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Dec. 5, 2022 - Doug Collins Podcast
42:52
Crossfire podcast with democrat David Carlucci
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
This house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the Doug Collins Podcast.
Good show today for you.
Got a good friend coming back on, one in which we disagree on things.
We're often found on Fox News being pitted against each other.
It's pretty funny.
But considering we do agree on a lot of things, but we do disagree on it from a political perspective, David Carlucci is back with me, a former Democratic state senator from New York.
And we're going to have just some conversations on what's going on, the recent elections, just some From right-left takes, if you would, and see where we can find some agreements to go.
But Dave, it's good to have you back.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
It's always great to be with you.
Well, it's fun.
I mean, you and I, it's sort of funny because you and I always, especially with Harris and some other, Harris in particular, Faulkner and Faulkner folks, you and I get put on opposite sides of different things.
And I'll be honest, here recently, especially with some of the topics, I've got what was on my side than your side on a couple of those.
Well, it's been fun.
I think, yeah, they've had us on a bunch.
And last time they said, hey, thanks for the spirited debate.
And it's like, okay, you know, it's just almost like a conversation that we were having.
But, you know, I think that's important, right?
And that's why it's an honor for me to be on your show.
I've been able to listen to your show and...
Disagree with you on most things, right?
But that's good.
You know, I want to learn more and, you know, where you're coming from on these issues.
And you're open to hearing about my experience.
And I think that's what we need to do, right?
We need to debate.
Oh, it does.
Well, it was just an interesting time down here.
And I know, David, everybody sort of mentions, you know, being in Congress is a different world, okay?
And it truly is.
Everything over the past number of years has become truly what we all, the old shirts and skins, you know, you're containing my team.
And D.C., the good part about that is you sort of know who you're with.
The bad part about it is you sort of know who you're with.
And if you reach over, it's different.
On the State House and State Senate levels, That's a little bit different of an issue.
And that was brought out to me again yesterday.
My dear friend, brother, I mean, we just did a lot of things.
It was together politically.
We went to battles, so to speak, political battles together.
Was the Speaker of the House down here in Georgia, David Ralston.
And David passed away about a week ago.
We had his funeral yesterday.
And what was really good to see was that there was a lot of things been going over in Georgia over the state legislature, apart from all the headlines, but just good stuff back and forth, differences.
But at the funeral yesterday, you had probably about as much of a mix of Democrat colleagues and Republican colleagues who were still in the Georgia House, and that was good to see.
And talking to them, we're not going to vote the same, but you hear from people.
And one of the things that came out, and a lot of your experiences from New York on this, is, you know, one of the things that was said was, is we may vote differently, but we're still all people.
And I think that was what David sort of represented.
He could fight very hard for his old conservative values, but he would at least, you know, he knew that the others were coming from a different place and at least deserve that respect.
How did you find that on the New York level?
Well, I cut my teeth in a time where I'm a Democrat, but in order to get elected to the Senate, I beat a Republican.
And it was a Republican-held seat for a generation just outside New York City.
So I always modeled myself on trying to work across the aisle to get results.
And I had the good fortune of, before getting elected to the State Senate, I was elected as town clerk in the town of Clarkstown, New York.
It's about just under 90,000 people.
It's a big town.
But as town clerk, you're just helping people all day, right?
You're helping them access government.
To make it that government is their friend and how to use it.
So if done right as town clerk, all you're doing is making friends, right?
You participate in the town board meetings by being the minute taker, but you don't have to take that stance.
But it was a great foundation in that trying to understand, listen, listen, try to understand people.
Where they're coming from.
And I think that's one of the unfortunate parts of our state legislatures, of our Congress, is the hyper-partisanship.
That we can't seem to put these labels aside, even though we'll disagree on many things.
Like we've talked about before.
We've talked a lot about addiction and mental health.
And some of the ideas we have and strategies align.
And I think that's where you can find some positives to say, hey, where can we find that common ground?
