This is the third in a series on the Trump/Harris debate. Prior posts are here and here, The debate transcript is available here.
LINSEY DAVIS: I want to turn to the issue of abortion. President Trump, you've often touted that you were able to kill Roe v. Wade. Last year, you said that you were proud to be the most pro-life president in American history. Then last month you said that your administration would be great for women and their reproductive rights. In your home state of Florida, you surprised many with regard to your six-week abortion ban because you initially had said that it was too short and you said, "I'm going to be voting that we need more than six weeks." But then the very next day, you reversed course and said you would vote to support the six-week ban. Vice President Harris says that women shouldn't trust you on the issue of abortion because you've changed your position so many times. Therefore, why should they trust you?
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, the reason I'm doing that vote is because the plan is, as you know, the vote is, they have abortion in the ninth month. They even have, and you can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia, not the current governor, who's doing an excellent job, but the governor before. He said the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we'll execute the baby.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And that's why I did that, because that predominates. Because they're radical. The Democrats are radical in that. And her vice presidential pick, which I think was a horrible pick, by the way for our country, because he is really out of it. But her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth, it's execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay. And that's not okay with me. Hence the vote. But what I did is something for 52 years they've been trying to get Roe v. Wade into the states.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And through the genius and heart and strength of six supreme court justices we were able to do that. Now, I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. I believe strongly in it. Ronald Reagan did also. 85% of Republicans do. Exceptions. Very important. But we were able to get it. And now states are voting on it. And for the first time you're going to see -- look, this is an issue that's torn our country apart for 52 years. Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote. And that's what happened, happened. Now, Ohio, the vote was somewhat liberal. Kansas the vote was somewhat liberal. Much more liberal than people would have thought. But each individual state is voting. It's the vote of the people now. It's not tied up in the federal government. I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it. And the supreme court had great courage in doing it. And I give tremendous credit to those six justices.
COMMENT: First of all, Trump is referencing former Virginia (not WV) governor Ralph Northam. Second, Virginia does restrict abortion after the second trimester. What Trump ineptly may really be referencing is the Virginia state senate in 2023 killed the born alive infant protection bill passed by the House. This would require physicians to be proactive in saving a baby surviving abortion. Trump referencing Northam's opinion doesn't really make his point. Now I find it very troubling that healthcare professionals would be negligent in trying to save a surviving baby or even harm the baby. In a manner of speaking it is a variation of infanticide. Recall state senator Barry Obama never allowed it to become Illinois law during his tenure, and Governor Cuomo (NY) signed an abortion bill in 2019 that stripped said protections. Now it's difficult to get good data because of inconsistent reporting requirements, but I've seen data over 9 states and 11 years report 277 babies initially surviving abortion in a country that performs about 900K abortions nationally.
Minnesota Gov. Walz has not claimed ninth-month abortions are fine. However, he did relax in 2023 Minnesota law protecting born-alive survivors of abortion.
Whether or not Trump believes in exceptions is irrelevant. The Dobbs decision lives it to the states, their laws and constitutions. No, not everyone wanted the Dobbs decision. That's evident from the response to a split decision, nearly every poll, and several red state initiatives liberalizing abortion.
Chief Justice Roberts concurred but did not sign onto the Alito majority Dobbs decision. And Trump takes undue credit for the decision. He nominated 3 justices who joined in the opinion, but the other 3 were nominated by the Bushes. And nominees do not comment on matters before the court. I can cite several justices who disappointed the Presidents who nominated them. .
LINSEY DAVIS: There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born. Madam vice president, I want to get your response to President Trump.
COMMENT: I have to comment here: it is totally improper to fact check or for a moderator to implicitly debate the candidate. It's up to Harris to respond to Trump, but Trump in fact has a point which Davis doesn't understand: Democrats in multiple states have sought to weaken born alive infant protection. Survivors of abortion frequently require good faith medical assistance. There is a related construct of say, criminally negligent manslaughter. .Also, and Trump sometimes refers to this, there about 7 states which do not restrict abortion in the final trimester. The original Roe decision allowed but did not mandate state restrictions during the final trimester.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, as I said, you're going to hear a bunch of lies. And that's not actually a surprising fact. Let's understand how we got here. Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade. And they did exactly as he intended. And now in over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care. In one state it provides prison for life. Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest. Which understand what that means. A survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral. And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that. A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don't want that. And I pledge to you when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law. But understand, if Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he will sign a national abortion ban. Understand in his Project 2025 there would be a national abortion ban. Understand in his Project 2025 there would be a national abortion -- a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages. I think the American people believe that certain freedoms, in particular the freedom to make decisions about one's own body, should not be made by the government.
