The FRONTLINE Interviews
Charlie Dent
Former U.S. Representative (R-PA)
Charlie Dent, a Republican from Pennsylvania, served seven terms in the United States House of Representatives. He resigned midway through his term in 2018. He is currently a senior policy adviser at the law firm DLA Piper.
This is a transcript of an interview with FRONTLINE’s Michael Kirk conducted on June 6, 2019. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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The 2013 Republican “Autopsy”
OK, let’s go.So let’s start in ‘13, ‘14—really ‘14.The “autopsy” has happened.I mean, Mitt [Romney] has lost; the autopsy has happened.The Republicans are broadening their base, or trying to broaden their base, certainly in the immigration world as an issue.What do you feel about that time?Does it feel like maybe this is the time something bipartisan could be created?
Yes, absolutely.After the 2012 election, I think there was a broad consensus that Republicans needed to shift a bit on immigration, be a bit more inclusive. And the autopsy, I thought, laid—you know, set forth a plan for the future that most of us could get behind.And of course that never materialized.At least the policy didn’t materialize in the aftermath of the autopsy.But I thought directionally, right way to go.
So while you guys are singing “Kumbaya” with the Democrats, over at the “Breitbart Embassy,” [Jeff] Sessions, [Stephen] Miller, [Steve] Bannon, they’re seeing something else.They want a different Republican Party to rise to the top.What are they seeing?
Well, I think that wing, what I often refer to as the nativist wing of the party, you know, really saw a world of nativism, isolationism and protectionism.They saw that as the way forward to consolidate their base.Now, I very much object to those—to those towers of—of—I guess the kindest way I can say this, it’s—it just seems to me, it’s an inward-looking view.And, you know, protectionism, isolationism, nativism are not attributes of a great nation.And I felt that that is not a path for growth.
I mean, politics is an exercise of inclusion, not exclusion; addition, not subtraction.And it seemed like those guys were just simply intent on doubling down on the Republican base, which was largely white and older.
That’s what I was going to ask you.Who did they figure was out there?Who did they figure that they could rely on and count on?What was that base composed of?
That base was largely, you know, you know, white—white people, who are—and they tended to be older, and I think, you know, people maybe who, you know, could see the country changing maybe faster than they would like.And so I think that might have been part of it.And I think that was really the base that they were trying to appeal to, ignoring the demographic changes.And—and by taking on that hard nativist approach, they have, in fact, alienated much of the party from younger people.I mean, I think that’s really the issue.Again, they’re looking—they were looking backwards, not forwards.They were not trying to figure out ways to communicate to the millennials and the next generation, how to make them, you know, embrace the Republican Party, but simply speaking to the people who were already in our coalition, and then, to a certain extent, you know, doubling down on it and taking it to a—to an extreme.
Back in those days, Congressman, were you reading Breitbart?Did you know who Bannon and Stephen Miller were?
No, I did not.I did not know Bannon or Miller.I frankly never paid any—you know, I was aware that, you know, there was a Breitbart service.It’s not something I ever spent any time looking at, to be perfectly honest.
So what were the odds that those guys’ aspirations to stop the first bipartisan immigration bill certainly got through the Gang of Eight on its way into the Congress, that they would actually aspire to stop it?What were the odds on that back then?
Oh, I don’t know.The Gang of Eight bill, my—my sense on that bill, at the time, was that Congress is better at doing immigration reform incrementally, piece by piece.And I never was crazy about that comprehensive approach.For example, I said if we want to deal with the “Dreamers,” let’s deal with a bill on Dreamers, and maybe marry that up with border security and the TPS [Temporary Protected Status] population.There are certain things we should do.Again, incremental changes.Don’t go for everything all at once, I mean, because this is a very complex issue.You know, if we’re going to talk about, for example, mandate E-Verify, that employers, you know, use the E-Verify system to verify who is working in their firms, well, at the same time, you then have to deal with agricultural visas.
So—and that gets, again, very complex issues.So deal with them one at a time, E-Verify and ag issues together.You deal with DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] and maybe border security in the TPS population together.But I would deal with these issues in pieces.And I think that was a mistake of the Gang of Eight and the Senate at the time.
Defeating Eric Cantor
So these guys decide that the way they’re going to do it is they’re going to aim for Eric Cantor.This is one of the strategies they had.And they’re going to get together with Laura Ingraham, they’re going to get together with Mark Levin, and they’re going to go after Cantor with David Brat.Did you even know about this happening?And what did you think?
Yes.Yeah, I was aware—look, I was not aware that, you know, Breitbart and Bannon were manipulating that situation.I was aware that there was some—some dissatisfaction with then-[House] Majority Leader Eric Cantor over the immigration issue, although not from me.I agreed with the Majority Leader Cantor that we needed to deal with this issue, and I think that Eric Cantor was kind of thinking in a similar way that I was: We should deal with this incrementally, but deal with each issue, just a little differently than the Senate.
And of course David Brat then did go on to defeat Eric in that primary.And of course—well, David Brat is also a former congressman right now.The point being is, you know, many of these folks were, you know, from Breitbart and elsewhere on the, I’ll say on the fringe right movement, were very good at electing Democrats in the end.And that’s what they did.They were very good about, you know, trying to nominate people who spoke to a narrow segment of the base and to get them through in primaries, in usually some very red districts.But the end of the day, they end up helping elect a lot of Democrats.
When you hear that Brat has won that night, what did you think?Was it a lightning bolt to you?
Yeah, it was, because I have a lot of respect for Eric Cantor, and I thought he was a very effective leader.I really didn’t think about it as much in the context of immigration, although I did realize that any chance of passing immigration reform after the majority leader’s defeat had pretty much gone away.They vanished.And so—so that happened.But I was just sad because I thought Eric, you know, really did his best to help everybody.And I felt somewhat guilty.I thought, you know, Eric was out there helping everybody else; he was out in other people’s districts and, you know, going out there, raising money for them, showing up, doing anything they asked, and, you know, perhaps taking him away from his own district.And—and so I think there was some feeling of guilt by a lot of members at that time that, you know, we had—Eric had been asked to do so many things, and he did them well for everybody else.He was almost too unselfish.
