The FRONTLINE Interviews

Anita Kumar

White House Correspondent, Politico

Anita Kumar is a White House correspondent and associate editor for Politico.

This is a transcript of an interview with FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore conducted on June 19, 2019. It has been edited for clarity and length.

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The Trump Campaign

I know you didn’t follow Trump during the campaign, but let’s talk a little bit how important immigration was to the Trump campaign, from beginning to end—how he viewed it, how he used it to sort of stir up the base.What’s your view on that?

Well, I mean, you’re right; I didn’t cover it, but I have talked to so many people since then, and I’ve been to a lot of Trump rallies.And you know, clearly, he was looking for some quick sound bytes, some really—just these phrases that would resonate with people.And obviously he thought immigration was a great issue for him, so that “Build that wall” phrase that I’ve heard so many times chanted at rallies, I mean, I think he really used immigration—I would say it was his number one issue during the 2016 campaign.I’m thinking it’s probably going to be his number one issue for the 2020 campaign.He hasn’t really deviated from that.But I really think that resonated with a lot of people.

I’ve talked to, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of supporters over the last few years about why they supported him, and immigration was always on that list.I mean, the other—the other thing was sort of intertwined with immigration.It was that he’s a—he’s a fighter, and they liked how he talks, so—but that goes hand in hand with how he talked about immigration.They liked that he was a fighter against immigrants.They liked that he had these—this way of pushing that and showing everyone, you know, the “Build the wall” and all that sort of stuff, you know, pushing against Mexico, the whole thing, things that people couldn’t do until he got there.

When [Jeff] Sessions—the importance of Sessions, [Stephen] Miller and [Steve] Bannon joining the campaign, how does that, to some extent, change the campaign?How does it add to the campaign?What did it mean to Trump’s chances of winning?

Well, I think they all really thought that immigration also was very important, right, and they were all very hard-line on immigration.So as Trump gets into the White House, we’ll soon discover that there are two factions in the White House, and there have been two factions for, you know, the whole time he’s been there, right?No matter who comes and goes, there always seems to be two factions.But there’s been some constants, right?And Miller has been there from the beginning.So Miller, obviously Bannon and Sessions at the time, were really on that hard-line view, both because I think they thought it was a great political issue, but also because I think they fundamentally thought that the United States should be tougher on immigrants, both legal and illegal immigration.

And that’s the thing that people—it’s kind of gotten lost.It’s not just that they wanted a cut to illegal immigration, but they wanted a cut to legal immigration, people who came here legally.And I feel like that’s one of sort of the lost things in these last few years.But it’s clear they kept him on that track, right?If there was anyone over there saying, “Hmm, I’m not sure we should do this,” they were the trio that were saying this was a winner for him.

Sessions’ reputation when he was in the Senate was what?

Was just what you would think about this: very hard-line; you know, stricter enforcement; less immigration.And obviously, you know, Miller was right there with him, side by side, helping him in a quiet way that people didn’t really know on Capitol Hill, if you weren’t really there and paying attention, that would sort of help him kill these compromise bills that he wasn’t involved in, or he didn’t support, rather.

The thing I’ve heard about Stephen Miller over and over again is that it’s—it is his views, right?He does have hard-line views for sure, but it’s also a personality thing with him.When he gets something in his head that he wants or doesn’t want, he pushes it, right?So one of the stories I heard was that he, when he was on Capitol Hill, when he was working for Sessions, when they opposed and were trying to kill a compromise bill, it was—he was sending hundreds of emails, basically just ripping through the bill on why you shouldn’t support it.But you can convince someone of your argument in a nice way, and you can be really, you know, show your personality, and show that—not even have a personality about it, just be so hard-line about it.And that’s how he always has been.That’s been the reputation since he’s been in the White House.So it’s both that he has a hard-line view, but he also rubs people the wrong way.

Why are they drawn to this “imperfect instrument,” or whatever Bannon calls it, of Trump?Trump, at the point that they join up, is, you know, still questionable whether he’d ever reach the finish line.But they’re all drawn to him.They see something in him.What is it?

I think they saw what a lot of people saw, which, to be honest, you know, covering—I was covering Hillary Clinton.We didn’t see it, just because I wasn’t there at those rallies.A lot of people in America didn’t see—didn’t see it.But it was the way he looked at things, right?It was the way that he didn’t care about how he sounded, right?He—the fighter that I mentioned before, it’s the thing that everyone mentions to me.They’re drawn to him because he was different; he was blunt; he said what he wanted.And he was that—and he pushed for it.

You know, he didn’t have that political background, so he didn’t have those philosophies and, you know, perspective on things.He didn’t have this great big platform or anything.It was people helping him have that.But I think what they saw in him was a different kind of person.And he is a different kind of person.And let’s be honest: He can be molded.He can be persuaded.And that’s not on immigration; that’s on a variety of things.We’ve seen that.