COMMENT: First of all, Trump did not know about the 2022 Dobbs case at the time of his 3 SCOTUS nominations. None of his nominees wrote the majority opinion (Alito, GWB), and half the majority were appointed before Trump. There was no quid pro quo between Trump and his nominees on abortion. Trump is hyping his nominees' role in the decision because Roe had been targeted by the pro-lifers who supported his election. I can tell you several GOP confirmed justices who have frustrated the Presidents that nominated them (see here, too); in fact, Trump's nominees didn't help him in his election 2020 challenges. Trump taking undue credit for the decision is a type of double-edged sword that Harris uses here with phony accusations of "Trump abortion bans" States may have implemented restrictions in the past or present but Trump had nothing to so with state constitutions and any state abortion restrictions.(To me, this is a fairly transparent attempt for Harris to get under Trump's skin.)
Harris continues to lie that Project 2025 is Trump's. She also repeats a lie "there would be a national abortion -- a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages." Let me quote FactCheck.org. not a right-wing site:
Three days later, at a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, Walz similarly said: “Trump is trying to create this new government entity that will monitor all pregnancies to enforce their abortion ban.”
This is from FactCheck.org, not a right wing source:
As PolitiFact and others have noted, no such policy is included in Project 2025’s 887-page book. What Project 2025 recommends, as we’ve written previously and as we will explain in more detail below, is to expand the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s abortion data collection from states and to make it mandatory. Currently, states are not required to report abortion data to the CDC, but most of them, including Minnesota, do... But it doesn’t force families to disclose their pregnancies to a federal agency.
Another point reflects my day job as a database administrator (who also holds a Security+ certification). I've administered a lot of government databases and privacy has always been a key concern, especially PII (e.g., social security number) and HIPAA (health records) protection. I have personally rejected data extract requests potentially violating data privacy rules, Depending on database design, relevant data are encrypted, and there is a role-based need to know (recall Trump's violations in keeping classified data after his term?) to relevant data. For example, civil servants may need to investigate your social security records to certify benefit eligibility. Now for reasons already discussed (e.g., inconsistent reporting of abortion survivors, Project 2025 wants more consistent data reporting, but this does not have anything to do, e.g., with identifying abortion patients. There may be legitimate public reasons to have relevant data. For example, I want to ensure my tax dollars are not being spent killing preborn babies.
Finally, let's deal with Harris' knowing lies about unconstitutional federal abortion legislation. Note Harris here is advocating codification of Roe. We know Dobbs returned sovereignty over abortion regulation back to the states. If what Harris means br codification of Roe, the federal government beyond the court system will trump any relevant state abortion restrictions, this is null and void. (Never mind pro-abort Dems tried to sneak subsidizing abortions into the measure.). Is there any wonder why some conservatives wanted to turn the tables on the Dems by abusing the same methods for a national ban? The fact is, Trump, who earlier (1999) ran for the Reform Party nomination as "very pro-choice", unlike Kamala "I initially failed my bar exam" Harris, understood Dodds ruled out abortion legislation (pro or anti) and has consistently said he opposed any such unconstitutional legislation. The pro-aborts, of course, are trying to fearmonger the possibility of a ban, but the fact is the GOP has never passed one when they controlled the Senate, some GOP senators are pro-abort, and they would like be able to kill any ban by either winning the House this fall or electing enough senators to block it by filibuster. Note the only way to reestablish Roe would be bt constitutional amendment and you would need a supermajority in Congress and states, highly unlikely for either side
I should also note other parts of her response are poorly worded and/or outright false. By CNN's own chart, 13 (not over 20) states have essentially a ban with another 7 limiting the procedure after 6-18 weeks. The pro-aborts also use language inappropriate way confounding "bans" with restrictions. The remaining 31 states/DC abortion remains legal until at least viability, roughly 21-24 weeks.