It certainly had an effect on the immigration debate.How?
There was no question that Eric Cantor was, you know, asking us to take on some elements of immigration reform, and I and many others felt that was the right thing to do.And I always felt that it was a small segment within the conference that wanted us to do nothing or that, you know, was completely dug in, opposed to DACA, opposed to any type of meaningful reform.But I always felt that was a minority of the conference.The problem that we had, that we had at the time, in the Republican Conference—and John Boehner was very good at articulating this—you know, he always felt that there were about 80 or 85 members of the House Republican Conference at that time who he could count on, you know, what I would call the governing wing of the party.Those were the folks who could vote for the things that needed to get done, to fund the government, to not default on its obligations, to, you know, to deal with—to vote for budget agreements, disaster relief for Hurricane Sandy, or even the Violence Against Women Act.You know, these are the people who could actually vote affirmatively.
And Boehner was also quite good at pointing out, at the time, that, you know, he had about 40 members—and this preceded the Freedom Caucus, although some of these folks did later become members of the Freedom Caucus, what I often refer to as the rejectionist wing of the party—there were 40 or so members there who just simply, you know, could never get to yes and candidly tried to undermine the speaker at every opportunity.
But what Boehner—what the speaker at the time, John Boehner, fretted about most was that group of members in between.There were about 100 to 125 members who could be pulled in either direction, you know, toward the governing wing or toward the rejectionist wing.And John Boehner was, you know, very concerned about their plight, saying that they had to worry about primaries.
Now, most of those members lived in very safe seats.I would often remind John Boehner, I would say, you know, “Why are their primaries more important than mine?”It’s—I really—I had no sympathy for that group of members.I had none.I had no sympathy.I said: “You know, they’re in safe seats.You know, my advice to them is simply go out there and beat the hell out of their opponents.And—and that’s how you deal with the primary opponents, instead of just crying and hiding and, you know, afraid to come out of the house.Why don’t you just go out there and fight them and beat them?And that’s how you put them down.”That was my view.
The Trump Campaign
After they win, after Cantor loses, and it seems like immigration stalls, they go shopping for a president.Bannon looks at Lou Dobbs for a while.He looks at Sessions for a while.Ends up with Trump, a candidate who himself has some opinions on immigration.What did you think of Trump’s candidacy?What did you think of the way that immigration was being used by Trump from that very first moment down the escalator and onward?
Well, initially, I thought that the president’s—that Donald Trump’s campaign was a publicity stunt.I mean, that’s what I thought, coming down the escalator.You know, the first debate was, well, it was—well, it was certainly entertaining, let’s put it that way, and captivating.But I thought—this is my initial reaction—this isn’t serious.I mean, we’re not talking policy; just talking about polls and Rosie O’Donnell and whatever else came up about, you know, just kind of like the whole show.Never really struck me as a serious exercise.And that was my initial reaction.
But as time went on, it became clear that Donald Trump had something that many of the other candidates did not have, and that was pretty much complete and total name awareness among the American public.And he, you know, obviously, with a—with a segment of the Republican electorate, maybe about a third, you know, was supporting him strongly, and so that made him a serious player in the primary.So like many, I was alarmed at the—that the two primary choices were Donald Trump, who was of course completely transactional and largely nonideological, and the other being [Sen.] Ted Cruz, who is extremely ideological and doctrinaire.And that was the—those were the choices.So I was, of course, very concerned and alarmed that we didn’t have—you know, that at least the top two choices for most of that primary were ones that I found damned unacceptable.
Was there something about the “build the wall” chant?Was there something about those things that alarmed you?
Yes, absolutely…I was elected in 2004.In my first term I served on the House Homeland Security Committee.I was one of the original co-sponsors of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, where at that time we had authorized, you know, the construction of up to 700 miles of pedestrian and vehicular barriers along the southern border.Specifically double-layer fence is what we had talked about then.And we actually did talk about—we did other things, too—more Border Patrol agents, detention beds.We actually did build some wall, mostly on the southern Rio Grande for flood mitigation purposes, but it served a dual purpose.It also kept people out.So we—but basically, it was double-layer fence.We worked closely with then the Bush administration, Secretaries [Thomas] Ridge and [Michael] Chertoff at Homeland Security, and essentially we came up with the double-layer fence idea.
And at some point later, we then relaxed it, because we couldn’t build double-layer fence on every square inch of that 700 miles for the topographical issues that we just couldn’t build them.But the bottom line is, we knew what we were doing and that we, at the time, determined that we did not need 2,000 miles of concrete, nontransparent barrier.I mean, I thought that was well understood.And when I would hear the president say, “Build a wall,” I mean, I assumed he meant from sea to shining sea in concrete, which I think he did say at various times.That, I thought, was—was not the—by no means was an optimal way to establish operational control of the southern border.No expert felt that at the time.
As a Republican in Congress, what do you think he was really doing?What was he really saying?
Well, I think he was, you know, playing to the nativist instincts of some people.And by the way, I’ve always felt that there are isolationist, nativist and protectionist elements in both political parties, and there are strong elements in both political parties, you know, and—and I think that that’s what he was playing to, that element that, you know, wanted to look more—look more inward and—and abandon the idea of American leadership in the world.
How important was Jeff Sessions signing on as a United States senator to the Trump candidacy?
Well, I believe that by being, I guess, the first U.S. senator to sign on, you know, it lent some credibility to the president, to Donald Trump.But at the same time, I don’t think a lot of people were totally surprised.Sen. Sessions was also very—very conservative on the immigration issue.He’s from Alabama.And so many thought, OK, not completely surprising.But all right, that’s a feather in Donald Trump’s cap.He’s got a U.S. senator.
