sue me for something true I said about him in a documentary.
So yes, I've thought this man is a danger for a very, very long time.
Jonathan Alter's book is called American Reckoning: Inside Trump's Trial and My Own, part of our Holiday Authors Week.
Mr. Alter, thank you for your time.
Thanks so much for having me.
We will return to the question we started off with this morning when it comes to the president -elect's plans for mass deportation, whether you support or oppose those plans.
If you support those plans and you want to tell us why, 202 -748 -8000.
If you oppose them, 202 -748 -8001.
If you're an immigrant in this country and you want to give your perspective too, 202 -748 -8002 is how you do that.
We will take those calls when Washington Journal continues.
On C -SPAN's Q &A, Don Scott, Virginia's newly elected Democratic Speaker of the House of Delegates and the state's first black speaker in 405 years, talks about his life, including spending almost eight years in prison.
I had never been in trouble before.
I had served my country, and I was hoping that I would get a little more grace and maybe get the judge to have some latitude to go with the law.
And he probably could have gave me even more time than he did.
I remember hearing my mother when he said 10 years, you know, she couldn't believe it.
And that yelp of pain, it always stays with me.
And it's always motivating.
And it always lets me know how fragile our freedom is and how perilous it is.
And if you make one wrong move sometimes, it could be literally the end of your life as you know it.
Virginia's Democratic House Speaker, Don Scott, Sunday night.
This week, C -SPAN digs into its archives to present President -elect Donald Trump's nominees in their own words, discussing policy, politics,
and their relationship with the President -elect.
On Friday, President -elect Trump's nominee for Education Secretary, Linda McMahon.
Democracy.
There's always an unfinished creation.
Democracy is worth dying for.
Democracy belongs to us all.
We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
American democracy is bigger than any one person.
Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
We are still at our core a democracy.
This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
The incoming Trump administration has promised that on day one mass deportation efforts will take place in the United States.
We're asking you in this hour if you support or oppose those efforts.
If you support them, you can call and tell us why at 202 -748 -8000.
If you oppose them, 202 -748 -8001.
We have set aside a line for immigrants in the United States, and if you want to give your perspective and thoughts on this effort by the Trump administration, the incoming Trump administration, 202 -748 -8002 is how you do that.
Text us at 202 -748 -8003.
And as always, you can post on Facebook and on X.
It was recently at that Turning Point action event that took place in Arizona that the president -elect's person to handle border issues, Tom Holman, talked about warnings that he gave so -called sanctuary cities when it comes to efforts of mass deportation.
Here's a portion of what he had to say.
We will not let you prevent us from saving the American communities from illegal alien crime.
It's not going to happen.
We're going.
We're coming.
So even though I say we're going to prioritize criminal threats and national security threats out of the gate, that's a fact.
However, when sanctuary cities won't let us into the jail to arrest a bad guy in the safety and security of that county jail, Which means they're going to release that criminal back into the immigrant community, which puts the immigrant community at risk of crime.
It puts our officers at great risk.
Rather than arresting a guy in a safety and security of a county jail where you don't have weapons, now we've got to go to the community, find him, we ask access to who knows what weapons.
You're putting the community at risk, you're putting officers at risk, you're putting the alien at risk.
And I'm going to give you exactly what you don't want.
You don't want us in jail?
Alright, so I'll send a whole bunch of agents into your community, and we'll find the bad guy.
And when we find the bad guy, he's probably going to be with others, others that aren't a priority apprehension, but guess what?
They're getting arrested too.
So you're going to get exactly what you don't want, more arrests in your communities.
I don't want to do that.
I'd much rather be safe with the agents arresting the guy in the county jail, but they don't let us in?
Fine.
On the front page of the New York Times, a story taking a look at local officials and the role they may play in any mass deportation effort by the Trump administration.
They highlight the San Diego region.
Like many communities that hug the southern border, saw a sharp drop in migrants entering the U .S. after the Biden administration made it harder to apply for asylum.
But thousands of newcomers who had crossed the border haven't been forgotten.
And even as many of them made their way to other corners of the country, some remain in and around San Diego.
Now, with President -elect Donald Trump pledging to carry out mass deportations, leaders in San Diego have been weighing how far to go in trying to protect people vulnerable to deportation.