And spare me the phony outrage. The real moral outrage is killing a baby for the sins of her father. As for "In one state it provides prison for life.", she may be referring (the lack of specificity is unprofessional) to Alabama which classifies criminal abortion by a provider in a felony class where the sentence can range from 10 to 99 years. I'm sure that the risk of a 10-year sentence is deterrent enough, but suggesting that an abortionist will be receive the maximum sentence possible is an intentional distortion.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, there she goes again. It's a lie. I'm not signing a ban. And there's no reason to sign a ban. Because we've gotten what everybody wanted. Democrats, Republicans and everybody else and every legal scholar wanted it to be brought back into the states. And the states are voting. And it may take a little time, but for 52 years this issue has torn our country apart. And they've wanted it back in the states. And I did something that nobody thought was possible. The states are now voting. What she says is an absolute lie. And as far as the abortion ban, no, I'm not in favor of abortion ban. But it doesn't matter because this issue has now been taken over by the states.
LINSEY DAVIS: Would you veto a national abortion ban if it came to --
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I won't have to because again -- two things. Number one, she said she'll go back to congress. She'll never get the vote. It's impossible for her to get the vote. Especially now with a 50-50 --essentially 50-50 in both senate and the house. She's not going to get the vote. She can't get the vote. She won't even come close to it. So it's just talk. You know what it reminds me of? When they said they're going to get student loans terminated and it ended up being a total catastrophe. The student loans -- and then her I think probably her boss, if you call him a boss, he spends all his time on the beach, but look, her boss went out and said we'll do it again, we'll do it a different way. He went out, got rejected again by the supreme court. So all these students got taunted with this whole thing about -- this whole idea. And how unfair that would have been. Part of the reason they lost. To the millions and millions of people that had to pay off their student loans. They didn't get it for free. But they were saying -- it's the same way that they talked about that, that they talk about abortion.
LINSEY DAVIS: But if I could just get a yes or no. Because your running mate JD Vance has said that you would veto if it did come to your desk.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I didn't discuss it with JD In all fairness. JD -- And I don't mind if he has a certain view but I think he was speaking for me but I really didn't. Look, we don't have to discuss it because she'd never be able to get it just like she couldn't get student loans. They couldn't get -- they didn't even come close to getting student loans. They didn't even come close to getting student loans. They taunted young people and a lot of other people that had loans. They can never get this approved. So it doesn't matter what she says about going to congress. Wonderful. Let's go to congress. Do it. But the fact is that for years they wanted to get it out of congress and out of the federal government and we did something that everybody said couldn't be done. And now you have a vote of the people on abortion.
COMMENT: Well, Trump is essentially correct here, but he's an incompetent debater. He's basically saying that she is exploiting the issue for political gain, knowing just like Biden's student loan forgiveness, it would never pass SCOTUS scrutiny given The Dobbs decision I think what's behind Trump's dodge here in answering whether he would sign a{n unlikely) ban here is he doesn't want to anger his pro-life base by saying he would veto a cherished one stop shop ban. But it's really implied by his analysis why codification of Roe won't pass Congress.
Personally, I wish he would simply say, "Federal legislation on abortion, for or against, is unconstitutional, and in the unlikely event any such bill reaches my desk, I'll veto it."
I wish he would knock off this unrealistic fantasy everyone everyone wanted Dobbs. I can list pro-life Democratic politicians on one hand It likely was a factor in poor mid-term results for the GOP, and the fact hw is answering questions on it now reflects its divisiveness and relevance. It's a big reason he is losing the female vote so badly.
LINSEY DAVIS: Vice President Harris, I want to give you your time to respond. But I do want to ask, would you support any restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade. And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It's insulting to the women of America. And understand what has been happening under Donald Trump's abortion bans. Couples who pray and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments. What is happening in our country, working people, working women who are working one or two jobs, who can barely afford childcare as it is, have to travel to another state to get on a plane sitting next to strangers, to go and get the health care she needs. Barely can afford to do it. And what you are putting her through is unconscionable. And the people of America have not -- the majority of Americans believe in a woman's right to make decisions about her own body. And that is why in every state where this issue has been on the ballot, in red and blue states both, the people of America have voted for freedom..