Do you think Trump was good?Did you have a feeling he was going to win?
The presidency?
Yeah.
No, I was—I was very surprised on election night.I remember my—I actually, you know, I tend to follow the data, and I was following the data in Pennsylvania and around the country that, you know, Hillary [Clinton] was probably going to win by a few points.And by the popular vote, she sort of—she did, you know, on the national level.But the state polls were wrong.And—and what I saw in my own state was not so much that Donald Trump won Pennsylvania, but Hillary Clinton lost it.Her vote simply collapsed outside of the Philadelphia region.It collapsed.Because Trump and Romney performed at about the same level; Obama performed much better than Hillary Clinton did.That was the big difference.
So I was completely surprised by Donald Trump’s victory.I—I didn’t predict it; I didn’t see it.I do remember my reaction that night.I said to some of my staff, two things.I said, “Boy, 2018 is going to be a bloodbath for House Republicans.”I said that on election night.And then I also said: “On the one hand, I’m delighted that Hillary Clinton is not my president.On the other hand, I’m—I’m mortified that Donald Trump is, or will be.”And so—but that was my immediate reaction.
How much do you figure he can attribute the victory to his “build the wall” stance on immigration?
You know what?Well, I don’t—I thought most people who heard that chant, “Build a wall.Mexico is going to pay for it”—I mean, I thought it was a joke.I mean, nobody with anything between their ears, for one second, thought that the Mexicans were going to shell over money to build a barrier on the southern border.I mean, who really believed that?I mean, I think the people who were chanting that didn’t believe that.It was just kind of a line at the—at the rallies, you know.I thought it was kind of like a laugh line and just kind of one of the things they did at their rallies every week, but nobody really thought it was a policy.
Yet I think those guys, Bannon, Sessions, Miller and others in that wing, [Mark] Meadows, [Jim] Jordan, believed that immigration was the ticket, believed that—and certainly Trump says he did—immigration was the issue that brought him home.
Well, actually, I don’t necessarily agree with that.I do think what brought President Trump to the White House is the American people wanted change.After eight years of a Democratic administration, they wanted change.I would argue that had been—had it been [Gov.] John Kasich or [Sen.] Marco Rubio at the top of that ticket, that one of those candidates would have beaten Hillary by a substantial margin.And Trump—Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,000 votes.Kasich would have won it by a big number, you know, and as well as in Michigan and Ohio and Wisconsin.You know, Trump barely won in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.I’m just saying it was a change year.People wanted change, and people wanted change so badly, so desperately, that many of them were willing to take a big risk on Donald Trump.And they knew they were taking a risk.
And so I don’t think it had so much to do with immigration, but just the fact that this was a change election, and Hillary was running as a status quo candidate, Obama’s third term, when the public wanted something else.
And he also has this ability—maybe it’s the marketer in him, The Apprentice reality TV star in him, something that that base, that 30 percent, 38 percent, whatever that number is of really virulent or pro perspectives that are, as you say, nativist or whatever, I mean, I think he really believed that that base was essential to his continuation and that he had to feed that base.I know Bannon believed that, that he had to feed that base with some regularity.
Well, yes.And the president does, to this day, he does, you know, feed that element of his base, but to the exclusion of others.Every American president, I think in my lifetime, saw themselves as needing to expand their base, to grow their base, and again, to add, to include.And on the other hand, Donald Trump has, I think, done just the opposite.He’s simply doubled down on his base and has excluded many others, I mean, not trying to unify but to continue to divide.
And if you’re going to do that, immigration is a great issue.If you’re going to double down on the base, immigration is a great issue.
Yeah, and trade, too.I mean, look, there is a lot of support in this country for isolationist policies and protectionist policies, even though they’re not healthy.I mean, I—and I would always kind of chuckle when I would hear the president talk about trade and say things like trade deficits, you know, from China or Germany, as if they’re stealing from us, or Mexico.You know, “They’re all stealing from us.”And, well, the Chinese, I can make the case they are.They’re stealing intellectual property and [forcing] technology transfers.But because Americans like to buy, you know, German cars or machines, or we buy what we buy from Mexico, avocados and other—and, you know, automotive parts coming in and out, I get that, you know, he sees trade deficits as theft.
But I often remind people that, you know, we’ve been down this road.We had Smoot-Hawley [Tariff Act] back in the early 1930s.And, you know, people forget that during the Great Depression, this country ran some trade surpluses at the time.Didn’t feel particularly good with over 20 percent unemployment, but—and I think that’s something that gets lost in this whole discussion.You know, in the—sometimes you’re, you know, expanding trade deficit as a result of an expanding and growing economy.People have money to spend.
So I never quite understood the president’s ideas on trade.I mean, first thing he did when he walked into the Oval Office, one of the first things, was to withdraw from the TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership.He said he was going to put it to China.Well, China was opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.Many of us supported it so that we, the Americans, with our Pacific Rim allies, would write the rules and set the standards for trade, along with our friends and our allies.We would do this rather than the other way around, having the Chinese write the rules and set the standards of trade in the Pacific region.And then that would be the worst thing for the American worker.
So when he pulled out of TPP, he empowered China.You know, this is—which is what we’re trying to prevent.And so I don’t always understand, you know, his aversion to multilateral arrangements.You know, he’s kind of a bilateral guy in a multilateral world, and he doesn’t—he thinks he can do better in one-off negotiations.And again, he’s very transactional.You know, he sees everybody on the same moral plane—you know, Kim Jong Un, Justin Trudeau, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel.Well, they’re not the same, but he views them the same.
The Trump Transition
When he’s elected, and as he’s talking about “American carnage,” where are all of you, the governing group inside the Republican establishment?What are your colleagues thinking?What do you know is going to change now for all of you?