Good morning.
Yes, I 1 ,000 support the... Deportations, they broke the law.
Breaking the law has consequences.
Why would we reward them with taxpayer benefits for breaking the law and put our national security at risk?
This is common sense.
If they break the law, there's consequences.
That's true in my life.
That's true in all of our lives.
The safety of the American people comes first.
This is a no -brainer.
And we need to start spending our tax dollars more wisely.
It is ridiculous that this is even a debate.
It should never be a debate as to the fact that there are consequences for breaking the law.
So kudos to President Trump.
Kudos to his administration for tackling this head -on.
It is now time that the media reports the murders and the rapes and all of the destruction that this has caused to our great country.
So I am 1 ,000 in support of this.
That's Mike in Florida in a follow -up interview with the New York Post.
The headline that you can read online elsewhere is about $86 billion that Mr. Holman says that he would need to start the efforts of mass deportation, should that be approved by Congress.
Let's go to Herman in Dallas, Texas, on our oppose line.
Hello.
Yeah, how you doing, Pedro?
I want to start off with the maxim.
Those whom the gods would destroy, the old Greek maxim, those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
And that's what I think of this, you know, idea of mass deportation.
And I look around here in Dallas and I don't see, you know, the people, these Mexican -Americans running or being, you know, nervous about this or anything.
They're just going about their business.
And I think it's because they know that they're so integrated into our society that what Trump is proposing is impossible.
It's practically impossible.
And that if he tries it, I think he's smart enough to know that if he tries it, he'll probably be out of office in six months.
So what he's probably going to do is, being as smart and wily as he is, is he's going to deport some people.
And make a big splash about it.
And the supporters will swallow anything.
They will, you know, they'll go to bed saying, yeah, he did it.
Yeah, he did it.
He did it.
He mass deported all of these millions and millions of people.
Well, isn't he great?
And so, because he can, you know, convince people of anything.
And that's been demonstrated.
Okay.
Jeff in Missouri, on our oppose line, you're next up.
Hello.
Yeah, I oppose.
This is just another Trump stunt.
If he was serious about immigration, he would have kept what Obama had in place, which he basically crashed that, which is probably the reason why we had a lot of the issues with migration.
So it's just another, you know, smoke and mirror that Trump does, you know, playing to his base and the people that are.
You know, off in these bubbles that they don't hear the normal news.
I mean, they would have heard the record amount of people that Obama deported, and they would have been asking, okay, well, why didn't Trump keep that in place?
Instead, they just follow along with whatever he says.
So it's just smoke and mirrors and other lies and his being a bully, which is, you know, what bullies do.
They, you know, harass people and, you know.
On our support line, Tina calls us from Canada.
Your New Yorker government gave them bus tickets, airline tickets, to fly them into our country.
Now, this has got to stop.
Before you guys shoot your mouth off that we didn't protect our northern border, you guys should have been protecting it.
Because on Fox News a year and a half ago, they mentioned that.
So do you think your prime minister has done a good job in protecting the northern border himself?
Why should we have your immigrants...
Sure.
Your country has a border policy in itself, and recently the Prime Minister has pledged more money to strengthen the northern border.
What do you think of that?
Well, let's put it this way.
Let's put it this way.
We have an idiot running our country.
Okay?
Him and Joe Biden should be together in the loony bin, as far as I'm concerned.
Okay, let's go to Jim.
Jim in New York on our support line.
Go ahead.
Yeah, hi.
Let me just first say that, you know, I get a lot of my news from the newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, so you're not talking to some local yokel.
I support it because there's a lot of things people aren't talking about.
People don't read.
Read the graves of arrests and find out who used to do the farm work, okay?
Stop saying that we don't do these jobs.
We don't do these jobs because they don't pay, okay?
So we got slavery here.
So what I got here is...
I call all the time.
I got the houses...
Let's start with the basics.
Do you support this mass deportation effort?
Of course.
Why is that?
I'm steeped in it here.
I'm going nuts living here.
I don't have enough money to move out of here even though I'm a retired lab instructor from the Urchin Marine Academy.
At Kings Point.
The quality of life here is terrible.