… I mean, they’re drawn to him, also, because they see the basic building blocks.

Of him, you mean?

Of him being able to be molded into someone who will do their bidding, to some extent, and where they want to see immigration reform to go.I mean, these guys have never been interested in one thing.It’s not DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals]; it’s not one or another.It’s like they want to reform, all of them, but especially Sessions and Miller.

Yeah, especially Miller.It is a perspective on what this country should look like.So you’re right.It’s not one—it’s not one thing.It’s a—it’s a philosophy, really.It’s a, you know, how we should live in this country.And yeah, so maybe they did see some of that.And we’re making him sound, Donald Trump, like a kid or something.And I don’t mean that.But it’s clear that when he talks to people, he hears what they’re saying, and he can be persuaded.He wants people—and says he wants people to give him differing views.That’s one of the reasons you see that differing view in the White House.And you have for years now, is that he wants that.He wants one person to come in and say, “We should do it this way,” and another person to say, “No way.We want this way.”And so maybe they did see that, and they thought he could be persuaded.

The Travel Ban

Within days, I mean during the transition, they write up seven executive orders, ready to go.Within days, six of those executive orders are passed, the travel ban being one of them.Nothing on DACA, however.So what’s going on in those initial—I mean, I know Bannon has talked about the fact that what he wanted was shock and awe, basically.He wanted to send out these executive orders, one after the other, one after the other, and create chaos to some extent, to change things, start the change that they promised throughout the campaign.With the executive orders, what’s going on?And especially with the travel ban.And then what are the repercussions expected or not expected, and why it happened?

The day the travel ban came out, I don’t know why everybody, particularly the reporters and just people in our circle, were so surprised by it.He said it was coming, and yet we were still surprised by it.You know, all presidents want to start day one with a flurry of executive orders.Those are ready to go during the transition.So they’re ready on day one.They want to change what the previous person was doing.They want to show this is what they’re doing.

So in that way, it was a normal practice.But in another way it wasn’t, because they weren’t just executive orders to say, “Oh, we’re going to move in a certain direction.”They were mandating things happen right away, right, things that they hadn’t really fully walked through.How would the travel ban really work?I think with Donald Trump, there have been so many things primarily about immigration over the years, where he says he wants it one way but he never lets the staff catch up.So we don’t know logistically how it’s going to work.

So he wants to do the travel ban, but there are so many unanswered questions, right?He wants to deport people, but he doesn’t really know how that’s going to happen.And it’s not really his fault, obviously.That’s for staff to do.But he often gets ahead of them.So in some ways, they couldn’t answer the questions of how this would work.And one way I could tell that they weren’t ready is, they wouldn’t send out the paperwork.They signed the executive orders, but they wouldn’t send out to the media and the public: “Here is what it actually says.”They didn’t want people to see what it said right away, on all of those.In the beginning, for the executive orders for—I don’t know if it was days or weeks, but for a while there, they wouldn’t send out the words.And how can you judge what someone’s doing if you can’t see the words?

Even though it went into law immediately, and airports around America were like completely screwed up because of the chaos.

Right.Right.You asked what the repercussions were.Massive protests that I’m not sure they could have—they knew were going to happen.I don’t know that most people knew they were going to happen.I think that was just a spontaneous reaction.Remember, we had had the march on his Inauguration Day and weekend, and I think things were just kind of spontaneous.

“Hey, we’ve got to go—we’ve got to go protest this.”And people were just going to the airports.Massive protests all across the country, and a lot of legal questions.And we saw the beginning of what we’ve seen, now, for years with the Trump administration, which is immediate—someone immediately taking it to court, right, people taking everything he’s doing on immigration to court, to let the courts decide.

Did the White House care?

You know, I don’t know in the beginning if they knew that was going to happen.Now, now, you know, all these years in, they’re so ready for that.They know exactly that that’s going to happen with everything they do on immigration.And they’re so used to it.In the beginning, unclear if they knew that was going to happen so quickly.

Jeff Sessions as Attorney General

Sessions’ role as attorney general: So how energetic is he in behind the scenes, sort of changing things, moving judges, changing the way the sanctuary cities are dealt with?I mean, how much is going on behind closed doors, that we don’t even understand?… What was his role in all of this?

I think it’s totally been overshadowed, right, because the only thing now we remember about him is his—what he had to do with the Mueller investigation, or not do with the Mueller investigation.You know, President Trump sort of tainted that, his reputation, right?So now we remember it as the guy who got fired because he recused himself from the Russian investigation.But what his real impact in this administration is so many other things.It’s not just immigration; it was a lot of law-and-order issues that he was—this was the—this was the job of his lifetime.I mean, he was just thrilled to get this job.This is the job he always wanted.