Not let's just pile on top all the ways that we disagree, all the reasons you're wrong, I'm right, and let's just, you know, stop there.
We don't get anything done.
So I find it's really positive to try to do that as much as possible.
But I see that right now, and maybe we're shifting back, but the trend has been where the electorate has been rewarding partisanship.
A lot of that has to do with gerrymandering, but you see that.
Moderation isn't sexy, and the extremes really get the attention.
Let's jump in on something, on gerrymandering.
Because it's a commonly used term, if a district's not the way Republicans want it, they tend to say gerrymandering.
If it's definitely not the way Democrats want it, they say gerrymandering.
New York was front and center this year.
On the first maps, it got completely thrown out, and then you saw the other.
Let's just be honest here, David.
Most of the maps...
Okay?
If you're looking for a desired outcome, you're going to have to shape a map to get your desired outcomes.
Because for the most part, and I'm just saying this just in looking at maps, not specifics, most people are homogeneous to the area they are.
And very few larger districts are completely, what we'll just say, you know, Mixed in the sense of a 50-50 split.
And it could be because of demographics.
It could be because of background.
It could be because of history and everything else.
When does it get to the point to where maps, even if they are, say, in a state such as New York or Georgia, where you have the vast majority of your congressional delegates are...
Republican, but your state is a 51-52 state.
Is that really gerrymandering or is that just reflective of the districts that you have and the heaviness of population?
Well, I think we're all very well.
I went through the redistricting process in New York State going from 2010 to 2012. Oh boy, there are so many things that are done with gerrymandering, whether it's cracking or dividing people in neighborhoods or packing, putting people together.
So, yeah, we see that.
I heard one of my colleagues, you know, really scream about New York and said, look, you're trying to make a political process not political.
And unfortunately, that's what we've seen.
You see places like New York and California, which have had more probably independent, if you will, districts drawn comparative to the rest of the country.
And I think that's a good thing.
You know, trying to make these districts as competitive as possible is actually a good thing for democracy, but you don't see it around the country.
And I think it relates back to that partisanship, too, in terms of I got elected first on the town level, then moved on to the Senate, where it's a district level.
And you go from the district to the town, and a lot of times, or town to the district, that can change because you have now these just...
Obviously, a city or a town, there's political boundaries, but not like a district where you can draw these lines.
Neighbors across the street are in different districts.
But let's take that a step further, though.
And you made a statement that just said something, and I think we're inherently coming from two different perspectives here, but I understand it.
It's the independency of the nature.
And look, I believe that there is no independent commission.
This term to me is just a farce, okay?
You're gonna get five individuals who are independent.
That's like Pennsylvania, you know, bringing in somebody who already had a map drawn for Pennsylvania three years ago that all just suddenly had four new Democrat districts, okay?
That ain't happening, okay?
But the question comes, and I'm going to use maybe New York as an example.
When you get outside of Albany, you get outside of Buffalo, Rochester, outside of New York City, you know, you get the more rural areas, okay?
And I think that's, you know, your background of that.
Georgia is an issue.
To, as you said, make an independent district, I think was the wording, and I may have gotten it a little bit wrong, but make a more independent district.
In Georgia, that would require...
True, what I would call gerrymandering.
In other words, the district that I'm in up here in Northeast Georgia is a 74-75% district, okay?
It's a very rural district.
It already encompasses 20-something counties plus in that.
And so to, quote, make it more independent, if you would, you're going to take different areas and then have to pull them together with other areas that may not have any similarity and interest.
In certain areas, it probably wouldn't be possible.
Yeah, no, and I'm not referring to that.
I'm saying, hey, make it the real makeup of the community.
You know, now you have the cracking and the packing, and the idea there is that you put all the Democrats into one district.
Make that a super competitive Democratic district or super non-competitive Democratic district.
Now here, it's won or lost in the primary.
And some places that's unavoidable, right?