COMMENT: Once again, dodging and incompetence, There are seven states/DC which provide no protections for viable preborn children. This is a salient issue if you're trying to nationalize Roe. As mentioned earlier, the supreme court of Alabama didn't outlaw IVF. They extended legal rights to IVF embryo parents whose embryonic children were destroyed. Providers had a meltdown in the aftermath. Pregnancy is not simply about women's rights; a preborn child has her own natural rights For roughly the first 5 months of life has a biological dependence on her mother. Her mother had surgical alternatives to prevent pregnancies, various contraceptives for her and her partner to minimize the risk of pregnancy, not to mention the vast majority of pregnancies involve mutual consented sexual behavior, which functionally can result in pregnancy for fertile women. We pro-lifers think once preborn life exists, there are competing rights, and the pro-abort arbitrarily defines away the rights of the preborn, who as early as 12 weeks already has functional organs and recognizable body parts and a nervous system. We don't argue the bodily autonomy of someone who abuses his freedom to kill or steal from another human being. I am not persuaded because of the popularity of the unjust act of killing a preborn human being
LINSEY DAVIS: Vice president Harris --
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Excuse me, I have to respond. Another lie. It's another lie. I have been a leader on IVF which is fertilization. The IVF -- I have been a leader. In fact, when they got a very negative decision on IVF from the Alabama courts, I saw the people of Alabama and the legislature two days later voted it in. I've been a leader on it. They know that and everybody else knows it. I have been a leader on fertilization, IVF. And the other thing, they -- you should ask, will she allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Come on.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Would you do that? Why don't you ask her that question -
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Why don't you answer the question would you veto –
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That's the problem. Because under Roe v. Wade.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Answer the question, would you veto--
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month -
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That's not true.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And probably after birth. Just look at the governor, former governor of Virginia. The governor of Virginia said we put the baby aside and then we determine what we want to do with the baby.
COMMENT: Trump routinely exaggerates his role like in the Alabama IVF fix which basically extended criminal and civil immunity to IVF providers and receivers. [Providers often destroy leftover or unusable embryos.] There was a lot of pressure from constituencies on the Alabama legislature to act quickly.. I think Trump's focus on the final trimester (and the seven states/DC has more to do with countering Harris' criticisms of states with 6-18 week limits and the seeming trend of blue states waiving born alive infant protection, although I've pointed ou there are relatively few babies who survive abortions or are aborted in late pregnancy. However, Harris' seeming indignation and state of denial over lack of late term protections in some states is not a credible response However, a more salient response to Trump's point over late term abortions and alleged infanticide is that it really isn't relevant, at least to the original Roe decision, relevant to the plurality of Roe-like states, with some final trimester state protections. . As mentioned earlier, Roe permitted but did not mandate last trimester regulation.
A far better argument for Trump to have made would be, e.g., the case of Curtis Butler, who survived early delivery at 21 weeks. So, Curtis' natural rights were recognized at 21 weeks; how are his rights "more equal" than a 21-week baby still living in her mother's womb?
DAVID MUIR: We're going to turn now to immigration and border security. We know it's an issue that's important to Republicans, Democrats, voters across the board in this country. Vice President Harris, you were tasked by President Biden with getting to the root causes of migration from Central America. We know that illegal border crossings reached a record high in the Biden administration. This past June, President Biden imposed tough new asylum restrictions. We know the numbers since then have dropped significantly. But my question to you tonight is why did the administration wait until six months before the election to act and would you have done anything differently from President Biden on this?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: So I'm the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings. And let me say that the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported. And that bill would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border to help those folks who are working there right now over time trying to do their job. It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States. I know there are so many families watching tonight who have been personally affected by the surge of fentanyl in our country. That bill would have put more resources to allow us to prosecute transnational criminal organizations for trafficking in guns, drugs and human beings. But you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said kill the bill. And you know why? Because he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. And understand, this comes at a time where the people of our country actually need a leader who engages in solutions, who actually addresses the problems at hand. But what we have in the former president is someone who would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. And I'll tell you something, he's going to talk about immigration a lot tonight even when it's not the subject that is being raised. And I'm going to actually do something really unusual and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams, and your, your desires. And I'll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. And I pledge to you that I will.