And he really wanted to put his mark, not just to have the reputation, but he believed in those things and wanted to do them, on just a variety of issues, but immigration being one of them.And I think he was, in the beginning, extremely influential, one, because Donald Trump trusted him.“You handle that; you take care of that.”And so he got to put his own stamp on things, but also on immigration, where the president was looking for solutions to what he said were the problems, things he wanted to fix, and I think he really listened to him.

Now obviously, that relationship, you know, went a different—soured and went a completely different way.

But people say that after the recusal, and after the anger of the president towards him, then the multiple times that he was, you know, basically put on notice, that his job was about to end, that gave him the fire to—

—get what he could done.

—to get what he could done as quickly as he possibly could.

It’s an interesting—it’s not just him.I feel like everybody in the Trump administration—not maybe lower level; I’m talking Cabinet secretaries, high-ranking people—you’ve got to get done what you can, because you never know if you’re going to be there long enough.I mean, we’ve seen other firings.All the time we’re seeing people come and go.You get done what you can.You put it in as fast as you can, because you may not last.

Stephen Miller

So what’s Miller’s role when he comes in?Here’s this young guy.He’s not a lawyer.He’s outspoken as hell, and he’s earned the trust of the president, and he’s the president’s warmer-upper in all these gatherings.What role does he play, and how does he become basically the one in charge of the White House’s overview on immigration?

Well, he has a much bigger job than that, but everybody kind of associates him with that.But he also writes speeches.He also is a senior adviser on every major policy that is going through the White House.So his portfolio is huge.I mean, basically, it’s going through him and a handful of other people.You know, he’s just gained the president’s trust over the campaign and the transition and in the White House, and with so many people coming and going, he’s one of the last people left that’s one of the originals.He’s still there.And he’s still, you know, kind of—he’s still being very influential on a variety of things.

…. He had always sort of had this philosophy on immigration.So he was—he wasn’t going to change that.So he took that upon himself.

I mean, the president obviously gave him room to do that, but he also took it on.And the president was receptive to it, because remember, this is a president who campaigned so hard on it and has to deliver.Now he’s running for reelection, and his reelection is that he did what he said he would do.Now, in a lot of ways, he hasn’t done it yet.Or maybe he won’t.But he needs to fulfill some of those promises so he can say that he did it.And so here’s—here’s this staffer saying, “I’m going to help you do that.”So he was open to it.

General [John] Kelly moves from DHS [Department of Homeland Security] over to the White House, I guess July of 2017.The role he plays, but more importantly, specifically on immigration, sort of what is his take on immigration?… Describe him, and describe the role that he was playing for Trump.

Yeah.I mean, a lot of people described him as a moderate.He said that he personally wanted the “Dreamers,” those that—DACA recipients to be protected.And so that was one thing he talked about in his personal capacity, if there was such a thing.So people really expected him to be moderate.And then there were people that would call me and say: “You’re wrong.He might have said that about DACA and Dreamers, but he’s actually much more hard-line than you think."On most other immigration issues, he’s quite, you know, he’s very much for enforcement.He’s—he’s more in line with Stephen Miller than you think.

I mean, we interviewed Sen.[Dick] Durbin yesterday, and he said: “You know, when Kelly came in, I was optimistic.I liked what he said about DACA.But he really disappointed me in the end.”

It was almost as if it was that one thing he said, that “I think the Dreamers should be protected,” and everyone thought, oh, it’s all—it’s all the pieces of immigration.He’s going to be on our side, all these Democrats and people that were opposed to what the president was doing.But it didn’t really work out that way.

The Dreamers and DACA

So let’s talk about Dreamers.So in August of 2017, Sessions tells Trump that he can no longer support or defend the DACA ruling that Obama had put through; that because the 10 states are suing the government with given a deadline, that the Justice Department can no longer support doing nothing.What’s going on there? …

I’ll just take you back for a minute, which is, months have gone by, and people on both sides cannot believe that this president has not acted.Everybody was asking each other, “What was going on?Why hasn’t he done this?,” on both sides.And we could not figure out what was happening.And the president kept talking about it, right, because people kept asking, “What’s going to happen?”Out of all the immigration things I’ve seen come out of the White House, this was the most unusual.He said he was going to do something.He did a lot of the other things he said he would do, and he just couldn’t pull the trigger on this.And people kept asking him, were asking him all the time.And his answer really surprised a lot of people.The answer he gave was that he was feeling bad for them.He wanted to treat Dreamers with heart.And it was really surprising.