Well, I think many of us, you know, recognized that the party was taken over in a hostile manner, and moving in a direction that I would say that many of us, probably most of us, were very uncomfortable with.I mean, I thought—and this is what makes the Trump presidency, in some respects, so interesting and revealing.You know, and I’ve always said, prior to Donald Trump coming on the scene, the Republican Party had litmus tests, and they were based on ideology.And you know, were you doctrinaire enough?If you weren’t doctrinaire enough, if you didn’t meet the litmus-test standard, you were a squish or a RINO [Republican in name only], OK?...
Well, everybody’s a RINO now, OK, because here—so think about it that way.You know, they had core convictions on, whether it was, you know, abortion or firearms or lower taxes or free trade, these were supposed to be core principles.Well, here comes Donald Trump, again, completely transactional, nonideological.And what’s interesting about that, though, many of the people who voted for Donald Trump in that primary were also fairly nonideological.Most Republican primary voters, I always said, were somewhat conservative. That is, they were conservative on some things, but maybe not on everything, even though—even though the stereotype of the Republican primary voter was they were all super-ideological, you know, down the line, kind of more like a Ted Cruz.Well, Donald Trump pulled the curtain back, and we discovered that a lot of these Republican primary voters were not that ideological.
And a lot of the establishment Republicans are now on the defensive and certainly don’t have a president they recognize.
Again, what’s revealing about this whole thing is that many of these people who I often called the self-designated chiefs of the purity police, you know, who were always labeling guys like me squishes or RINOs, you know, where are these guys now?Where are they now?You know, how do they deal in the world of Trump?Well, they now, instead of having any type of a fealty or commitment to these core principles that were so deeply held on free trade and other issues, well, where are they now?Now it’s all about loyalty to the man, loyalty to the individual.That’s what—that’s what has changed.And of course that’s not a—that’s not a guiding principle or a sustainable model for a political party for the long term.
The Travel Ban
When the travel ban hits on the Friday after the inauguration, what’s your response?What did you think?And what did it tell you?
I remember that day very well.Actually, it was a Friday evening.Republicans were in Philadelphia.It was about 60 miles from my home in Allentown…And as I was leaving, I saw, you know, a gaggle of reporters, and somebody asked me about this travel order that had just come out.And I was a little tired, and I said: “You know, I haven’t seen it.I really can’t comment on it.I’ll get back to you.”And I drove home.
I was tired.I went to bed.It was somewhere around 8:00 a.m. that I received a text message from my son, who was a junior at Penn State University studying engineering.And it was Saturday morning.It said: “Dad, I need to talk to you right away.It’s really important.”And my immediate reaction: “Oh, no.What happened?”It was a bad night.They were—they were drinking; I got—something happened, you know.Who knows?
And so I call him immediately, say: “Well, what’s—what’s up?Everything OK?”He said, “Yeah, I’m fine.”I said, “So what’s up?”He said, “Well,” he said, “Joey Assali called me, and, you know, his mother is very upset.”And Joey Assali, he’s a guy who lives in our neighborhood.He’s a Syrian American.And he said: “His family is down at the Philadelphia Airport.They’re not letting them in the country.”He says, “I don’t know what this is about, but his mother is very upset.”And so I said: “Oh, I’ll figure it out.It’s a Saturday morning.”I said, “I’m sure they’re going to hold them for the weekend.We’ll straighten this thing out on Monday.”
I hang the phone up, my cell phone.I hang up.And then I turned the television on.And oh, boy, mayhem at the airports.So I called my son back.I said: “Get me his mom’s number right now.I’m going to call her.”So I speak to Mrs. Assali, and she says, “Congressman,” she says—she says, “I have six relatives at the Philadelphia Airport.They won’t let us talk to them.We’re Christian.We’re not refugees.We’re from Syria.Our family is from Syria.They’re moving in tonight.We bought a home.It’s furnished.”And her husband’s a dentist, and they’re very comfortable people.“They bought a home.They’re moving in tonight.As soon as they come in, they’re immigrant visa holders.They will be stamped with green cards the moment they step into the country.But we can’t talk to them.”
So I immediately pick up the phone, and I didn’t know who to call.I didn’t know who to call at Homeland Security or State Department, because it’s a new administration.I don’t know who’s who.They haven’t filled their spots yet.And I didn’t know who to call at the White House, because they just set up shop.And I don’t know who’s working what job.So I called Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.I called him that morning.He was in California.I think he was in California, and on his cell phone.I said, “Hey, Kevin, I’ve got a problem.”And I went through just what I said, about these Syrians who did it all the right way, 13 years in process.And I said: “Who do I call?You know, I’ve got to talk to somebody.”And so he says, “Well,” he said, “Well, call—you know, call—call Ben Howard at the White House,” who used to work for Kevin.I know Ben well, a good guy, went to Penn State.I like him very much.
And I called Ben on his cell phone.He was now a White House liaison, like day two, maybe day one, I don’t know.And I said, “Ben, here’s the problem.”And, you know—and we’re talking about this, and as I’m talking to him, I said: “Ben, you know, I’m watching television now, and I see there’s some—there’s some Afghan translator at Kennedy Airport who’s being denied entrance into the country.We just made it easier in the defense bill to let these people in.”And I said, “Ben, you know, was this thing run by the Department of Defense?”And he said, “Well, no.”“How about State?”“No, no.”“Homeland Security?”“Well, sort of.”“Justice?”And I said, “Well,” I said, “Well, Ben, is this…”—I says, “Is this a Bannon special?”He said, “No.”I said, “Really?”I said, “Who did this?”He said, “Miller.”And I said, “Well, who the hell is Miller?”I didn’t know who Stephen Miller was at that moment.I said, “Who’s Miller?”And he said—[muttering].And so I said, “Well,” I said, “you have to—”
My point is, you have to suspend this order immediately.I mean, this is just a fiasco.This is, you know, poorly thought out.It’s ill considered.It’s quite clear to me what has occurred, that this guy Miller writes up an executive order; he puts it in front of the president; the president signs it, and someone sends out a press release.You know, well done.Well, guess what?There was no interagency review.This wasn’t done from the bottom up.This is a fiasco.They have to come up with a more thoughtful policy.And that—and that was my reaction.