You've got as many as nine adults in the house plus kids.
And these are single -family houses.
And they're not paying the taxes on that because of the Fourth or Sixth Amendment.
They can't go in the houses and check to see how many apartments are in them.
They slice up these houses into small sections and they're overcrowded.
And let me bring up another point here.
Prior to the 1913...
Well, Carla, let's stick with the topic at hand.
Why do you think that the president -elect will be successful in this effort?
I don't know if he's going to be successful.
I don't know.
This place alone, Central Island and Brentwood.
Look, I belong to the civic community, and I go to the town hall meetings, and I bring this up all the time.
I've got cars on the sidewalks.
Okay, that's Jim in New York.
The Washington Post this morning takes a look at mass deportation, but also takes a look at the topic of family detentions in a story that you can find online.
This is by Nick Murnoff,
saying that Soon after they crossed into the border into the United States, he said Mr. Trump's new enforcement campaign will seek to deport families together, but he acknowledged that the government cannot remove children who are U .S.
Citizens, leaving it to parents to decide whether they would split up the Family.
More there at the Washington Post, and when you mentioned Governor Noem, she's one of those profiles on C -SPAN too that you can watch today.
A 24 -hour effort taking a look at these nominees by the Trump administration, the president -elect, and those he would like to see in various positions within his cabinet, including Kristi Noem.
An all -day marathon taking a look at their own words and things they've said about various topics over the years that our C -SPAN archives have taken in.
No, I already spoke.
You're on, Ed.
Go ahead, please.
Okay, let's hear from Loretta.
Loretta's in Connecticut on our support line.
Hi.
Hello.
Loretta, you're going to have to stop listening to the television and just go ahead, please.
Okay.
My question is these people from all over the world want to come here because we have the best country in the world.
We have freedom.
We have democracy.
And I want...
Okay.
Loretta there in Connecticut, some of you on our Facebook page.
This is Janet saying, I'm not a Trump supporter.
Janet Willis.
I'm not a Trump supporter, but my opinion is we need better border controls and illegals should be deported on a case -by -case basis.
We should not give them a handoff for coming here illegally.
Andrea Prowell, also on Facebook, saying that she opposes the effort, adding it's expensive and will go against our right to privacy as citizens.
They will have to ask every person for identification to identify undocumented.
I want my privacy from being searched, and this goes against my constitutional rights.
Hello?
Yes.
What people fail to understand is this.
Immigration is hurting our school system.
When you have a school system with...
It affects our school system where our kids can't learn because the teacher is spending more time trying to understand.
Okay Wilbert, before we go too far, you calling on our line for immigrants, what's your story as far as your immigration story?
Caller, caller, let me clarify, are you an immigrant yourself?
Okay, you're calling in on the wrong line and I apologize for that, but I'm going to let you go.
I'm going to give you a chance to call in on one of the lines that best represents you.
Again, they're on the screen.
If you support these efforts by the administration, it's 202 -748 -8000.
If you oppose them, 202 -748 -8001.
And for those immigrants, 202 -748 -8002 is how you can call and give us your thoughts on these efforts on mass deportation by the incoming Trump administration.
Let's hear from Sandy.
Sandy's in Ohio on our support line.
Go ahead.
Sandy in Ohio.
Hello.
Hi.
Yes, I'm sorry.
You're on.
Go ahead, please.
Yes, I support the deportation plan.
When Biden was running for election, he said I would surge the border.
His job as president was to protect.
The main job is to protect the American people and he has let this border come.
Everybody from everywhere come in and they're committing crimes.
They're throwing away their IDs before they come in the country so they can't be easily removed and and that's against the law they're breaking the law when they first come in.
And um, a lot of these gangs are coming in and they're taking over different states, different cities in different states.
A lot.
Well, it gives them a chance to express their perspectives on the issue, just like we've had a chance to hear from you.
Let's hear from Liz in New Jersey, on our oppose line.
Hello.
Good morning.
I'm on the opposed line because what's being offered here is just concepts of a plan of deportation.
The President has no idea how he could rid the country of 12 or 15 million illegals.
I mean, let's get a grip here.
That is not going to be possible.
