Transcript: MAGA Dope Markwayne Mullin Threatened Dems. It Backfired.

Source: The New Republic · Bias: Left

Summary

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 29 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.Markwayne Mullin, the new Homeland Security secretary, leveled a really strange threat at blue states this week. He suggested that DHS might block international flights going into so-called sanctuary cities, which have protections for immigrants that Donald Trump hates. This is a really dark turn in a longer saga involving a battle over an ICE facility in New Jersey, which we’re going to get into. But first, just note how incredibly absurd this threat is. It would probably do serious damage to the economy and deal another big blow to GOP chances in the midterms. The whole situation captures some of the ugliest aspects of this presidency. So we’re trying to make sense of it all with Nayna Gupta, the policy director for the American Immigration Council, which follows DHS closely. Naina, thanks for coming on.Nayna Gupta: Thanks, Greg, for having me.Sargent: So in Newark, New Jersey, at a federal immigration center called Delaney Hall, activists have been protesting outside due to complaints from inmates of terrible conditions inside. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill just put out a statement saying that state health inspectors were just denied full access to the facility. She’s calling for it to be shut down. There have been scuffles with lawmakers getting pepper-sprayed. Naina, can you just quickly recap what’s happening there?Gupta: Sure. So there are around 300 people in immigration detention at Delaney Hall, this facility in New Jersey, and they have been staging hunger and labor strikes to protest inhumane conditions in the facility for days now. And that sparked protests outside of the facility by family members of those who are locked up inside, who are being fed rotten food, receiving subpar medical care. And those protests have grown over the past several days. That has attracted the attention and participation of high-ranking elected officials like both New Jersey senators, the governor of New Jersey, who are trying to get into this facility to respond to this growing crisis. And that has triggered a fairly violent reaction from ICE and federal agents that are on the ground there near Delaney Hall.Sargent: Well, it’s in this context that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin made his preposterous threat. In essence, what he said is if things like this Delaney Hall fight keep happening, he’s going to have to transfer Customs and Border Protection officers out of airports to go protect these federal facilities. Let’s listen to Mullin for a second.Markwayne Mullin (voiceover): When we have situations what’s happening in New Jersey right now, where we have to prioritize where we put federal employees because local law enforcement won’t help protect their streets—not federal streets, city streets—and keep them from barricading and causing harm to our employees, then we have to decide where we’re going to prioritize our federal employees. So we’re not going to halt the flights. What we’re saying is we just won’t be able to process them because we don’t have officers there. We’re going to pull out our Customs and Border Patrol officers that process these flights and put them in these facilities to help protect our employees coming out of work. And if they’re not there to process international flights, then those individuals, when the airlines land—well, they won’t be permitted into the United States.Sargent: The Fox News headline on all this read as follows: “Mullin threatens to pull CBP from sanctuary city airports.” What do you make of that, Nayna?Gupta: Look, I mean, this is the Trump administration, now with Mullin at the helm of DHS, once again threatening vindictive actions because they don’t like growing public pushback on their policies. And it’s really important to note that if the administration actually pulled off this outrageous threat of diverting flights out of entire major metropolitan areas, this wouldn’t be about just hurting those cities or immigrants. It would be hurting very many Americans. This would be hugely disruptive to critical industries, to travelers who travel through these airports, at a moment when the economy is already facing strain and we know that voters are feeling very poorly about this administration’s economic policies.We don’t know still how real this threat is. We’ve seen the administration make sweeping threats and then walk those back when they face backlash or because they can’t actually effectuate those threats.

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Transcript: MAGA Dope Markwayne Mullin Threatened Dems. It Backfired.
The New Republic

Transcript: MAGA Dope Markwayne Mullin Threatened Dems. It Backfired.

Left

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 29 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.Markwayne Mullin, the new Homeland Security secretary, leveled a really strange threat at blue states this week. He suggested that DHS might block international flights going into so-called sanctuary cities, which have protections for immigrants that Donald Trump hates. This is a really dark turn in a longer saga involving a battle over an ICE facility in New Jersey, which we’re going to get into. But first, just note how incredibly absurd this threat is. It would probably do serious damage to the economy and deal another big blow to GOP chances in the midterms. The whole situation captures some of the ugliest aspects of this presidency. So we’re trying to make sense of it all with Nayna Gupta, the policy director for the American Immigration Council, which follows DHS closely. Naina, thanks for coming on.Nayna Gupta: Thanks, Greg, for having me.Sargent: So in Newark, New Jersey, at a federal immigration center called Delaney Hall, activists have been protesting outside due to complaints from inmates of terrible conditions inside. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill just put out a statement saying that state health inspectors were just denied full access to the facility. She’s calling for it to be shut down. There have been scuffles with lawmakers getting pepper-sprayed. Naina, can you just quickly recap what’s happening there?Gupta: Sure. So there are around 300 people in immigration detention at Delaney Hall, this facility in New Jersey, and they have been staging hunger and labor strikes to protest inhumane conditions in the facility for days now. And that sparked protests outside of the facility by family members of those who are locked up inside, who are being fed rotten food, receiving subpar medical care. And those protests have grown over the past several days. That has attracted the attention and participation of high-ranking elected officials like both New Jersey senators, the governor of New Jersey, who are trying to get into this facility to respond to this growing crisis. And that has triggered a fairly violent reaction from ICE and federal agents that are on the ground there near Delaney Hall.Sargent: Well, it’s in this context that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin made his preposterous threat. In essence, what he said is if things like this Delaney Hall fight keep happening, he’s going to have to transfer Customs and Border Protection officers out of airports to go protect these federal facilities. Let’s listen to Mullin for a second.Markwayne Mullin (voiceover): When we have situations what’s happening in New Jersey right now, where we have to prioritize where we put federal employees because local law enforcement won’t help protect their streets—not federal streets, city streets—and keep them from barricading and causing harm to our employees, then we have to decide where we’re going to prioritize our federal employees. So we’re not going to halt the flights. What we’re saying is we just won’t be able to process them because we don’t have officers there. We’re going to pull out our Customs and Border Patrol officers that process these flights and put them in these facilities to help protect our employees coming out of work. And if they’re not there to process international flights, then those individuals, when the airlines land—well, they won’t be permitted into the United States.Sargent: The Fox News headline on all this read as follows: “Mullin threatens to pull CBP from sanctuary city airports.” What do you make of that, Nayna?Gupta: Look, I mean, this is the Trump administration, now with Mullin at the helm of DHS, once again threatening vindictive actions because they don’t like growing public pushback on their policies. And it’s really important to note that if the administration actually pulled off this outrageous threat of diverting flights out of entire major metropolitan areas, this wouldn’t be about just hurting those cities or immigrants. It would be hurting very many Americans. This would be hugely disruptive to critical industries, to travelers who travel through these airports, at a moment when the economy is already facing strain and we know that voters are feeling very poorly about this administration’s economic policies.We don’t know still how real this threat is. We’ve seen the administration make sweeping threats and then walk those back when they face backlash or because they can’t actually effectuate those threats.

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