So I said it that day, on that Saturday.So I think I was the first Republican in the country to speak out against this travel ban.It really wasn’t a Muslim ban, because as I pointed out, it’s anybody from those countries.And in this case, it happened to be Syrian Christians who were denied entrance.But it could be anybody.And so it was—but it was a terrible thing.And my district, by the way, was probably the largest district, in terms of Syrian population, of any in the nation.
So what does it tell you at that moment about the Trump administration, about immigration, about these important policies?
Well, it struck me that this administration was going to be a lot different than any other we had seen; that they were simply not going to abide by any type of process; that they were apparently not, you know, really going to think about second- or third-order impacts of their decisions; that this—that there was a certain amount of spontaneity and impulsiveness about the way this administration was going to operate.And that has largely been the case, you know, over these past two years.
That Sunday, Stephen Miller appears on the morning news shows, vehemently defending the policy and the president of the United States, who tweets, afterwards, you know, that he loved him; that Stephen Miller is suddenly—this guy you’ve never heard of is suddenly Trump’s absolute best, smartest, most accessible adviser.
…. Well, yeah, then we all learned who Stephen Miller was.I mean, I really didn’t know who he was.I heard he had worked for Sessions, but I really didn’t—I wouldn’t have known him to look at him.I’d never had any interactions with him.And so again, I was just—and he did—he’s done several interviews since then that have been, well, pretty loud, let’s put it that way.
… And just to finish my Asali story, we got the Asalis in 10 days later.Those people were sent back on the same plane they arrived in within three hours.And nobody got to see them.They were sent back to Damascus, you know, within three hours.Same plane.And so long story short, I just couldn’t believe that, you know, a policy like this was being—was being implemented without any serious thought or deliberation.I mean, I can’t imagine Jim Mattis at Defense, or—I don’t know if he had yet been in Defense.He might have been confirmed at that point.But I can’t imagine that they thought this was a good idea.Like I said, Afghan translators were being denied entrance into the country.The State Department clearly, you know, had concerns with this.
I’ll never forget the—you know, getting the Asalis into this country, I never had such wonderful cooperation from the State and Homeland Security departments after the fact.They were very helpful, because there are apparently 190-some people like the Asalis who were—who were turned around midair.That is, they boarded planes with valid visas in hand, and when they landed, those visas had been revoked.So there were apparently just under 200 people like them.
So they—everybody realized this was an injustice.People did it the right way, and they did it the right way, paid a lot of money.And then to have this done, it spoke to a lack of fairness, not to mention compassion.But—and so I think most of us, if this is going to be how this administration is going to operate, it’s going to be—it’s going to be a real rough ride.
Politics, not policy.
Yeah, but bad—but bad politics.I mean, most people saw this.You know, in my own local community, where we have a large Syrian population, and they’re well integrated into the community—and again, they’re predominantly Christian; shouldn’t matter, but they’re predominantly Christian—and everybody in my community thought it was absurd that these people were being treated this way.It wasn’t this—this wasn’t good politics.It wasn’t resonating well in the community, particularly in my Syrian community, many of whom supported Donald Trump because they felt he was going to be better on the Assad issue.They were more sympathetic to Assad because he was anti—anti-Sunni extremists, and they thought he protected Christians.But that’s the local politics.But, I mean, but the broader community, I thought, was also mortified by how that was handled.So if it was—if it was done for political reasons, it didn’t help.
The Dreamers and DACA
By the fall, another demonstration project, vis-à-vis immigration as an issue, and policy and politics, when the Dreamers, when Sessions steps up and says, “We’re now going to stop this.Six months to go.We’re at a deadline.The clock is ticking.We’re going to stop this,” and the president sort of swings back and forth here and there.What were your thoughts about the way the Dreamers and the DACA issue was handled in the fall by the administration?
Well, I really thought that the president had an opportunity to address the Dreamers in a humane way.He could have gotten a lot of Republican support.Could have gotten Democratic support.He could have tied that along with the TPS population, the Temporary Protected Status, people who had fled certain countries because of disasters largely, in El Salvador, Haiti and elsewhere.And that was a limited population.We could have addressed those two issues and—and also provided for some additional border security funds and come up with a deal.
And I thought initially the president was going to do that.And then he got pulled back in by the—by the nativist wing.So I thought that was an opportunity missed.And I—and that was the problem.The president’s positions, they shift from time to time.And they shifted on this issue, because initially, remember, there was an announcement, I think, with the—with [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer and—on that issue, or maybe with [then-House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, that they were going to actually—I thought they could come up with a deal, and maybe [Sen.] Dick Durbin and others were involved with that, [Sen.] Lindsey Graham.There were a lot of folks.And then, just to see it, you know, vanish for no good reason, was—was disappointing.But the president was being pulled back in by those hard elements.
Your friend Steve Miller.
Miller, yeah.Miller did it.Miller and Bannon and their—and their confederates.
It’s a funny thing, that moment, because the first meeting is televised.And he’s negotiating with [Sen.Dianne] Feinstein and others, and it really looks like, as you say, he wants a deal, and he’s trying to show the American people, “I can do a deal, and I can do a deal that’s good for these young people, these Dreamers.”And by day two, 48 hours later, Fox has been on beating him to death, talk radio has been beating him to death, and somehow Miller certainly helped organize a different group waiting for Durbin and Graham when they get there to the Oval Office.It’s an all-points bulletin to conservatives: “Get over here and stiffen the president.”What do you think of that?
Well, like on so many things, it struck me that the White House had various factions, and on any given day, I really wasn’t sure which faction was calling the shots.But clearly, on immigration, that nativist wing—and I’ll say that Bannon, Miller, and I don’t even know if [Peter] Navarro was in the administration at that point, but that wing was driving the president to a bad place, I thought, on immigration.