So we come to the point that you mentioned, and we have always suspected, that—that the attorney general was saying—was coming at this point just to make the president make a decision.It’s decision time.“I’m here to tell you that I can’t defend this in court.”And he suddenly has to do something.I mean, there’s something he has to do, and he’s wavered for months.It’s the pivotal moment where he has to make a decision, and then he still doesn’t quite make a decision.

And I credit that with General Kelly coming in there and saying: “Well, wait.I have a solution.You can basically punt, basically put it off for six months, and Congress will fix it.”And that is coming from someone who doesn’t understand how Washington works.And I don’t say that in a mean way.He just hadn’t been there to realize Congress isn’t going to do that.It’s one of the toughest things they have to do, and it’s just not going to happen, and it didn’t happen.

… Talk a little bit about the meetings that were taking place in the White House before Sessions made this statement, the meetings where people like Bannon, Miller, [Gene] Hamilton, [Kirstjen] Nielsen, Kelly were meeting to talk about how to kill DACA.

Yeah, they were.I mean, this is where this comes in, where people are disagreeing on what to do, right?It’s not just the president who is saying, “I want to treat them with heart.”It is groups on both sides lobbying the White House, “You can’t do this,” or, “You have to do this.”Particularly they were hearing from a lot of hard-line groups who were calling up and saying: “We helped you get elected.We support you.You said you would do this.You have to, you know—you have to abide by this campaign promise.What is the holdup?”

You know, I had groups tell me that until they saw the statistics come out about how many DACA recipients there were, they didn’t realize the Trump administration were still accepting them.They knew they hadn’t killed the program.So there’s two things going on here.You have the ones who already are—have the protections, and they knew they were out there.What they didn’t know is all these months that President Trump couldn’t make up his mind, he was still accepting new recipients.More people were getting protections and work permits to stay in the United States.They could not believe it.I mean, I was hearing from all these groups that were calling, calling the White House saying: “What are you doing?You’re doing exactly what President Obama did.You are like President Obama.”And it was, you know, really, it was—there was pressure in the White House: “What are we going to do?”And so there were all these meetings for them to try to decide about them.

But here is where it comes in.There were differing factions in the White House.You cannot overlook that the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, were there, saying that they felt that DACA recipients needed to be protected.You can’t overlook that people thought that the vice president, Mike Pence, thought they needed to be protected.There were other people, some of them long since gone, who were saying: “We need to find a solution.You can’t just out and out kill this program.”

And so they were trying to come up with all sorts of solutions.And it was General Kelly who, in the end, said, “Well, he thinks he has a compromise.”And remember, he also didn’t want to kill the program, so he was trying to come up with something.But the solution didn’t really help anyone, didn’t—didn’t get the support really of anyone.

Which was just to pause, basically.

Well, I mean, it was to kill it, but it was to kill it in six months.So it was very confusing for DACA recipients or people that had already applied or were planning on applying.They didn’t really know what that meant.So that created mass confusion again.But also, it basically started this clock ticking for six months, and the pressure was on Congress to do something, and they did not do it.

As some people are sort of reporting on, there was a plan that to create the pressure, have the states sue the government.This causes a deadline.This allows one to proceed and to push this forward, and that there were conversations and legal documents.There were conversations between Sessions and specifically the attorney general from Texas.What do we know at this point?

Reporters, including myself, heard from all the people on the left that they—that these—that the attorney general and the attorney general of Texas worked together to do this, to push the president.You know, I know that I and other colleagues, we asked a lot of questions.I put in requests to the attorney general’s office in Texas, you know, to Sessions’ office, and we could not find one piece of paper or one real piece of evidence to show that.

But people still believe that the attorney general, then Jeff Sessions, worked with these states, particularly Texas, where the attorney general is sort of leading this charge, and they were friendly, to pressure the president to do something.So basically, there was a deadline that said, “If you don’t act by this particular date, we’re going to sue.”And these were—these were suits from Republican attorney generals [sic].So clearly, the president is used to being sued, but not by Republicans, by people that are supportive of him, or thought they were supportive of him.

I mean, this is what I was getting back to.He is angering the people that supported him.These, you know, groups that can’t believe he kept the program growing—they need to push him to do something.So I never saw any shred of it.People always alluded to it, talked about it, were sure of it.And when you ask both sides—I talked to the attorney general of Texas.You know, they deny it.… But how much the attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions, was pushing and working with them, unclear.He clearly was pushing the president.How much he was working with the states, I’m not sure.

Gene Hamilton

All right.Who’s Gene Hamilton—What’s his role, where he comes from?

I’m not going to know a ton about this, even though he was one of our guests at the Correspondents’ Dinner, and I sat next to him.So Gene Hamilton worked for Jeff Sessions.He has both an immigration background, and obviously, he’s an attorney.He’s the counsel—he’s a counselor to Jeff Sessions.And a lot of times when you’re hearing in the beginning the first couple years, or year or so of the Trump presidency, Gene Hamilton’s name is there.Who is in the meetings?Gene Hamilton.