But in many places in the country, it's not unavoidable, but that's what we've seen happen.
And that's a real problem where the only way people get real participation in the process is through the primary.
Because by the time the general election comes, we know it's either a Democrat or Republican district.
And so that favors the ability for that candidate to really play to the extreme of that party.
And that's why I warn my Democratic friends, because my Democratic friends will often criticize the Republicans and say, oh, you know, look at the Freedom Caucus, or look at these people that are really to the right, and it's scary, and they're pushing McCarthy, etc.
And I say, well, yes, we see that in full display right now in the jockeying for the speakership.
But don't, you know, fool yourself that it doesn't exist on the Democratic side as well.
And I think that's the nature of politics.
And often one party is in full display for the media and the public, and one is out of the limelight.
And we tend to beat our chest and say, oh, look at them, you know, they're so foolish.
But the same exists.
But, you know, the state legislatures is a good example, where very few this election...
Thankfully, we've seen some legislatures flip.
We see split houses or split chambers where the upper chamber and the lower chamber have different parties.
Up until this election, you had almost every state in the nation was one party ruled both chambers, whether it was Democrat or Republican.
And you see that extremism in the legislatures around the country.
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how that, you know, it continues to play out.
I mean, look, it doesn't take much to figure out.
I mean, it's just an honest fact.
Your urban areas, suburban to an extent, but your urban suburban areas are going to be your more blue or purple, if you would.
Everywhere else in this country is red.
Okay, it's just, I mean, you look at the maps for the last 20 years in presidential elections, it's this massive red country, except for the blue popping, you know, in the areas we talked about.
And that just happens.
And I think it is funny.
Yeah, I mean, I see my side, you know, we got this.
And right now, frankly, and just, you know, I'll be honest, McCarthy's got a problem.
I mean, and it's a problem that I've talked to members in the caucus that have said if he gives too much, and right now he's got four or five and just say, heck no, we're not going to vote for you.
So there's not a lot to give.
But if he did, then you start to lose other members of the party.
But it's the same truth.
I love how y'all do it, though.
I love how the Democrats do it in Congress.
In their elections, if they have a controversy or a different group, they just make vice chairs.
I have never seen a conference that had more leadership positions than the House Democratic Caucus.
It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
Well, I'll tell you, that's something I've done a lot of work on the state legislatures, and it's been a lot of fun because you get to learn about these 99 different chambers in the United States because every state has two chambers except for Nebraska, which is unicameral.
Um, but so you see the, the party leadership or the, the, the, the, uh, you know, the party in power in the chamber, you gotta be very careful because majority leader might mean something different from state to state.
You can have conference leader.
And I've seen that, uh, on display in New York, um, back, you know, over about 15 years ago, there was all these titles and the conference leader was really the leader.
You know, the majority leader was just a ceremonial.
But you had to know what was going on.
But you see that in these chambers where these titles can be deceiving.
So you got to look very closely.
Yeah, I mean, I'm never sure what the assistant speaker's job was in the House of Representatives.
I never understood that.
You know, here, let's give it to you.
You got it.
You know, you get a car.
You get a car.
Yeah, I mean, for us, this is a fun time, right?
I mean, I'm just watching the Democratic House play out and not too eventful, right?
I mean, now you see Clyburn saying, oh, hey, I want to make a play here for something, but pretty non-controversial.
Then what I see in the Republican side of things is really interesting because the media, I think, has just said, oh, McCarthy is the leader.
But they're not really covering or paying close attention to who has said they're actually voting for someone else.
Because we know, yes, you can vote present.
That doesn't count towards the majority.
But members like Gates and Biggs have said they're going to vote for somebody else, as far as I understand.
And that's what's interesting to see.
I don't know if you've seen other members Yeah.
They've got four, if not five now, David, that have said, you know, as of the taping today, four or five, which basically puts McCarthy at a half to somebody else's vote present to keep that number down.