You know, you also had what I called the, you know, the Cohn—Gary Cohn-[Steve] Mnuchin- Jarvanka [Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump] wing that was perceived to be a bit more pragmatic.And then, of course, Cohn is gone.And probably he was the strongest voice, as far as I was concerned, in that group.And I could put maybe [Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson and [Mattis] at that orbit, although they’re not in the White House.
And then you, of course, had what I called the more—the heritage wing, the more ideological wing.Maybe you could call that the Pence wing of the White House.And I was never sure, you know, who was getting the president’s attention on any given day.And depending on the issue, on some of these social issues, I think the Pence wing prevails.On immigration and trade, the Bannon-Navarro-Miller wing prevails.You know, I’m not sure where the pragmatic wing prevails these days, because most of those folks are gone—you know, the Mattises, [National Security Adviser H. R.] McMasters, Tillersons and Gary Cohn, who I thought was a very constructive force within the White House on many of these issues.
Trump and the Conservative Media
There’s another faction.They’re not in the White House.But it is Fox, and it is Breitbart, and it is [Ann] Coulter, [Laura] Ingraham, [Mark] Levin, [Rush] Limbaugh pushing him as well, because you see that happen around the family separation stuff, where he’s with it one way.He gets hammered, goes back the other way.It’s almost like he’s in play in terms of his public persona as much as anything else.
Yeah, look, what those guys have done, too, on the—I’ll call it on the talk radio social media world, you know, they’ve—they’ve monetized, you know, conservative politics.And I’m not saying that’s—that’s wrong; I’m just saying they’ve done it.And elected officials need to understand what their motivation is.They’re just all about, you know, ratings and clicks and getting eyeballs on their sites, and they need whatever piece of that market share they need to make a lot of money.… They’re not going to thank you for doing good policy or enacting good legislation that might be a compromise.No, they’re going to tear that apart.They play to anger.That’s their anger and fear; that’s what they need to drive ratings and clicks and make money.I mean, I’m not—again, I’m not saying it’s—what they’re doing is wrong.I’m just saying that’s their business model, and we have to understand that and then act accordingly.
It’s amazing that the president of the United States spends so much time watching them.And it does seem like they are influencing what he does.
…I’m surprised that he spends as much time as he does, you know, obsessing over what people like me have to say on cable TV shows.You know, I just think he would have better things to do with his time if he’s the president, like, you know, sitting down and getting into the—getting into the weeds of policy and, you know, understanding what’s coming before him.And I think that’s—that’s a full-time job all by itself.
The 2018 Midterm Elections
You mentioned that when you heard that the president had won the election, you thought that 2018 spelled big trouble for Republicans in the midterm.
Absolutely.
Well, as they approached the midterms this summer, Miller and others ramped up the immigration.You had crisis on the border.You had, "Caravans are coming."You had the [murdered student] Mollie Tibbetts story.You had troops there in tents, you know, to protect America’s border.As a successful politician, what do you think of that as a political strategy, leading into the midterm elections?
I thought it was a serious mistake at the time.I was not running for reelection in 2018, but I do recall, you know, this shift to the caravans.All the focus was on the caravans coming up from Central America.And my sense is, most Americans were focused on issues.Republicans had a good story to tell in many respects on the economy and on regulatory changes, and many Americans—most Americans got a tax cut.I mean, they had other things they could have been talking about that were more relevant to people’s lives.
… Had any Republican been elected president in 2016, you know, history tells us that the party of the president will, on average, lose about 30 seats in the House.And so Republicans were going to be in a defensive position no matter what.But with Donald Trump, I always thought it was going to be even more so because of his, you know, very controversial nature and the way he conducts himself, and his conduct in office and all that was going to be a huge issue.
So bottom line is, yeah.I mean, stoking up the immigration issue was the wrong message.Now, Republicans also had a self-inflicted wound in 2018 campaign: health care.The way the health care issue was managed was disastrous.And that issue, I think, you know, hurt as well.But I also put that one on the president, too.You know, the president had a policy on health care.
I mean, I remember during the campaign, he’s going to cover everybody.It was going to cost less, and it was going to be beautiful.I mean, so that was his policy.But he never translated, you know, that bumper sticker into legislation.… And it impacts people in real ways.So I think that was another mistake.
But focusing on immigration, Democrats effectively exploited the health care issue, and I think—and plus, the overarching issue, though, was the president and his conduct in office.It was a referendum on him.
Yeah.
And so that’s why things didn’t go well.
The Government Shutdown
So afterwards, how does he find himself shutting down the government and being stuck for five weeks in a deep hole?
Well, and this—I mean, that week before Christmas was a week to behold.I mean, a lot happened that week.I mean, there were like 10 things that happened, including, you know, the president abruptly announces a withdrawal from Syria; his secretary of defense resigns.I forgot who got convicted, or I don’t know if it was—you know, I think [Michael] Flynn and—and [Michael] Cohen both I think either pled or—you know, terrible things happened to them.
Oh—and then, oh, yeah, and the government shut down, you know, all in the same week.And I’m forgetting about five things that happened, but they were all bad.And they were all bad.And it was just one of those weeks that you just said: “Wow.I mean, this is really not happening.”But—well, the shutdown.
This spoke to what I thought was an amateur hour in the White House.The president was getting advice from people—and this is where I think the Freedom Caucus and, you know, and I think, you know, perhaps Mick Mulvaney in the White House and others, you know, were saying: “Boy, you know what?Let’s shut the government down now.”And they were saying, “But we can get a better deal in the new year on the wall when Nancy Pelosi is speaker.”Yeah, on what planet?I mean, I just—this was the advice that the president was getting.No.You know, "Down here on planet earth," no, "This is not the way it should be." You’re not going to get a better deal in the new year than you would have gotten in December, while Paul Ryan was still speaker.