COMMENT: I think I'll refer to this response as Harris' Hannibal Lecter moment. Notice how Harris really doesn't respond to the moderator's questions about her role as border czar, how she would respond differently than Biden, why the Administration procrastinated after the end of Title 42 until election season for revised asylum restrictions. We get this bizarre opening where she brags about her experience as state attorney general (does she think she's running for US Attorney General?) We don't get an overview of her immigration and border policies She doesn't discuss existing House legislation Majority Leader Schumer has been sitting on for some time. She seems intent on blaming Trump for failure of a Senate bipartisan compromise, unpopular on both sides of the aisle (and considered to be unacceptable to the House) and high-profile failures of immigration under Bush and Obama. The rest is a personal attack on Trump, perhaps aimed at getting under Trump's skin.
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you. President Trump, on that point I want to get your response.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I would like to respond.
DAVID MUIR: Let me just ask, though, why did you try to kill that bill and successfully so? That would have put thousands of additional agents and officers on the border.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: First let me respond as to the rallies. She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them to be there. And then showing them in a different light. So, she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what, what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War 3, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk -- not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame. As far as rallies are concerned, as far -- the reason they go is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. It's a very simple phrase. Make America great again. She's destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success. Not only success. We'll end up being Venezuela on steroids.
DAVID MUIR: I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community --
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I've seen people on television
DAVID MUIR: Let me just say here this ...
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food. So maybe he said that and maybe that's a good thing to say for a city manager.
DAVID MUIR: I'm not taking this from television. I'm taking it from the city manager.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.
DAVID MUIR: Again, the Springfield city manager says there's no evidence of that.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We'll find out
COMMENT: Notice here Trump is just as unresponsive as Harris, as Trump never addresses his issues with the Senate bipartisan border bill. Harris has successfully gotten under Trump's skin: it's a tactical blunder since he's not talking about the border, his strong issue in the election.. He's undisciplined, unprepared and unfocused. But then Trump transitions into one if the most bizarre moments in US election history since his bragging about the size of his manhood in the 2016 GOP primary. First, the Haitians in Springfield OH aren't even relevant to the border crisis. Local plants couldn't recruit enough local workers, and so the Haitian population is there under a foreign worker program, and employers are happy. Trump's claims have been thoroughly debunked. It's not exactly clear where he was going with this other than stoking xenophobic fearmongering.
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris, I'll let you respond to the rest of what you heard.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Talk about extreme. Um, you know, this is I think one of the reasons why in this election I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans who have formally worked with President Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain including the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congressmember Liz Cheney. And if you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is, if he didn't make it clear already, just ask people who have worked with him. His former chief of staff, a four-star general, has said he has contempt for the constitution of the United States. His former national security adviser has said he is dangerous and unfit. His former secretary of defense has said the nation, the republic would never survive another Trump term. And when we listen to this kind of rhetoric, when the issues that affect the American people are not being addressed, I think the choice is clear in this election.
COMMENT: This is a purely personal attack on Trump. Zero reference to the border, immigration or even the Springfield allegation. This may be the worst debate exchange in recent American history.
DAVID MUIR: President Trump, I'll give you a quick minute to respond.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. Thank you. Because when I hear that -- see, I'm a different kind of a person. I fired most of those people. Not so graciously. They did bad things or a bad job. I fired them. They never fired one person. They didn't fire anybody having to do with Afghanistan and the Taliban and the 13 people whose, whose, were just killed viciously and violently killed and I got to know the parents and the family. They should have fired all those generals, all those top people because that was one of the most incompetently handled situations anybody has ever seen. So when somebody does a bad job I fire them. And you take a guy like Esper. He was no good, I fired him. So he writes a book. Another one writes a book. Because with me they can write books. With nobody else can they. But they have done such a poor job. And they never fire anybody. Look at the economy. Look at the inflation. They didn't fire any of their economists. They have the same people. That's a good way not to have books written about you. But just to finish, I got more votes than any Republican in history by far. In fact, I got more votes than any president, sitting president in history by far.