But again, that can only work so far because Hakeem is going to have 213. So you can only go, you know, you can only play with that number so much to get a majority.
It is interesting to see, but I will say, and I'd love to take on this, how would you like to be on the House of Propes in the Democrat side and all of a sudden think you're going to get a Cardinal, which is our subcommittee chair, and all of a sudden Steny Hoyer shows back up?
It's like, wait, hang on a second!
And I actually, I've gotten along with Steny.
We disagree on most everything.
But Steny was one of the ones we could actually, you know, work with at times in leadership.
I think it's good to have that mix, right?
I mean, you see a wave of new, younger leadership coming in.
And you see people that have been around a long time and not just, you know, use their ability, the skills, the experience that they have.
And I think if you can integrate that, that's really important to share, You know, that experience with the next generation.
So I think it's a pretty healthy thing.
And I'm glad to see that that seems to be functioning, at least from, you know, this point of view right now.
Do you think the Democrats, and I'm asking because you're a Democrat, I'm not.
I mean, I've looked at this for a while.
Republicans, I think we did ourselves an injustice, and I was one that had to deal with this.
We limit our chairman to six terms, and that's including a ranking member.
Democrats have never went along with that, and it's caused, up until this cycle right here, a huge backlog.
It's why you are losing a lot of your younger members.
It's why Bob Holland's in the Senate.
I mean, there's a lot of...
Do you see any change that y'all might say, hey, this isn't a good idea to just simply use seniority, or has you got too much just absolute buy-in from CBC, from others, Hispanic, and that this is just ingrained in Democrat?
It's an interesting question because obviously you have your ideas on term limits and then term limits for leadership, different things.
But what I found recent is that you have chairs of powerful committees losing their elections.
Losing primaries, losing general elections.
So it's a very interesting time when very few incumbents are losing, right?
But you see these powerful people get toppled.
And I think it's not what it used to be, right?
The incumbency, you know, still, you know, so much power with incumbency.
But it's not like it used to be with different media.
But I'll say this.
I'm very skeptical about term limits.
Just being an observer up close, as a legislator, as someone that lobbies as well in different states, When you see the turnover, you know, artificially of legislatures, and you see, you know, people recently elected ascend to speaker, you know, you ask yourself, who's running the show, right?
You know, I was there in the Senate for 10 years.
I didn't know.
It took me a while to learn how the ins and outs of the budget and the committees and the legislature.
I got the grasp of it and passed a lot of legislation and did some great things, but there's something to be said for seniority.
Um, but it's, but there's, there's some problems with it too, to just have, you know, the power of incumbency can be so great.
And just because someone's been there a long time, doesn't mean that they should be necessarily the chair.
Um, but a lot of times what I've seen is that they really embrace that, um, that leadership responsibility, um, and really embrace it and become real experts on it.
And you hate to see them leave, um, But I can see my argument not being popular with a lot of people that just like the idea of term limits because shaking things up is a good thing.
Now, David, look, here it is.
You and I actually agree on this.
I mean, I have a...
I agree.
When I ran for Senate down here, there was this issue, Doug, where you agreed, is it a two-term limit in the Senate or something like that?
I'm 56 years old.
Yeah, I'm one of those that believe you do not grow old in the U.S. House or U.S. Senate.
I believe that by the time you're 70, you need to be home rocking grandkids or doing something else.
You know, you can still be active.
And I'm not saying 70-year-olds are not.
That's not what I'm saying here.
But for me personally, that was just not something.
So it was easy for me to say, yeah, I'll do two terms and get out.
But inherently, term limits are a bumper sticker answer that are bad because you're having unelected staff who run the show.
And I'll use this.
Everybody's talking about Florida.
Florida is one that's had term limits for their legislature for years.
The most powerful people in Florida are the staffers in Florida.
You listen to lobbyists who work in Florida, they say, I just go to the staff.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, you see that.
I call it the permanent government, right?
The staff stays, the members leave, and some legislatures have real powerful staff.