It was so unnecessary at the time.I said I don’t know when this shutdown ends, but I know how it’s going to end.It’s going to end with a clean funding bill.It’s going to fund the government for, you know, a limited duration of time before they actually figure out what they’re going to do.And that’s what happened.And it took 35 days.They could have done that in December.
I mean, the party that makes the policy demand—in this case, “Build the wall”—gets to own the shutdown.And hell, the president said it as much on television, with Schumer and—Sen.Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Pelosi, when he pretty much said, you know, that he was going to own the shutdown.I mean, it was so unnecessary.It was unnecessary, costly, futile and, you know, just sad.
Crisis at the Border
And when it’s finally over, and they find themselves thinking about 2020, and they have a real crisis on the border by March through May—the real thing is happening.This is not something you’ve ginned up.It’s not something you want to huff and puff about.This is the real thing.
Yeah.And by the way, my last official act in Congress was to pass the Military Construction, VA [Veterans Affairs], [and Related Agencies] Appropriations Bill.I was the chairman of that subcommittee on the Appropriations Committee, and that was the last thing I did.I successfully, you know, guided that through the committee.It was my bill.And they passed it and the law pretty much as I wrote it.And then, you know, after I’m out of Congress, the president declares a national emergency on the border and says, “We are going to divert a small amount of military construction funds”—$3.6 billion, which represents 35 percent of the entire military construction budget for the year, OK, so 35 percent for projects, he said, that really weren’t that important.
Well, I’ve got news for you.The president and his secretary of defense at the time, Jim Mattis, told me those were important projects, …and we passed them into law.And then the president said he was going to take those dollars for a purpose which Congress had not appropriated the money.And so I thought this was clearly a violation of, you know, Congress’ Article I authorities.And I thought at that time, that was the true emergency.The emergency was this assault on Congress’ power-of-the-purse authority under Article I of the Constitution.
Now, of course, fast-forward, and we do have a crisis on the border.But the problem for the president is taking money to build barriers does not address the underlying emergency, which is poor migrants traveling up from Central America, surrendering at the border, you know, to declare asylum.He’s not addressing the actual problem.So I—and we all agree that, you know, we need to change the asylum laws; we need to hire more judges; [we need] more beds; and we need more border security.I mean, I’m not arguing that point.The question is, the way the president has gone about it has not inspired confidence.
Leadership Changes
And then they purge the Department of Homeland Security leadership.What’s going on?
Well, I mean, Secretary [Kirstjen] Nielsen, Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen apparently was very concerned about cyberthreats—she should be—and, you know, Russian intervention and things that she should be doing.That was not the priority for the president.And, you know, he was more focused on—on the southern border.
But—but having been on a Homeland Security Committee, I mean, Homeland Security secretaries have to operate within the law, and so they make do with the laws as they are, not as they might wish they’d be. So I think that what happened there is that the president has been very frustrated with the law, and that’s why he ended up cleaning out a lot of the people and, frankly, declaring the emergency the way he did, because he couldn’t get from Congress what he wanted on border security.And so that’s why he decided to start diverting dollars from elsewhere.
Rising Divisions
So when you think about this, Congressman, what do you say to yourself about what has happened in the arc of—from Cantor’s loss to here, where are we?How did this happen?
Well, I guess I’m glad to say that I’m not in the middle of it anymore, so it’s not my problem.I think the party needs to get to a better place.Look, the 2018 midterm election should have been a clarion call that we’re not moving in the right direction.We’re not.Who knows what’s going to happen in 2020 at this point, you know?With over, you know, two dozen-plus one Democrats running for president, it’s not clear that they have a strong voice.And it seems like we have two political parties now, one a pro-Trump party and one an anti-Trump party.That’s what we’ve got.
And I think, again, there’s a political realignment occurring in this country, and the ground is shifting under our feet.And this has been going on now for a few years, and nobody’s quite sure how this will settle.So we’re in this turbulent time, and I don’t think anybody is that clairvoyant [that they] can really predict where it’s all going to go.I mean, you know, I hear some—some Democrats saying, “We’re going to get elected, and we’re going to bring us back to where we were.”Well, you know what?I don’t think we go back to where we were.But we need to get to a better place than where we are today.But I suspect it won’t be where we were.I mean—
And we tend, as Americans, to look at these problems through an American-centric prism.You know, this phenomenon that we’re seeing, this populist phenomenon, if you want to call it that—or maybe populist in some cases; nativist phenomenon—is an international phenomenon.It’s happening in the U.K. with Brexit.We saw, you know, in Germany two major political parties, center-right Christian Democrats, center-left Social Democrats, in the last election for chancellor, the two major parties barely received 53 percent of the vote.The Five-Star Movement in Italy.The two major parties in France, you know, collapsed, and [Emmanuel] Macron came up the middle.You know, you’ve seen some backsliding in Poland and certainly in Hungary.You know, you see what’s happening with [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan in Turkey, and these authoritarian types are ascendant in many cases.
A liberal democracy, you know, in the classical sense, I think that many of us who always supported this international order that the United States helped build and lead is in trouble.There’s another competing vision out there, I’ll say this crony capitalistic, state capitalistic, autocratic model that some people see as, you know, attractive—I don’t, but some do—so I think there’s those dynamics are at play. …
It feels like immigration is at the heart of a lot of that, too.
Yeah.Migration politics is driving this, certainly in Europe.You know, ever since 2014 or 2015, when all those migrants were coming up from Syria and North Africa into—into Europe, that really shattered politics in Europe.… And certainly Donald Trump’s politics always speak to the issue of immigration.So yes.