He is not only a lawyer, so he knows the legal aspects of everything; he has worked for Jeff Sessions, agrees with him—well, people assume he agrees with him philosophically.And he’s really helping do sort of the day-to-day part of this, right?So we see Jeff Sessions out there talking, but it’s someone like Gene Hamilton who’s helping implement.

Divisions in the White House

So as this debate is going forth in the White House, as you talked about, there’s a divide in the White House, as you mentioned.At some point, I think you guys write about the fact that it got to the point where, you know, Miller was seeing what was going on and was angry that the president was not acting, and Miller was ordered not to brief the president on the issue.Describe what happened.

Well, let’s be clear.The president knows exactly how Stephen Miller feels.But this president has a reputation of, whether it’s true or not, many people say that he ends up agreeing—he ends up agreeing with the last person he’s talked to.So everyone wants to be the last person he talks to.Stephen Miller wanted to go into the Oval Office and talk to the president about: “This is what you said you would do.We need to stop this program.We need to get this done.”And he is told not to, basically.So the president knows where he stands.But there are factions and forces on the other side of this issue who don’t want him there anymore.And there are a lot of people on the other side—I’ve mentioned some of them, right: Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner; you know, even John Kelly, Mike Pence, a lot of staffers; even Gary Cohn, who’s not even there anymore—who are thinking, we have to find a way to protect Dreamers.

And you said, at one point, that when Miller was trying to get in the Oval Office to talk him down that Kelly was the one that stopped him.

Right.Remember, Kelly—Gen. John Kelly wants—has said that he wants to protect Dreamers, and he pushed that.He’s the chief of staff.Everybody reports to him.And he wants the president to find some other way to protect them.

But, lo and behold, I mean, to some extent, the 10 states’ court cases that Sessions announces is the checkmate?

It is.When Sessions goes in to tell Donald Trump, “I can’t—I can’t defend this in court,” it’s pretty much over.I mean, it’s not that the program’s over; it’s that President Trump has to make a decision then, … because if they sue, it goes to court, and your own attorney general can’t defend you.If the Department of Justice can’t defend you, you need someone to defend you.So he has to make a decision.

And the decision is?

The decision is to—they put it as sort of a compromise.And the decision is to close down the program, to stop the program, but to wait six months.And the six months is solely so that Congress can come up with a solution.Congress has dealt with this issue before, a lot of times, and they hadn’t come up with a solution.That’s why President Obama did this in the first place.

… All right.So now it’s in Congress’ hands or whatever.And lo and behold, there’s a famous Jan. 9, 2018, meeting in the Oval Office that becomes a reality-television show.And Trump is meeting with Democrats.And [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein is there.And he starts talking about wanting to deal and figure out a solution to the Dreamer situation.And he’s sort of saying, “You guys come up with a bipartisan solution, and I’ll sign it.”And you know, he’s saying lots of other things.And you’ve got [Rep. Kevin] McCarthy in there trying to walk him back.So it’s an amazing hour of television.Take me to that moment and what happens, and what it says to the Republicans and what it says to the Democrats.

Here is the thing about Donald Trump.… He’s the guy that came in and said, “I’m the dealmaker, and I’ve made a million deals.”He wants to win, and he wants to make a deal.And so he’s sort of willing to listen to both sides and make the deal where he can make the deal, right?So he’s having this meeting, and Dianne Feinstein is basically proposing something that no Republican president will go for and no Republicans in the room want to go for.And the president is so quick to say, “OK.”I mean, this has happened so many times, where—you know, that was amazing because it was in front of the cameras.But there are moments where he’s behind the camera or in a private meeting, where someone will say something and propose something, and he’ll say, “OK,” only to find Republicans later really baffled at what he was doing, because it’s not Republican; it’s not the philosophy they have espoused.So, you know, they’re trying to rein him back in.

So that’s Tuesday Trump.Thursday Trump is a very different animal.

… Durbin and [Sen. Lindsey] Graham walk into the Oval Office with all these other Republicans and with a very different attitude.Durbin is the only Democrat there.The president gets angry very quickly.

… Graham and Durbin are going through the points of what they think might work, and they’re talking about certain visas would be adjusted from African countries and from Haiti.And this is when he makes the “shithole” comment.And everything basically—everybody points to that as the moment when the possibility for a solution, a bipartisan solution, goes up in flames.So tell me a little bit about that meeting, why it’s an intrinsic moment, and again, a failure for Congress to be able to work with this president, to accomplish what everybody seems to say they want.