And I think we do need A new immigration bill to pass the Congress and sign into the law of our land.
But it has to be given with some degree of forethought as to who we need to immigrate and focus on those groups coming in.
But we're not getting any sensible plan.
We're just getting Trump stirring his bucket.
Of hatred against immigrants and yet he married two immigrants.
His mother was an immigrant, so this is there's absolutely no logic here.
So I think we could get a bill through Congress, but he stopped the last bill that was heading through congress.
So he doesn't want to correct the problem, he wants to have the issue and keep stirring that bucket of hate.
We're going to have four years of that ahead Okay,
Okay, Liz, there in New Jersey, the Wall Street Journal this morning has a profile of so -called dreamers in the United States.
They offer a picture of a gentleman named Oscar Silva, a graduate student who came to the U .S. from Mexico as a child, and his American wife, Natalie Taylor, who is a teacher.
This story highlights the fact that Silva is one of more than 400 ,000 students in American colleges without permanent legal status whose futures hang in limbo as they await...
And the Wall Street Journal is where you can read more.
Yeah, just on your comments, sir, you've referred to our president as Mr. Trump.
I would like and ask that you respect his office and his position and call him what he is, President -elect or President Trump.
I fully back his deportation because Nobody is above the law, except Biden's son, who gets a pardon.
So, yeah, kick him out.
Okay.
Rosemary, Virginia, on our POS line.
Hello.
Yes, thanks for taking my call.
I'm opposed to all of this mess that's going to take place.
I don't think it's going to happen.
It's just another boogeyman that he used to get elected.
But I want everybody out there to think about your food prices.
When and if this does happen, are you going to get out there and do the work that these immigrants were coming in here to do?
All they wanted to do was to work.
So I can tell you, put on your shoes, because you're about to get out there.
Thanks for taking my call.
We have really three groups of immigrants who are in the state of Illinois today, right?
We've got documented immigrants, people who are here legally, and they have documents that allow them to work or allow them to be here.
They've been put in a position of fear by what the Trump administration has threatened.
They have relatives who are undocumented.
And these are often, the documented folks, are often hardworking people following the law.
In fact, almost all.
And so I'm going to protect them.
We have migrants who've come to the state since August of 2022, sent here, as you know, by the governor of Texas.
Those folks are also legal.
To be in the United States.
They are awaiting asylum hearings.
And it's my obligation to protect them as well.
Anybody that's here in this country, that's here and has documentation, is here legally, of course I'm obligated to protect them just as I would anybody else, any citizen of the United States.
Law enforcement, the government, etc.
The third group are people who are undocumented.
And let me be clear up front.
Violent criminals who are undocumented and convicted of violent crime should be deported.
I do not want them in my state.
I do not think they should be in the United States.
But there are an awful lot of people who have lived here, and I think we run into them every day, who have lived here for a decade or two decades or more, who are undocumented still for a variety of reasons.
By the way, often they've tried very hard.
Speaking of Governor Pritzker, he came up in a recent opinion piece by Ken Cuccinelli.
He served as the acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the previous Trump administration.
Mr. Cucinelli writing that Governor J .B. Pritzker threatened Mr. Trump's efforts, saying, if you come from my people, you come through me.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero promised to protect illegal immigrants from Mr. Trump's deportation efforts.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnson fantasized about a, quote, Tiananmen Square moment with local police and citizens fighting off federal enforcement officials seeking to remove non -citizen lawbreakers from his city.
Going as far as saying he's willing to go to jail.
As incoming borders are, Tom Homan bluntly stated in response to Johnson, if he's willing to go to jail, I'm willing to put him in jail.
Specifically, if Pritzker wants to make federal officials go through him to enforce the law, then along the way, those federal officers can arrest him for violating Section 1324 of Title VIII of the United States Code.
Under this provision of the U .S. Code, individuals facing federal prison time for knowingly concealing, harboring, shielding, or attempting to conceal illegal aliens.
Hello, Pedro.
I'd like to talk to the American people.
This is a lawmaker's problem they put on the American people because they're not doing their job.
Yes, I do support sending the illegal criminals back.
There's no way you can send everybody back the money that has been spent on people coming in and all the other stuff.