DAVID MUIR: Let me continue on immigration. It was what you wanted to talk about earlier. So let's get back to your deportation proposal that the vice president has reacted to as well. President Trump, you called this the largest domestic deportation operation in the history of our country. You say you would use the National Guard. You say if things get out of control you'd have no problem using the U.S. military.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: With local police.
DAVID MUIR: You also said you would use local police. How would you deport 11 million undocumented immigrants? I know you believe that number is much higher. Take us through this. What does this look like? Will authorities be going door to door in this country?
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. It is much higher because of them. They allowed criminals. Many, many, millions of criminals. They allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals. They allowed people to come in, drug dealers, to come into our country, and they're now in the United States. And told by their countries like Venezuela don't ever come back or we're going to kill you. Do you know that crime in Venezuela and crime in countries all over the world is way down? You know why? Because they've taken their criminals off the street and they've given them to her to put into our country. And this will be one of the greatest mistakes in history for them to allow -- and I think they probably did it because they think they're going to get votes. But it's not worth it. Because they're destroying the fabric of our country by what they've done. There's never been anything done like this at all. They've destroyed the fabric of our country. Millions of people let in. And all over the world crime is down. All over the world except here. Crime here is up and through the roof. Despite their fraudulent statements that they made. Crime in this country is through the roof. And we have a new form of crime. It's called migrant crime. And it's happening at levels that nobody thought possible.
DAVID MUIR: President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country, but Vice President the...
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: use me, the FBI -- they were defrauding statements. They didn't include the worst cities. They didn't include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.
COMMENT: Trump once again is defending himself from Harris' attack of former Trump Administration personnel endorsing her.by throwing them over the bus. I don't that that response does well outside the party base. Getting back to immigration, Trump is pushing mass deportations of 11 million unauthorized aliens, most of whom have been here for over 10 years. Let me first point out this is not the first time Trump made this promise; he made the same commitment in 2016. According to HHS, "In the first four years of the Obama administration, there were more than 1.5 million non-citizens deported and the first Trump administration deported more than 1.2 million non-citizens,"
There are a number of moral and fiscal objections to Trump's unrealistic mass evictions. First, realize that bad immigration policy has a lot to do with it. Take the general history of Mexican migrants; some of what I'm discussing references these 2 sources: here and here.
First, let's set up some context for the above chart. Keep in mind in the mid-nineteenth century, the US acquired territory that was originally part of Mexico, e.g., via Texas independence, the Mexican-American War and the Gadsden Purchase. You had families divided by new national borders, native Mexicans under a new government, etc. You had largely unfettered movement, a lot of seasonal in nature, especially better-paying work in the agricultural southern US:[A]pproximately 300,000 Mexican nationals found themselves living within the United States. Throughout the rest of the 19th century and early 20th century, Mexican migration was not subject to any restrictions, and Mexicans were free to move across the border, and often did so, typically in order for them to work in professions such as the construction of the railway system, or as seasonal agricultural laborers. From 1910 to 1920, the political violence and societal chaos caused by the Mexican Revolution also played a role in increasing migration northwards. Mexico's working-age population faced a shortage of jobs and depressingly low earning which was due to Diaz Notices that continued to benefit hacendados at the expense of campesinos. The impoverished campesinos in central Mexico started moving north in search of work, higher pay, and more affordable living conditions. On average, immigrants came from more advantageous background as the cost of migration limited poorer individuals from migrating. Economic inequality, rural poverty, significantly lower wages, and better opportunities have also played a role throughout the 20th century as factors pulling Mexicans to migrate to the US.