You know, members of Congress and the president, when they agree or disagree, I mean, they have conversations, but it’s not nitty-gritty, right?The staff is there to do that.… But really, many times, he just wants to say that he won and—and make a deal.And so I thought he had a glimmer of that.And then when they come to confront him on this, of course it goes—it goes sideways for so many reasons, including comments that he made, and all sorts of leaks that have come out about that.He’s confronted by members of his own party, who—this isn’t the only time where they say: “You’re saying something that you don’t want to say.You’re saying something that goes against things that we believe in, that we won’t support.”I mean, and that’s really what it comes down to.It’s many times, I feel like this White House, particularly this president, doesn’t realize he can’t just say something and get it through Congress, right?He’s never had that background before, where he has to convince so many people of something.It’s just not going to happen, particularly when he doesn’t have members of his own party.

Zero Tolerance and Family Separation

… So the idea of family separation, there’s talk that what they were looking for was deterrence, was a way to stop people coming to the border.… Do you know how they viewed the idea of family separation at all, about whether in fact it was perhaps a deterrent factor?

Well, I think they did think it was a deterrent.I feel like they talked about that.I mean, reporting has shown—and it wasn’t mine—but reporting has shown they did consider separation, family separation.It wasn’t like one day they woke up and said, “We’re doing this.”Internally there had been discussions.But I don’t think they had any idea the ramifications that would occur, and I mean political ramifications.They—they clearly realized what they were doing, but they had no idea the uproar it would cause in the country and Congress.

So what were the ramifications?

There was bipartisan outrage, basically, that children were being separated from their parents at the border, and people wanted it to stop, and they called on the president to stop it.And it wasn’t just Democrats; that’s what really did it.It was people—Republicans being put on the spot, saying: “Do you support this?Do you support this from your president?”And there are very rare cases in the last couple, few years, where Republicans have really differed with the president, that they did not believe that this should happen.And they had to figure out what to do.And eventually the president reversed course.

And the blowback from reversing course?

I mean, there’s really two things that have happened.The president signed an executive order, but it didn’t really solve the problem.The problem is that there is a court case that says children can’t be detained for more than 20 days.That has nothing to do with whether they’re alone or together, right?So he’s saying, “OK, well, we’ll put them with their—with their parents so we don’t have family separation anymore.”But the problem is, it’s taking longer than 20 days to solve these cases.

So they’ve substituted one problem with just basically another.The families are together, which is as everyone wants.But now they’re in—they are possibly violating the settlement, where it says you have to release the children.So then where do you release the children to?So they’re back in the same problem.… They need to have more places to process.They need to have more places to house them.They need to have more judges.And you hear people talking about that.But that’s where you have to start to actually solve the problems they’re talking about, and they haven’t done that yet.

Why?

You know, we were just talking about this in the office.The money is coming, … and it’s literally not coming fast enough.The judges aren’t there fast enough.The housing isn’t there.The processing isn’t there.If I might—there’s one thing that’s just completely flown under the radar.I’ve heard hardly—I wrote a story about it, but there’s hardly anyone talking about it.Now, not only is there no place to house immigrants crossing the southern border, mostly in Texas, there’s no place to process them.They’re so overwhelmed in that one spot in Texas that they are flying and busing immigrants across the country to California, to other places in Texas, merely to process them.So that’s fingerprint, photograph, you know, give them a health check.And then they have to figure out wherever they go from there.So there’s a—the law says you have to do it within a certain period of time.They’re violating that law, and they have to move them…

… OK.Secretary Nielsen is—there’s that famous press conference in the White House that you’re probably sitting in, where Nielsen comes to the podium and is the one who is thrown under the bus, or however you want to define it, to defend the family separation policy.If you’re there, take us to that moment and what you saw and what you thought about that.

… At the White House, as you know, the briefings have gotten fewer and fewer.There’s just not as much information being passed out.And there are occasions, now, during this time, where the briefings are getting fewer, but the press secretary, Sarah Sanders, likes to put other people out there that she says are the experts.So when you see someone else coming out, oh, you’re ready.You know that there’s something big they want to talk about.She’s out there because there’s this—she needs to explain this policy.So she’s the person to do it.

And it’s just clear, from really the whole time, the time that she opens her mouth, that there’s not a way that she—she’s not explaining it well.There’s not a way that she’s going to come out of this looking good.And she didn’t.She got blamed for everything.She became the face of this policy.Nothing is happening without the president and others, many others, being involved.As I just said, immigration in the federal government is many, many departments and agencies.It’s the attorney general.It’s Stephen Miller.It’s Donald Trump.But by doing that briefing, she became the face of that.And that really haunted her for the rest of her time.I mean, that’s why Democrats, lawmakers were wanting her to explain herself, come to Capitol Hill and explain it.And she never—you know, that may not be the reason that she got fired.Donald Trump—that was not the reason Donald Trump fired her, but it was the reason she lost support from Congress and lost support from many people in the public.