Trying to get them back across is going to cost billions and billions, which should have been spent on American veterans and the homeless.
So it's time to start getting the lawmakers out of office and get the American people Take control of the government that works for them and not their selves.
Thank you, Pedro.
From Steve on our oppose line, this is in Ohio.
Hi there.
Good morning.
Good morning.
My thing is this.
I think that if you want to deport the illegals or whoever, I think everybody needs to be looked at.
Everybody in the United States needs to prove that they're an American citizen, no matter who you are.
And that's where we need to start.
And once you do that, I think everybody in the United States will see how this actually will work.
What's the philosophy of casting such a wide net that way?
Because that's the only way we can tell.
You can't look at somebody and tell they're an illegal alien.
I mean, hey, I'm a person of color.
You're a person of color.
You should have to prove who you are.
I have to prove who I am.
I've been here my whole life, so I don't have a problem with it.
Nobody should have a problem with it.
We're a country of immigrants, I believe.
So that's my reasoning.
Okay, let's hear from William on our support line in Atlanta.
Hello.
Hey, I support it because the Hispanic population supports it.
They supported Donald Trump's policies.
They voted him into office.
So, I guess that's what they want.
And I'm sure they know who are the criminals that are around them.
And I guess they want to, you know, to tell on them.
And I guess they may be...
Kind of in fear of them, because I had to try to look at it in their eyes.
I'm like, all right, if they're here, some of them are forced to smuggle drugs.
Maybe they don't want their family to be harmed back in Mexico or wherever they're from.
So I'm just going to support them because they supported the president, and that's what they want.
They want mass deportation.
Give it to them.
If they don't...
Expect deportations to be limited to countries that are generally already willing to take in U .S. removal flights, like Mexico, Guatemala, Peru.
People with prior contact with the criminal justice system are politically appealing targets, but if they haven't already been deported, it may be because their cases are complicated and will need to be worked out in court.
And that was in the New York Times last month, taking a look at these policies.
Let's go to Chase on our oppose line in Georgia.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
One of my main questions was, if he wants to deport everyone who's here illegally, how do they identify who's here illegally?
Because in the state of Georgia, we don't have a stop and identify law.
The police officer has to suspect you've committed a crime before they can stop you and ask for identification.
And so are they just going to stop everyone on the sidewalk?
Because this has been litigated in the 10th Circuit and the Supreme Court, who said no.
Stop and identify laws are not legal in the state of Georgia.
So I don't really understand how they plan on finding out who's here illegally and who here isn't.
And I haven't seen anything addressed on that.
I didn't know if you had more information.
There's the Associated Press a little bit before on this, but it kind of runs through some of the ways that this policy works, deportation policy, under the section of how immigration removals work in the field.
It highlights a recent operation.
About a dozen officers gathered before 5 a .m. at a White Castle parking lot in the Bronx after putting on their body armor, checking their equipment.
They circled around for a briefing.
Besides the 23 -year -old Ecuadorian man they were going for, they were going after a 36 -year -old Mexican man convicted of forcibly touching a young girl and another Ecuadorian of convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.
The first target, the 23 -year -old man who pleaded guilty to raping a 14 -year -old girl, was believed to be usually leaving the apartment building.
Around 7 or 7 .30, sometimes he was with a woman and child.
Light came on on the first floor of the apartment, an officer waiting outside over the radio, and later someone came out of the basement.
It's not our target.
They finally spotted him, swept him into the back of a vehicle, and quickly left the neighborhood.
Under the section of working with local law enforcement on these issues, this is what the Associated Press writes, saying some cities and states work with ICE to turn over people in the custody who aren't U .S. citizens.
But adding that many left -leaning states and cities have so -called sanctuaries policies that limit that cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
In New York City, for example, ICE used to have that office at the jail to take custody of non -citizens.
It was in 2014 that Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation kicking out ICE.
His successor, Eric Adams, has shown willingness to receive some of these policies.
APnews .com is where more is there about mass deportations and some of the ways, the technical ways.
I'm on.
You're on, go ahead.
Mass deportation, because I mean we're getting a lot of immigrants that are coming over here and then they especially if they're like teachers or somebody coming from a different country with their visa card and next thing, you know, the women end up pregnant and then they're automatic United States citizens and that gives them a visa, green card to.
