Jennings: Trump’s Base Voted for an ‘Aggressive Internal Enforcement’

Dean: “I do want to also touch on immigration. That‘s some — we got some polling on that as well this week. And Scott, we were — Kevin touched on this, too, but this new poll shows a majority of Americans think Trump has gone too far when it comes to immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Obviously, we are six months in. They are getting — you know, they‘ve had months now to show kind of what they want to do with immigration. How do you think the Trump Administration should think about that issue going forward?”
JENNINGS: “Well, there‘s always two parts of this issue. One was dealing with the border. And just by taking office and changing the attitude of the federal government, the southern border is effectively closed. So that‘s solved and that‘s a good thing. And in the Big Beautiful Bill, we now have new investments for ICE and border enforcement. So that part‘s okay. The messier part was always going to be internal enforcement, deportations. And there was a lot of polling during the election and since that the American people were a-okay with deportations, specifically of violent criminals, but really of mass deportations generally. I do think a lot of narratives have swirled about what they‘re doing that simply aren‘t true, but this was always going to be messier because you‘re dealing with people who are already here, not people who are trying to get here and are being stopped at the border. So, you know, most supporters of the president that I know, most Republicans that I know are perfectly fine with what the administration is doing. They voted for an aggressive internal enforcement here. And so I see no signs that they‘re going to be slowing down. This is one of the motivating issues that got President Trump into politics in the first place. It got him the Republican nomination in the first place. This is one of the issues why he exists in politics. And so I think it‘s full speed ahead, polling or no polling.”
Dean: “Chuck, your thoughts before we go to break on that?”
ROCHA: “Look, I‘m one of those rare Democrats that‘s a truth teller. And a truth teller would tell you that he‘s done a good job on the border, and you can write that down, but he‘s not going to get any credit for it because of the other thing that Scott talked about. The reason you see his numbers slipping, and I see it in focus groups in battleground states every day, is folks don‘t like to see the militarization of their streets and people being deported who shouldn‘t be deported. Every Democrat, every independent and every Republican was all in for violent criminals who come here and break our laws and do something really bad, they should be sent back. But your mom and dad and your cousin down the street who came here 22 years ago, who are taking care of your kids, getting deported, that‘s what America didn‘t want.”