The immigration laws of the U.S. such as Emergency Quota Act generally allowed exemptions for Mexico, while being more restrictive to citizens of the Eastern Hemisphere. Mexicans received special allowances under U.S. immigration law due to the importance of Mexican labor in the U.S. economy. One example of these allowances is the Immigration Act of 1917. Under this act, all potential immigrants would have to pass a literacy test and pay a head tax. At the request of growers in the southwest who depended on farm labor from Mexico, the U.S. Secretary of Labor waived those requirements for Mexican immigrants. The groups interested in the availability of inexpensive labor ensured that the immigration laws in place throughout the early 20th century did not adversely affect the movement of Mexican migrants
It is no no mistake that 2 GOP Texas governors and former Presidential candidates, George Bush and Rick Perry, were pro-immigration. In fact, Perry once openly embraced the notion of "open borders", now an epithet in the Age of Trump. I, also a native Texan and proud proponent of open borders, still remember being a junior professor at UTEP in the late 80's when a Latino colleague invited me and another colleague to lunch at a Juarez restaurant across the border. I didn't need my passport.
Eventually the open seasonal migration became more formalized, and there were times Mexico itself were concerned about an excess number of "illegal" workers seeking better pay and opportunities on their own, concerned about rotting crops in Mexican fields and losing many Mexicans needed to develop and industrialize the country. But Mexico also gained from the arrangement as many of those American wages were spent in the Mexican economy, and Mexican workers returned home to work after the American harvest. There were periods of discontent on the American side, particularly during the Depression era as more unemployed Americans were willing to do agricultural or other migrant labor. The formal arrangement for guest workers reignited with American entry into WWII and resulting manpower shortages became known as the bracero moment. Then we say xenophobic concerns as American GIs returned from the war as many saw Mexicans as "stealing Americanjobs" and Mexicans became the scapegoat of alleged social ills,
See Trump's parallels in any of this nonsense? You should because it is a context Trump himself points to as an example for what he is trying to do, namely Operation Wetback. [As an aside, "wetback" is considered a racist epithet; I should know because I attended a south Texan border community high school with Charles Hornberger, a damn good debater and standout basketball point guard. Charles is Jacob Hornberger's little brother. Familiar readers know I personally backed Jacob's 2020 and 2024's LP Presidential nomination bids. The interested reader is invited to read or listen to Jacob, who is far more articulate and knowledgeable om this topic than I am. Jacob grew up on a Laredo area ranch and personally knew and worked with Mexican migrant workers.] So on this 1953-1954 Operation:
Trump’s love for Operation Wetback makes sense — not just because the name, like a lot of other things Trump says, offends immigrants and Latinos in the year 2015. Operation Wetback, which took place during the Eisenhower administration, was the closest to mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants the US has ever actually come. Over the summer of 1954 and into 1955, hundreds of immigration agents swept through the southwestern United States, rounding up immigrants who were in the US without legal authorization and packing them into trucks, trains, planes, and ships to be sent back to Mexico. It was macho and militarized. It was very Trump-y.
Needless to say, Trump (like US officials in the mid-‘50s) exaggerated the impact of Operation Wetback. And Trump might find the real story of the operation somewhat surprising: Behind the hyped, militarized Operation Wetback of 1954 were years of quieter (and arguably more effective) enforcement, as the US collaborated with the Mexican government to encourage the legal hiring of immigrant workers as a complement to a crackdown on illegal hiring. In fact, the greatest success of Operation Wetback is that it encouraged immigrants who’d been working in the US illegally to become legal — the sort of thing we might call “amnesty” today.
Well, this operation ultimately got canceled/defunded because among other things, the sweep illegally uprooted and deported Latino American citizens. I guarantee Trump has no idea what hell is until he starts ripping blended families apart, deporting children and/or their parents from the only home they've ever known, After 10 or more years of being law-abiding contributors to the community--and according to Pew over 8 million of the 11M are taxpaying residents, all over the lack of a piece of paper from a broken-down immigration system? In fact, there wasn't even a cap on Latinos until the 1965 Immigration Law added them to the anti-immigration quota system introduced under Coolidge The current quotas allow only a trickle across the border, the work permit system is both inadequate and a bureaucratic hell. Don't forget:, as Cato Institute notes, Trump didn't much affect the 11M unauthorized alien population but deeply cut the legal immigration program, which is the moral equivalent of shooting your own economy in the foot.
