Monday on the RealClearPolitics radio show, Tom Bevan, Andrew Walworth, and Carl Cannon discuss what President Trump means when he says he’s halting asylum claims from “third world countries” and suggests “remigration” is the only solution to the immigration crisis. After that, they discuss new reporting from The Washington Post suggesting the U.S. campaign of blowing up suspected drug boats in the Caribbean has violated the laws of war, and a piece in The New Yorker on increasing political tension and violence keeping good people from entering politics. You can listen to the show live, weekdays at 11:00 a.m. on SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly Channel 111, and then on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and here on our website. *** The show opened with the president calling for “reverse migration” and a “permanent pause on migration from third-world countries” after an Afghan asylum recipient shot two members of the National Guard. Is this the start of a real shift in policy on legal immigration? “Trump posted this long rant, you could see his anger, reflecting the anger a lot of folks feel that we brought over tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan,” Bevan said. “Theoretically, these were allies who had worked with us during the war, but they were apparently not properly vetted. We let in so many people during the Biden administration, granting everyone temporary protected status and asylum or refugee status, from countries that are not our friends. There is no way we vetted them all properly, no matter what the government says.” “But this guy is not one of those people. He was invited by the government because he was apparently working with the CIA in Afghanistan,” Cannon added. “The government is trying to figure out: Was he radicalized or mentally ill? Did he have a psychotic break? Was it a political killing? Was he a sleeper agent? Or did he gradually become disillusioned because he couldn’t find a job?” “When we make public policy, it is important we’re not guided solely by anger, but by self-interest and mercy – mercy for the families and mercy for people who helped the United States and really want to be here,” Cannon said. *** After that, starting at minute 20:38, the group discusses reports from The Intercept and The Washington Post that an order from War Secretary Pete Hegseth to “kill everybody” led to an illegal attack on the survivors of a strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. Did this cross a moral or legal line, or has designating the cartels as “terrorists” changed the rules? “We should acknowledge it’s not really a matter of debate whether you can shoot someone clinging to wreckage. That’s just against the Geneva Convention,” Andrew Walworth explained. “What happened in this case depends on the sequence,” Cannon said. “These stories are not precise. Did Hegseth say ‘kill them all’ after the first drone strike had disabled this boat?” Tom Bevan suggested these reports are conveniently timed following the recent video from Congressional Democrats urging service members to disobey illegal orders. “Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, and some others were asked if there had been any illegal orders, and they said they don’t know of any. Then, the next week, two anonymous sources leaked this story. Is that a coincidence? I’ll leave it to our listeners.” “This could all be a hoax, particularly when anonymous sources are attacking Trump’s administration,” Bevan added. “The media and Democrats are reacting as if it’s the absolute truth – and we don’t know that.” “We don’t know that there were two orders given. We think we know – based on the press – that there were two drone strikes. If the original order is: if the boat isn’t destroyed, we send another drone, and that second strike comes seconds or minutes later, that’s not the same as shooting wounded men on a battlefield,” Cannon said. *** Finally, at minute 44, the group discusses a new piece from Benjamin Wallace-Wells in The New Yorker concerned with how escalating political violence and polarization are discouraging good people from running for office: “Political Violence in the Era of Trump” “There’s so much violence that we forget,” Cannon said. “The writer talked to Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. His mansion was firebombed.” Cannon warned that it “feels like the country is already in a low-grade civil war, with violence in the street, in homes, churches, synagogues – everything is fair game. Rational people who love their families, who used to come to Washington to contribute, will be more hesitant to go into politics because they don’t want to put their families at risk.” Tom Bevan explained that RCP’s front page paired this with a piece from John Hinderaker at Power Line talking about the increase in attacks on ICE agents. “The framing of the New Yorker piece is ‘during the Trump era,’ implying Trump is responsible in some form or fashion,” Bevan said. “Our politics is as toxic as it’s been since at least the 1960s, maybe the 1860s. We no longer view disagreements as mere policy disagreements.” *** Don’t miss a single episode of the RealClearPolitics weeknight radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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