We're good to go.
Let's hear from Bob.
Bob in Maryland, our line for immigrants, hello.
An Asian country 52 years ago.
And, you know, I'm no big fan of Donald Trump, but I do have to agree with his deportation policy.
And although we cannot, you know, deport all, I don't know, 12 to 20 million all at once, it can be done over time if we do it slowly.
Little by little, starting with the criminals, of course.
I mean, but my question to all those who support immigrants of any type, I mean, when does it stop?
I mean, when are we going to, you know, when are we going to prevent illegal immigrants and secure our border?
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Bob, thank you, thank you.
Let's hear from Tara in New Jersey, a POSE line.
I think, first of all, Trump as a messenger is problematic.
He has his own history of hiring undocumented workers, both while in New York and in New Jersey, and it is documented.
And then also with the busing of immigrants, governors Abbott and DeSantis, with these Republican states deriving with a threat of rising crime,
Of course, they omit their responsibility in their actions when they bust migrants on false pretenses from their state to New York to other, to other states or cities like Chicago, and then want to say hey, your crime is out of control, without of course, stating that they helped the situation.
They inflated the situation by busting migrants under false pretenses.
Okay Also, this proposition of taking our jobs.
First of all, I'm a black woman, okay?
And so when folks say taking jobs, I'm like, what kind of job are you saying they're taking?
Because migrants or undocumented workers, first of all, they don't hire themselves, okay?
Someone hired them, all right?
So are we going to go after the employers as well?
And we saw how that worked out in the first administration of this man.
Gotcha.
That's Tara there in New Jersey.
She mentioned Governor Abbott of Texas recently.
The governor himself unveiled a new campaign designed to stop illegal immigration into Texas.
Here are some of his comments.
We're here to expose the truth.
The truth to immigrants who are thinking about coming here.
The truth about the traffickers who assault so many of the women and children along the way.
We are launching a new campaign to deter illegal immigration into Texas.
Yesterday we began putting up billboards, dozens of billboards.
In Central America and in Mexico, they inform potential illegal immigrants about the reality of what will happen to them if they try to enter Texas illegally.
These billboards, some of which you can see behind me, they tell the horror stories of human trafficking.
One says many girls who try to migrate to Texas are kidnapped.
Another sign says your wife and daughter Don is on our support line.
He's in Idaho.
Go ahead, please.
Support, oppose, and immigrants.
Immigrants is the wrong category.
Try illegal aliens.
Nobody has a problem with legal immigration.
It is illegal aliens that are coming here from every country.
Tens of thousands of Chinese.
Tens of thousands of Russians.
It is out of control.
They all need to be rounded up and Down in Idaho there,
271 ,484 non -citizens removed, 192 countries.
In fiscal year 24, that's done by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, according to a new report from them.
88 ,000 plus had charges of convictions for criminal activity.
3 ,700 plus known for suspected gang members.
237 known suspected terrorists.
And then eight human rights violators, too.
Again, they put this out there.
You can find the information at the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement website.
This mass deportation effort.
Hi.
I definitely oppose it.
Yes, we need to work on our immigration.
And our laws, whatnot, the border.
Talking about the drugs, most of the drugs come through in vehicles.
It's not people carrying them in backpacks.
And the crime that happens, I mean, you know, we have criminals right here, regular old citizens committing crimes.
The immigrants and people that cross the borders.
Yeah, they might have a crime, but they do a whole lot less criminal acts than regular citizens.
And when they do something, it gets blown out of performance, exaggerated.
And you'll see it over and over and over again in an ad.
I think it's just sad that they've been...
Exploited so bad that they come here because they're starving or they want to not be raped or they don't want their kids forced into gangs from wherever they came from and whatnot.
But we just have to have better laws.
Let's hear from another Michigander.
This is Tim on our line for immigrants.
Hello.
Good morning, yeah.
I'm an immigrant.
I was born here, though, since everybody's talking about immigrants and all that stuff, you know.
The problem is that I have...
Wait, clarify this.
How are you an immigrant yet you were born here?
Well, that's what everybody's saying, is that immigration is important.