So, now having provided context, let's return to the chart above; as the Vox excerpt points out, Eisenhower simply legalized unauthorized workers, and border violations dropped to a trickle. For a variety of reasons (including union opposition to Latino competition), JFK/LBJ ended vs reformed the bracero program; you see a reversed trend after 1965 immigration reform without a viable seasonal worker program. Ironically, even though only a small fraction of Latinos sought permanent residency before the end of bracero.
The ensuing problem of course is the hardening of the border and the toughening of the border without a guaranteed right to return led to a skyrocketing permanent residency
Let me close this comment by pointing out Trump's plans to deport 11M unauthorized aliens is out of touch with reality. Trump couldn't get Congressional funding simply to build his stupid wall. The idea that Dems are going to fund his related operations is a fantasy, e.g., to bribe local police to round up aliens. He has no state/local authority to work around sanctuary cities and states. If you thought immigration judges were overwhelmed in handling thousands of migrants, you can't imagine millions of aliens. He also doesn't control the National Guard; technically they report to the governors of their states. He can't use federal troops (Posse Comitatus Act)
DAVID MUIR: President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country, but Vice President the...
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: use me, the FBI -- they were defrauding statements. They didn't include the worst cities. They didn't include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.
COMMENT: Trump as usual is wrong and incompetent. [Not to mention most violent crimes are state/local vs. federal.] The allegation the jobs adjustments proved "fraud". [I suppose the fact that Trump has been convicted of fraud might make it seem like he knows what he's talking about.]
Let's review what's going on in the national stats:
The BLS’ monthly snapshot of the labor market is comprised of two surveys: One of households (which provides demographic data and feeds into the all-important unemployment rate) and the other of businesses (designed to measure employment, hours and earnings)
.Wednesday’s preliminary downward revision was expected, economists say, noting the lagged but far more accurate Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, or QCEW, has shown a slower pace of job gains than the more timely, but less comprehensive, monthly employment surveys and estimates (*more on that methodology and the revision process later).
Now out the crime rate, the moderator is mostly true but there has been a slight blip year over year during Biden's tenure.
While crime rates have fallen sharply over the long term, the decline hasn’t always been steady. There have been notable increases in certain kinds of crime in some years, including recently.
In 2020, for example, the U.S. murder rate saw its largest single-year increase on record – and by 2022, it remained considerably higher than before the coronavirus pandemic. Preliminary data for 2023, however, suggests that the murder rate fell substantially last year.
Guess who was President in 2020?
DAVID MUIR: President Trump, thank you. I'll let you respond, Vice President Harris.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, I think this is so rich. Coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, has been found liable for sexual assault and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing. And let's be clear where each person stands on the issue of what is important about respect for the rule of law and respect for law enforcement. The former vice president called for defunding, federal law enforcement, 45,000 agents, get this, on the day after he was arraigned on 34 felony counts. So let's talk about what is important in this race. It is important that we move forward, that we turn the page on this same old tired rhetoric. And address the needs of the American people, address what we need to do about the housing shortage, which I have a plan for. Address what we must do to support our small businesses. Address bringing down the price of groceries. But frankly, the American people are exhausted with the same old tired playbook.
COMMENT: Once again, Harris provably sucks as a debater. Her whole response says absolutely nothing about crime under Biden/Harris. And somehow she launches into a rehearsed soundbite on her economically illiterate attempt to control prices and bribery for housing subsidies, neither enumerated responsibilities of the Presidency.
I do give her credit for raising the issue for raising the more relevant issue of federal vs state/local law enforcement, although she fails to report appropriate context. Trump did not make defunding federal law enforcement as part of his program for the obvious point as POTUS he would in principle be in control of Justice, so Harris is disingenuous here. He was venting to GOP House leaders over so-called "weaponization of the Justice Department" at his expense, and since they control the people's purse, he wanted them to use their power to exact a price from Dems. Not even conservatives wanted that vote on their voting record and let the Dems call them soft on crime, and it would go nowhere in the Dem-controlled Senate. As usual, Trump is undisciplined as a candidate, and it comes back to bite him on the ass. But Harris right here is simply engaging in personal attacks versus a serious discussion of policy,