And by the way, I think there’s—there’s legitimacy to this.All these people who were moving into Europe at the time, they’re largely moving in unvetted.They were just coming in.And I think most people in Europe, and I suspect most people in America would say, “Hey, that’s not the way things should be.”And in our country, look, I think there has to be an orderly system of entrance and exit into this country.We don’t want lawlessness.And so to the extent that people are concerned about communities or cultures changing faster than they can accept, I think maybe also drives some of the angst and the anger in politics today.
The 2020 Election
…Maybe if you can look into your crystal ball for us and how immigration will be dealt with in the 2020 election, how important is it?And so how will it play out?
Yeah.Immigration will certainly be a front-and-center issue in the election.The question is, what will the president’s policy be? Does the president, you know, does he—is he going to double down on that—I’ll say the Miller-Bannon wing, which not only doesn’t want to deal with DACA and the Dreamers, and they want all, you know, border security and wall and Mexico paying for it, but they also wanted to cut legal immigration last I checked from a million green card holders a year to about a half a million.Well, that’s a challenge for the administration.Well, in order to crack down on illegal immigration, you have to fix the legal lawful system of immigration.
So the president has to figure out where he’s going to come down.Is he going to—is he going to embrace what Jared Kushner just released about moving toward a more skills-based system with the same number of green cards, about a million, that would have a greater emphasis on skills and a little less on family reunification?I think it’s about two-thirds today of our people coming in are for family-reunification purposes, one-third for skills.They’re talking about flipping that ratio.
I actually think that makes sense.And I think many more I’ll say mainstream Republicans have felt the same way, that we need to move in that direction.But what’s the president’s policies, policy going to be? I don’t know.And for the Democrats, what is their policy going to be? I mean, you know, are they going to simply pretend that we don’t have a problem with the asylum laws, or are they going to simply say that we—you know, no barriers anywhere?Are they going to say that anybody who comes into this country unlawfully should be allowed to stay?I mean, so the Democrats I think are moving to a very unhealthy place, you know, far-left place, and the president, you know, seems like he wants to crack down on legal immigration.
So I think what this speaks to is if the Democrats nominate a hard-left candidate, and President Trump stays on the current trajectory, I think that’s going to open up the center of this country somewhere between center right and center left for Independent candidacy that’s going to try to speak to the center of the country on issues like immigration and others.
Just going into the shutdown, Trump had run on the wall but never got funding, and it seems like there’s this sudden need to get funding to deliver on that promise.Why had the Trump administration not managed with a Republican Congress to get funding for the wall?
Because in order to get funding for border security and to establish operational control, the president was going to have to give up something, and that—what he was going to have to give was DACA.I mean, the president—I mean, there was talk about getting as much as $5 billion or $25 billion, you know, for border security.But the price was going to be DACA funding—I mean, legalization of the Dreamers and also that TPS population, Temporary Protected Status.He would have had to give that up.He would have had to say yes.I mean, at times I think he said yes, and then—and then he said no.I mean, he’s moved around.So, I mean, that’s the whole issue.He was never just going to get border security funding without some significant concession.He was never going to get it.And he didn’t—and so that’s part of making a deal, you know.Sometimes it’s going to hurt a little bit.And he apparently just wasn’t really—or at least some of his advisers weren’t willing to let him cross that bridge.
That’s Miller.That’s that hard-right position.
Sure.And it’s not—and to be fair, I don’t think it’s just Stephen Miller.There were certainly elements within the Republican Conferences in the House and the Senate that were also pushing for a much harder position on legal immigration.So there were—he had other forces that were, in addition to those in the White House, that were kind of egging him on to, you know, not make a deal.
… There’s a version of the Dreamers story that says that when Trump’s open to Dreamers, but then he goes into the meeting and says “s—hole countries” and that whatever he was going to be willing to do after that, the Democrats politically felt like they couldn’t make any deal with somebody who would say that.Wasn’t that a turning point?Is that why it collapsed?
I think that was a factor.And truth be told, again, I’ve always said, if the president were able to articulate this issue of the border, establishing operational control of the border in a coherent way, he could have had an agreement on any number of issues.But by demonizing people south of the border, many of whom have browner skin, or with the comments about the “s-hole countries,” you know, it was deeply offensive, particularly to Mia Love, my former colleague, Republican congresswoman from Utah, who’s Haitian American.I had many—I had a few conversations with her on this subject.
I mean, she was deeply offended.I mean, she’s a Haitian American.They came here with virtually nothing.And here she is, a U.S. congresswoman from a very conservative area of the country in Utah.And I remember her speaking up in a conference when somebody, you know, spoke up in the Republican Conference behind closed doors and said, “You know, I kind of agree with Trump on this, what he said.”And I remember her getting to the microphone and saying, “Basically you’re saying I’m a lesser person.”And it was really offensive. It was really—it was a terribly offensive thing to say to someone like her.
… But I do think that the president’s rhetoric about the “s-hole countries,” demonization of people south of the border, have kind of put the Democrats in a position where they—they don’t see any—they don’t see any political benefit, I guess, in cutting a deal with Donald Trump at the moment.I still think they should cut the deal and make the agreement, but I think they want to litigate it in the election now, and if they get a new president, then they can—they’ll get a better deal, I guess they think.
That goes to my last question, which is where we are now, where there’s a real crisis on the border.Knowing Congress, knowing this president, do you think that the American government is capable of acting to deal with immigration, certainly before 2020?
I’m not optimistic at this moment that there can be an agreement on immigration.You know, in a rational world, even in Washington, you know, 15 years ago, 10 to 15 years ago I think we could have an agreement.We passed the Secure Fence Act in 2006 with bipartisan votes.Barack Obama voted for it, for Pete’s sake, I believe. And a lot of folks voted for it on both sides of the aisle.
… But just getting the basics, the fundamentals of governance done now are extraordinarily difficult.I mean, I still think there’s the potential for another shutdown.There’s a potential for another shutdown.And, you know, if you can’t get these basics done, how can you take on big policy issues like immigration, like infrastructure, or any other issue that many people would like to see addressed?
Thank you, Congressman.
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