I mean, like you mentioned in Florida and some other states, it's really, you know, right.
The member might say one thing, and then the staff says another, and that's who, you're like, who got elected here?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Since you and I barely agree on this, we're going to move on.
But yeah, I got stories I could tell you about staff members looking at me.
In Georgia, we have a 40-day legislative session.
We don't go all year.
We're part-time legislators.
And I had a staff member one time look at me and say, and how many more days until the session's over?
Basically implying, I'll listen to you now, but when you're going back to Gainesville, I'm down here in Atlanta.
I'm going to do what I want to do.
We'll get to that.
One of the things you and I do agree on a little bit, but I am just appalled, and it just frustrates me.
Lee Zeldin, and I know I'm a Republican.
I've known Lee for a long time.
I was hoping Lee would win.
It was a long shot, but he actually ran much, much better than anybody ever thought he would up there.
And I think there's been an analysis that says his strength carried basically the House's majority for MacArthur Republicans in the U.S. House came out of New York because Lee's and the other campaigns up there in some of these swing districts resonated and Republicans turned out where they may not have had before.
But one of the issues that Lee brought up that Governor Hochul dismissed Was the issue of crime, and the issue of criminal justice issues, and it just came out today, and I saw it before, and I told you about it before we got on the air, on this for taping, was Alvin Bragg, the DA in Manhattan, is now reducing, like armed robberies of commercial buildings are now being dropped to misdemeanors.
David, you and I have worked in criminal justice form.
This is not, in my mind, this is not criminal justice form.
Just simply reducing sentences or not prosecuting, especially when you've got the perception and the numbers sometimes to back it up in New York City that crime is surging.
How do we, I mean, come on, how do we deal with this?
Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot there.
So, I mean, first, Lee Zeldin, I think, ran a terrific campaign.
He is incredibly smart.
I got to serve with him in the State Senate, and we worked on some issues together, and I still keep in touch with him, and we talk, and...
So I think he's very capable, and I believe he's aiming for chair of the RNC, and I think if that happens, the Republicans will be very fortunate for that.
But with that said, we actually worked on issues together, Lee Zeldin and I. We did the...
The Joseph P. Dwyer PTSD veteran program.
And that's basically a veteran peer-to-peer program to help people that are suffering with PTSD. But to Alvin Bragg, I haven't seen the report out today, but I think in tying the two together, Lee Zeldin's campaign, what he did well was really appreciate what people were feeling.
And Kathy Hochul was saying, look, you know, the statistics don't say what you're saying.
Yes, that looks bad.
This video that we see of this child that might have been out because of raise the age or because of cashless bail.
And this is the, you know, the worst case example that we see.
So Lee Zeldin was playing to that to say, hey, Look, we're going to do something.
We're going to change the law.
And Kathy Hogle was saying, look, we don't even have the statistics to say that this is why this crime was committed.
So I think there's two things.
We have to appreciate and understand where people are coming from when they are concerned about their safety.
And you have to show people that you're working to make the streets safe.
But I think just to reduce sentences and things like that, yeah, that's not going to work, and that just plays into a more negative scenario.
But I think there's a lot to be said about avoiding the criminal justice system wherever possible, and to make sure that people are not a threat to society.
Well, David, I think where we got to agree on here is simply going in and saying, you know, no Cassius Bell without looking at the background of the individual.
I mean, look, you and I both know Lee.
I served within Congress.
You served within the state.
I mean, the man got attacked by a guy with a weapon and was back out almost quicker than Lee was finished his speech.
I mean, people don't understand that.
They just don't.
And I mean, if you're talking about the case, yeah, I mean, up in where Lee Zeldin was attacked, the district attorney could have charged that person with a harsher crime, but chose not to.
And then they took the federal, you know, why?
That's a good question.
That's a good question.
Why did she do that?
Why did she decide not to charge him with a...
If it had been Kathy Hochul...