Caller, let's clarify.
Are you an immigrant or not?
Are you an immigrant or not to the United States?
Yes, I am.
How so?
What country from?
What country from?
I'm from the United States.
Okay, let's go to Lenita.
Lenita in Alabama on our support line.
Hello, you're next up.
Thank you for taking my call.
First of all, the lady, I think, from Michigan, she needs to get her head out of the sand.
This is only going to affect you if it's your child that has been raped.
And mutilated and chopped up and all that.
Until it rakes around your own doorstep, you're going to support them staying here.
Let me tell you a quick story.
I live in Fort Payne, Alabama.
It was the sock capital of the world, okay?
Our jobs left here and went to Mexico, Honduras, and all these other places.
So, why are they not staying where they come from and do our job that was sent to them instead of coming over here and taking from us?
They get everything free.
The senior citizens are suffering and I am appalled.
And I encourage everybody to call their state representatives and complain about our benefits being taken from us and give to them.
It's time it stops.
And yes, I support Donald Trump.
Okay, Lenita there in Alabama, one of the people having concerns about the incoming administration's plans for deportation was California Senator, Democratic Senator Alex Padilla.
In a recent Senate hearing taking a look at mass immigration policies, he spoke about what could happen with the Trump administration on this effort.
Here's a portion from that hearing earlier this month.
We're good to go.
I think?
We've seen Donald Trump in the past and how he operates.
Do you remember the Muslim bans he imposed early in his first term?
And the family separations at the border that we witnessed for years?
So I've seen enough to know that while he may plan to prioritize, in effect, he will be targeting all undocumented immigrants,
which will inevitably include those without criminal convictions of any type.
Now, previous administrations of both parties, you saw some stats being presented.
It's been the policy of previous administrations to prioritize the deportation of those with criminal convictions.
But what we're hearing from incoming President Trump isn't that.
And look at who he is putting in these pivotal roles to help him execute.
A loyalist in Christine Ohm at DHS.
Extremist Stephen Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.
And Tom Homan, as border czar, who told undocumented immigrants through the press, quote, you should be afraid, end quote.
Dreamers, farm workers, that's the message.
And he promised worksite raids to prosecute anyone who stands in their way.
That Senate hearing was earlier this month.
You can find it if you go to our website at c -span .org and search in Senate and immigration and other things when it comes to immigration policy.
Just to show you this headline from the Baltimore Sun just coming across, not yesterday, yesterday early, late morning, saying it's the American construction industry on its edge as President -elect Trump's promise of mass deportation looms,
potentially impacting builder costs.
And labor availability.
Just to show you that headline, read more in the Baltimore Sun if you want to see more specifics there.
Let's hear from Patrick on our opposed line.
He's in Illinois.
Hello.
Yeah, how you doing?
I just want to say that you broke our law.
You must go back, alright?
I mean, nobody follows a bad law.
Prohibition.
The national 55 mile an hour speed limit law.
You think anyone just went 55?
A line for immigrants from Brooklyn.
This is Omar.
Hello.
You know, before we can address any of these crazy mass deportation plans, we need to fix the legal immigration system, and I think that the only people that actually understand the legal immigration system and how it works you know when people say oh, stand in line or do it.
You know, wait your turn or whatever.
How so?
What visa are you currently under?
And what country are you from?
And where's the status of your, I mean, you talked about the various visas you work on.
What's the current status that you're, as far as, I assume, are you trying to become an American citizen?
Or maybe I'm assuming too much, but tell us your story.
No, I'm saying people can stay here for 15 years and not even obtain a green card.
It's extremely difficult.
And particularly for people from India or China, because they can only allot,
Okay, let's hear from Miriam in Texas on our oppose line.
Hi there.
When people come over here and they work, they work the jobs that a lot of people don't want to work.
I'm going to use the analogy of like a household when a person, a household member has like a maid working in their house.
The reason a person wants a maid in their house is because the head of household wants to prioritize a job that is going to be paying well.
So she's focused on getting money for the household like with a good job.
While the maid gets paid and in return she goes to her house and she supports her family and in return she probably ends up sending her kids to school and the cycle of production continues.
So that's what happens when people come over here to our country.