One final thing on Secretary Nielsen’s press conference: What’s the feeling in the room about what she’s saying and the answers to the questions that are being asked?

… The feeling is, you’re kind of looking around at each other thinking, as soon as you get out of this room, it’s going to be chaos.You know, it’s going to be on cable news.It’s going to be all that dominates.It’s going to be the crisis of the day.

So in the Trump White House, we’re used to multiple things happening a day, multiple, just news breaking all the time.But you knew that was a turning point for her and also for the White House on this issue.

The 2018 Midterm Elections

All right, so let’s skip up to the summer/fall of 2018, and the caravan is all the talk, and the troops on the border.And there’s an election coming.

… But what’s the strategy now?I mean, we’re in election mode, it seems, again.And as far as immigration, it’s back to the 2016 program.It’s focused on [murdered student] Mollie Tibbetts, focus on the caravan.Some people said it was a fake crisis that was built up.What’s going on?And sort of what do we know that the strategy was to get to the midterms?

Oh, well, I mean, the president was fully, fully engaged on the midterms.The Republicans controlled the House and the Senate, and he didn’t want to lose that.And all the polls were showing that he was going to lose that.Well, in the Senate he probably wasn’t, but in the House he definitely was.And their sole focus really was, maybe on a House—House seat, one or two.But the focus was really on the Senate.And he did what he did in 2016.He went to the places that supported him.

…And he held his “Make America Great Again” rallies.And we were sort of eagerly waiting to see if the message would change.And the message was the same.It was about immigration.It might have changed a little bit, in that they talked about—he talked about the caravans all the time, and he talked about, you know, they—you still heard about “Build the wall.”We still heard all the same things.

But they talked a lot about “angel” families.They talked a lot about families who lost someone to an immigrant who was here illegally, who was a criminal, and you know, their family members died.There were places where “angel” families would show up.They showed up at the White House.They showed up at different places.And he talked about them a lot.He talked about specific stories and specific people.And so the theme was the same.The immigration was still the top of the list.Trade was still there, some of the same things he had talked about.But there was a slight variation in that he had more recent examples to talk about.

So how did that work out for them?

The Republicans kept the Senate and lost the House.And people felt that immigration helped them keep the Senate, but it cost them in the House.… And now there’s divided government, which, you know, the president couldn’t really get anything done with a Republican Congress, or not a lot.And so it’s been obvious he can’t get anything done now.

He… loses Kelly in December, in the midst of the shutdown.What’s the ramifications of that?What are your thoughts on that, his one—sometimes moderate Gen. Kelly?

You know, I still think immigration is his top issue.And I just think that losing Kelly—he’s lost Bannon at this point; he’s lost Sessions at this point—it has made Stephen Miller all the more powerful on this key issue.Now he has other staffers, and they do have opinions on immigration, but none of them feel so much in their being and their core about immigration as Stephen Miller.So it’s made him more powerful on that one issue.

Where we are now, I mean, we’re starting like really in March of 2019, the numbers are increasing at the border.The most important issue that he came to town to deal with, he’s not winning; he’s losing.The arrests are at a two-time high, double the amounts that had been.This is a real crisis now, and Trump is getting angrier and angrier.What’s going on in the White House as this is all taking place?And sort of what is the debate that’s going on?Or what’s the tenor of the White House?

So as we enter year three, there’s his third year, there’s a couple things that are happening.The first thing he has to deal with is the House Democrats are coming.So he’s dealt with that.But then something else starts to happen, which is everybody’s running for president all around him, and all these Democrats are running for president, and they are gearing up.He is getting regular meetings, even before we really hear him talking so much about reelection, he’s getting regular meetings from the campaign, and he’s very involved in the political part of that.

I can’t overestimate how much he’s an incumbent now.He’s the president of the United States, and all presidents have to run on their record.He’s running for reelection.He has to say that he did some things, and he needs to say, “It’s the wall; it’s immigration.”But the problem is, he doesn’t—he hasn’t done those things.He’s done what he could do on the wall, right?He’s got some money.He declared a national emergency.But the people are still coming over.And he’s very upset about this, very angry, and kind of lashing out at people, and upset that his staff can’t—can’t do this.

It’s not the only issue that hasn’t—he hasn’t delivered on, but it is his biggest issue.And so you have people telling him, like Stephen Miller, that he needs new people.And so this is when he’s starting to think about getting new people in key areas, where they can make—they can make decisions that will—he thinks, you know, stem the tide and be able to deal with the border crisis.But this is a—this is a Stephen Miller thing.Stephen Miller tells the president: “You need new people to get this done.You need harder people, people that will put in better, stronger policies.”