Hey, David, if it had been Kathy Hochul, what do you think that guy would have been charged with?
I mean, probably something more severe.
It was like attempted assault in the second degree or something like that.
And then he got charged by the federal government because it was attacking a congressman or something like that.
But what was interesting is the same things that will be criticized of Alvin Bragg for not charging people with these harsher crimes.
It's the same thing that happened when the gentleman attacked Lee Zeldin up in Monroe County.
If we look closely, we could say the same thing about that DA not charging this gentleman with a harsher crime.
Don't disagree with you.
I think my problem is, is when you make it, and look, prosecutors, it's amazing to me, and this is an across-the-country thing, and Alvin Bragg just happens to be the one on the spotlight now.
You've got them all over the country.
But as you know, prosecutors take an oath, an extra oath actually for ethics and other things, to actually prosecute crimes.
And it's just...
It blows my mind that for those of us who've worked on, as you said, let's take the drug addicts and get them in a pretrial program in which they have to go to drug counsel, they have to get clean, they pay for their own drug test, they have to keep a job.
Let's work on some of those instead of the guy who pushes somebody in the subway and says, hey, they're going to be out, we're not going to charge bail, or we're going to charge...
This is what's killing good stuff from both Republican and Democrat side.
Right.
Yeah, no, you have to enforce the law.
I mean, it's very simple.
I think that's one of the big problems that you see in New York City today is not necessarily that it's unsafe, but it's that feeling of being unsafe.
You know, the statistics show that New York City is still the largest safe city around.
But when you see, you know, the panhandling and if someone jumping the turnstile or something like that, those, you know, the broken windows idea.
And then the thing that we have in New York where we've decriminalized marijuana and you have a real loose or what you have is strict laws, but they're just not being enforced.
And you can't blame law enforcement because they're confused.
So there has to be smart laws and they have to be enforced equally.
But if there's laws that just don't make sense, you can't have them, because that's a real problem, the unequal enforcement.
And that starts the real deterioration.
We could probably talk about that for a long time, but that's something I think is really important.
I agree with you.
On that part, we can definitely talk.
Because it is.
And again, everybody, you know, we've always seen Law and Order, the old episodes forever now.
You know, well, this side, you got the district attorney who prosecutes crime, and here's the police who investigate.
But if the police don't feel like that they can bring a case and the DA is going to have their back, they're going to quit.
And they're just going to say, look, this is, you know, we're just going to keep as many people safe as we can, but this isn't worth it.
And that might be another topic for another day.
I do want to end today, and this is going to become, for the podcast listeners, I hope if David agrees, we're going to pick topics over time, and we're going to approach them from right and left.
You and I had an interesting discussion the last time we were on Fox together, and it came up in this issue of immigration.
And let's just take this in a section.
And I have a question, and I'm going to ask it, and then we can sort of talk about it for a few minutes.
We're not going to discuss forever here, but it is.
You had made a comment on the show, and I rebuttaled back, but you made a comment that we need to solve the immigration issue.
I don't disagree with you in that sense.
However, where we did seem to have a disagreement is I'm calling out Mayorkas, the Biden administration in particular, especially these last two years, where how can you look at the border and say, number one, it's secure, and number two, that anything except being open is the only way to describe the border.
Well, I would say that I don't think much has changed between the Trump administration and the Biden administration in terms of what's actually resources at the border.
And that's where I say the policies...
No, let me talk.
Let me say that.
I agree completely as far as resources probably, as far as budget level, but during the Trump administration, during the time of actual enforcement and moving around, it was a decline, especially in the last couple of years.
We've seen nothing but skyrocketing numbers under the same people because they realized the idea is to let them go.
How do we get past that, David?
See, that's where I think the misconception is.
That I think that the problem we see is not about how much security is at the border, is that the real flaw is our immigration policy.
That we have people like remain in Mexico, you know, issues like that where you have people desperately trying to cross the border.
Because they're fleeing real, real serious issues, real serious problems.