It's just a cycle of production.
And a lot of people, I think, that because they don't like Mexicans or they're racist, they use that as an excuse.
Okay.
This is Tuck in Kansas on our support line.
Hi.
Actually, I retired at age 60.
But when we stand up and swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, military members should know that they give up most of those rights.
We give up rights to habeas corpus, search and seizure, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and most importantly, our criminal laws given over to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
We form a separate society from the American civilian populace, those citizens that we swear to protect.
It seems to me that people that have not yet sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States shouldn't have those constitutional rights quite yet.
They can work towards those, but they should have a separate society, much as the military has.
One more call.
This will be from Carmen in New York, our line for immigrants.
From Cuba to Miami, and from Miami to Washington, D .C., and to Maryland.
My mother's cousin was our sponsor.
And she wrote a letter to Cuba, to the family, saying everybody who wants to come to the United States can apply to come here.
And we filled out our papers.
And then seven years we waited in Cuba, from 1964 to 1971.
To come to the United States.
And when we got here, as soon as we got here, we started going to school.
And what I say is that when you say that is also the legal aliens, don't pay, you know, don't pay taxes.
They pay taxes and and they spend not only the, you know the money that it costs the government to bring us over it.
Also we go to school for free, and so It does cost money until those children are grown up.
But without family, we have health.
And within five years, my sister and I have gotten married.
I was 21.
My sister was 19 when we came.
We got married.
We became citizens.
And we have been productive.
My sister is a nurse.
I am a nurse.
I'm 74 now.
Not a nurse anymore.
Retired.
But we became citizens of this country.
And we...
Okay.
Okay.
Carmen, I apologize.
I apologize.
I have to stop you there.
Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Thank you to all who participated in this hour.
A couple things to leave you with.
Again, we've been telling you about the various nominees that the president -elect has chosen to be part of his cabinet.
Should they...
All day long.
You can follow along on C -SPAN now.
C -SPAN .org if you want to go that route.
Also this week, C -SPAN's airing a series of interviews with departing members of Congress and showing lawmakers, and showing how lawmakers are giving their farewell speeches on the House and Senate floors.
Tonight, you're going to hear from Senators Debbie Stabenow, Bob Casey, and Mike Braun, as well as Representatives Derek Kilmer and Cori Bush.
That will be on C -SPAN at 9 o 'clock tonight.
Again, you can follow along on the app and the .org as well.
That's it for our program today.
Another edition of Washington Journal comes your way tomorrow at 7 a .m.
We'll see you then.
The genome is basically the entire DNA instruction book of an organism.
All living organisms have a genome, including us.
Ours is this three billion letter script.
A, C, G, and T in just the right order.
That's a lot of information to be sure if you tried to print out that information which you have inside each of your cells and stacked it up on pages to try to see how tall it would be is about the height of the Washington Monument.
That's a lot.
But when I was first Getting interested in genetics, there was no reference copy of the human genome.
We had little bits and pieces of it scattered around islands in the midst of a sea of ignorance.
And it became more and more clear by the late 1980s that if we were going to really make any progress understanding human genetics, we needed to have that reference copy of all three billion letters and it needed to be done right so you could trust it.
And that was the proposal.
We're good to go.
I think?
We're good to go.
Republicans, Democrats, and independents from both chambers.
I think?
They'll discuss their careers, key legislative achievements, the state of Congress and American politics, and their farewell speeches.
Tonight, Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow and Pennsylvania Democratic Senator Bob Casey.
Friday, Delaware Democratic Senator Tom Carper and California Democratic Congresswoman Grace Napolitano.
We're good to go.
Witness democracy in action with C -SPAN.
Experience history as it unfolds with C -SPAN's live coverage this January as Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress and a new chapter begins with the swearing -in of the 47th President of the United States.
On Friday, January 3rd, don't miss the opening day of the 119th Congress.
Watch the election of the House Speaker, the swearing -in of new members of Congress and the Senate, and the first day of leadership for South Dakota's John Thune as the new Senate Majority Leader.
On Monday, January 6th, live from the House Chamber, Witness Vice President Kamala Harris preside over the certification of the Electoral College vote, where this historic session will officially confirm