So Secretary Nielsen is in London at this point, dealing with counterterrorism issues with allies, and cyberterrorism, and trying to do one other part of her job.And he’s going: “Where’s Nielsen?We’ve got this crisis on the border, and she’s not even here?”And she hears about this and gets on a plane and comes back, and this leads to her demise.

Even when she came back, though, we didn’t think that’s what it was.She had the—she was just like Sessions, just like others that we had heard for months she was going to be out, but nobody thought it was going to be that day.

So what happens?

She comes back.

… It’s Sunday, I believe. And she comes over to the White House to confront the president about changes—I believe it’s this [policy], but staff changes.She doesn’t expect to have a discussion about herself.She doesn’t—she’s expecting to have a discussion about, you know, other officials.And he fires her.The reason we hear, behind the scenes, is this disagreement over whether someone should stay in a particular position or a nomination should stay.But really the reason he fires her, is really that he’s been, he’s been disgruntled.He’s been upset, frustrated for a very long time that she has not been able to better handle the crisis at the border.He wants more, and he felt like she couldn’t do it.

Leadership Changes

… So there’s a new crop of DHS that come to town, more to Trump’s liking. The question I guess becomes—and secretaries don’t exist anymore; they’re all acting secretaries.

He likes that.

He likes that. But it also creates havoc within offices, because if somebody doesn’t know whether they’re going to be in the job in a year from now, they’re not going to do long-term planning.And they don’t know how safe they are in their job to make decisions that they want to make.And it puts more power into the hands of Stephen Miller, I guess, and the White House.

It puts more power in the hands of Donald Trump.I mean, obviously, he has the ultimate power.But people close to him have told us that he likes actings, not just in immigration and DHS but all over the place, because he feels like they’re going to listen to him; they’re beholden to him.They all are.Obviously he’s the boss, but they’re beholden to him in a different way.They’re not permanently in there.They haven’t been—received their confirmation hearing or been confirmed, and they don’t know what the future holds.They want to keep their job, and they’re going to do whatever he says.I mean, the government, the top layer of this Trump administration is full of acting people, and he’s kept them like that.

He does have one other fringe benefit, which is, he doesn’t have to worry about getting his nominees through the—through the Senate.And although many of them could get through, some of them couldn’t.It just depends.

Trump’s Record on Immigration

Talk a little bit, to sum up here, so we started with Miller, Bannon and Sessions, who come with clear, clear goals about what they want to accomplish when it comes to immigration issues, especially Miller and Sessions.So, you know, into the third year, how much did they accomplish?How radical a change to the system have they created?

You know, I know a lot of people on the left would say it’s changed a lot, but when you look at the border and the border numbers, and you look at the visas and other things like that, it hasn’t changed all that much.And there’s a couple reasons for that.It’s because they’re all over the place, right?They’ve done one thing; they’re doing another thing.They haven’t looked at one particular piece of immigration.Immigration is so huge.They haven’t just looked and drilled down on one thing.They haven’t spent all their—you know, they haven’t put all the pressure on just building the wall, for example, or just changing the visa numbers or just, you know, finding housing or “catch and release” or anything.It’s all over the place.It’s all different things that they’ve done over, you know, these three years.And not one of them has—you know, everything’s done a little bit, but there’s not one big thing.And there’s not one big thing he can hang his hat on.

You’ve also had people come and go so fast that it’s hard to keep that continuity.It’s hard to say, “Well, this is the priority, and I’m going to stay there.”But I would say, in year three, he’s under more pressure.The president is under more pressure than he’s ever been, because people, Americans, supporters, voters, they let you off the hook a little bit in the beginning.But he is running for reelection.He wants to win.They all want to win.He wants to win.And this is his number one thing, and he can’t show that he has fully succeeded on what he wanted to do.And so he’s facing more pressure than ever.

So with the campaign coming, where will immigration be as far as, on both sides, Democratic and Republican?Will it again be the president’s top issue that he’ll sell every time he goes out on the air and in front of crowds?

The problem is, both parties have disagreements within their own party on immigration.Democrats do, and Republicans do.And so it’s a tough issue to say, “Well, they’re going to be talking on this side about this and talking about this side about that.”But for this president, he will be talking about it.It’s not the only thing he’ll talk about.The thing that his advisers really want him to talk about is the economy.They think the economy is doing great and that he can take credit for it, and they want him to stick to that.They wanted him to stick to that during the midterms, in 2018, but he didn’t.He goes off and talks about other things.

So I do think he’ll talk about the economy.He’ll also talk about two issues he talked about in 2016: immigration number one, and trade number two.And both have left—both have big, you know, pieces that are unfinished at this point.

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