And we're saying, hey, you know, just know you can't come in at any circumstance.
Forget about even remaining in Mexico.
You can't file asylum.
That's a real problem.
And I think people are taking these desperate measures and they're putting themselves in just horrible situations to get across.
And that's where I think we need to focus on that.
Look, yeah, focus on making sure that we're strengthening the border and backing up our men and women that are defending the border.
But I think that's where, and I think this is where our conversation got into.
I say, you know, many of the Republicans, they're just saying, hey, secure the border.
And that then will solve our problem.
And I'm skeptical of that because I say, yeah, secure the border.
You haven't solved the problem.
And people have been talking about securing the border.
Donald Trump spent four years in office and we still have the same, you know, issues.
And we can argue, oh, you know, it's, and I don't believe this is dramatic change on the border.
So that's where I'm getting at, that we got to do both.
Well, let me just stop.
Let me interject here, David.
Interject here.
As someone who's been to the border, who is the vice chair, I mean, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee whose jurisdiction is immigration, yes, there is a big change.
It is.
I know Border Patrol agents who will tell you right now they feel like they have absolutely zero backing from my workers.
They have absolutely backing that all they're doing is social work.
They're getting them across the border.
They're sending them everywhere in the country.
Here's my interesting issue and I love to hear this from a Democrat because look I believe that the border has to be secure much better under many conditions over the last 20 years, okay?
Because if we make it to where we believe, where we're giving the signal to the world, come and you'll get into the country.
That's going to increase people.
You brought up asylum.
Let's bring up asylum for just a second.
Asylum says if you have definite fear of your life and person from the country you're leaving.
Okay, number one.
Number two, it is that you stop at the first country available.
That is the international ruling law here.
If you stop at the first international country, that's where you apply for asylum.
Number three is, interesting information is that most of these are coming through two or three countries to get to us.
And even the immigration court's own statistics say that of the ones who actually do show up for their immigration hearing, over 90% do not qualify for asylum.
Why are we still using asylum as a reason to have this look-away attitude at the boy?
Well, we can get into the definition of asylum, but then, yeah, let's talk about that.
If that is the case, 90% of the other people, which I think is a very high number, okay, what do we do about them?
They're saying their situation.
Think about it.
They're fleeing their situation.
Even if it doesn't qualify as asylum, they're spending, they're walking, they're doing whatever, getting in the back of a truck to legally get through these borders.
I mean, so it's a desperate situation.
And I say, what do we do about it?
What do we do?
We need to find a way...
And I think that immigration is very healthy for our economy.
And that's something that is a very...
I think that's counterintuitive to many people on the other side of the argument.
They're very much on this protectionist side that says that immigration is, I think, a problem to our economy.
And that's kind of the realm of this.
Legal immigration is healthy, and that's where we have this dichotomy that we don't give that option.
And we're forcing these people to take desperate situations.
Let's figure out a process that legally allows these people into the country.
Okay, you just hit.
You said the word, David.
You said the word legal.
Okay?
Yes.
What's happening on the border right now is illegal.
It's not condoning our law.
Now, what your legal definition is, is to say, let's make it where it is legal to do what they're doing.
And in reality, there are many programs and many ways for us to do this.
But if you continually have the thought in the Central America, really the world, because frankly, every country in the world has had somebody stop at our border.
It's not just simply Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras.
This is not there anymore.
But if they believe they're going to get here, which most of them do, they get in here now and they're being shipped all over the country, most of which, again, statistics will tell you, they do not show back up for their hearings.
Okay, they just don't.
And we have created a subclass here of...
In many states of cash-only workers, you know, they're scared of—well, they were scared, but ICE is so tied up with doing other things now.
Deportation is almost rare in many of these instances.
How do we—I mean, okay, I'm asking.
Don't you think we need to at least get it where there's not the incentive to do it illegally?
A better incentive to do it legally, and then here's the thing that none of us want to talk about.
There's anywhere from 50 to 80 million people in this country illegally, over half of which, by the way, came in here on good visas who just overstayed the visas.
We as a government can't even give you a piece of paper and know where you are.
There's a problem.
Mm-hmm.
How do we fix that?
I mean, at a certain point in time, when do we get to that point if we just said, okay, if you're here now, you're citizens.
If that was the magic wand, you're here now, you're green carded.
But if we don't stop the influx coming in in a legal fashion, it just becomes an open water over and over.
I mean, is that where the Democratic Party is?
Yeah, and I don't think there's one simple solution.
I think it's multi-pronged, and all the things you talked about are real complex problems, right?
You do one, and you create another problem.
But I think that we need to take on this task, this difficult task.
Painful, if you will, task of reforming our immigration process, helping and fixing the current illegal immigration, living in the United States, illegal aliens in the United States.
How do we fix that?
And how do we make sure that there is a pathway to permanent residency, to citizenship, and figure that out?
Now it gets to the point where you even talk about these issues and you're shut down.
And I think that's where we have to push through and say, okay, what could we do about the illegal aliens in this country?
What can we do?
Deportation, yeah, not going to work.
But, right, let's debate these.
Let's talk about it.
Let's figure it out.
And I think that's what I'm fearful of in Congress, is that you just have these third rail words that you mention, and one side is just totally turned off.
Yeah, look, you know, folks, David and I highlight the problem here, and I think this is the problem.
At the end of the day, there could be, and I think among Republicans and Democrats, discussions on what to do with the ones who've been here for X number of years or not.
The problem that we're having right now, though, and David, I think this is, and it goes back to the perception of crime.
It's not a perception because this is just reality.
There is an incentive to And the reason I say this, there's an incentive to come here and get across the border any way you can.
And it was not that me as a Republican saying that, it's the actual folks walking and getting in these cars and coming saying, hey, I know Joe Biden, you know, they said, we know that America will let, if we get there, we can get in.
And so it's just that this is the ones coming.
Here's the interesting question.
I think, you know, look, we can have this debate a long time as we go.
But you brought up Congress, and this is where I think we're bad off.
I was a Republican willing to talk about this, okay?
And I went to often, I brought this up briefly on the show the other day.
We were working on a farm, I guess, an HB1 bill, which we're, Georgia, by the way, is the largest consumer of that program, not California, we were.
We were not even consulted, our farmers and others, our Ag Commissioner and others, when Zoe Lofgren was working on this bill.
I have it from definite sources.
We were trying to work with Zoe and say, okay, Zoe, let's work this out.
Let's find a way to do this.
And it got to be California, the great state of California, and the workers' unions out there who said that unless we approve the bill, we're not going to sign off.
And basically, Lofgren agreed with them.
There's where your problem lies, David.
I don't disagree that we need to talk about this, but we've got to get where the constituencies who are most benefited are not the ones who get the veto.
And I think that's been the other issue.
Folks, we're going to have more of this.
I think David is willing to.
We're going to pick topics.
And this is just where, look, you've got to stop it.
This is where we gotta go forward on it, but we gotta have debates in our country if our country is going to be honest, and we are divided in many ways, but we gotta find solutions.
And I think one of the things out of the election that I saw, David, personally was, in many areas, it was like, I'm just tired.
I'll keep the status quo.
I don't like it, but here's where we're at, and just a very small change.
I mean, look at it.
The House is gonna be the same number, just a different party, and the Senate is gonna be the same number, probably.
I mean, that's got to tell you something as we go.
But David, I appreciate you being on.
We're going to do more of this.
And folks, if you want to go to the DougCollinsPodcast.com, click on the email.
Send me an email and say, hey, I want to see you and David talk about this.
And we'll be happy to as we go forward.
But David, thanks for being a part today.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Look forward to coming back soon.
It's going to be fun.
All right, everybody.
See you next time on the Doug Collins Podcast.
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