MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2025
Endless dispute resolved: We didn't see today's exchange ourselves. But over at Mediaite, Isaac Schorr has captured the latest exchange in an ongoing dispute about last year's White House campaign.
The endless dispute to which we refer goes like this:
Last year, did Candidate Trump say he would execute "mass deportations" when he returned to the White House? Or did he actually say that he was only going to deport "the worst of the worst?"
For starters, let us say this:
It seems to us that Schorr begins today's report by mischaracterizing something Karen Bass said to Wolf Blitzer on last Friday's Situation Room. In fairness to Schorr, that's almost inevitable when Tomi Lahren is hosting a Fox News Channel show, the messaging service she provided on today's Outnumbered program.
Schorr provides videotape from today's Outnumbered. If you watch that videotape, you'll see Lahren executing her most prominent "journalistic" skill. You'll see her offering a jaundiced "translation" of an extremely short remark by Mayor Bass—a short remark from which a much wider context has been completely disappeared.
Along with her mastery of sarcasm and snark, such "translations" constitute Lahren's number one skill. Soon, though, the dispute about last year's election broke out between Marie Harf, a former Obama/Biden official, and Kaylee McGhee White, a thoroughly reliable pro-MAGA Fox News contributor.
Schorr transcribes what the combatants said. Here's part of his transcription:
HARF (12/29/25): I remember before the election when everyone said, "He’s going to go after the worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists." That’s not what’s happening.
They’re going into a lot of primarily Hispanic communities, rounding up people, elderly people, young kids who’ve been here, you know, elderly people who’ve been here for decades, and Hispanic supporters of Trump are like, "Wait a second, this isn’t what we bargained for." ... I’m looking to Hispanic voters who supported Trump who say, "Wait a second, this isn’t what we were told ICE was going to do." And they’re now having some buyer’s remorse. I think that’s interesting.
WHITE: Which part of "Mass Deportations Now" were Hispanic voters not aware of when they voted for Donald Trump? He was pretty explicit on the campaign trail.
HARF: He did say though, Kaylee, and he did say, "We’re going to focus on the worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists, people charged with crimes—"
WHITE: Which is what he’s doing, but you want to keep them here too.
[...]
They’re here illegally, they’re still criminals.
HARF: That’s not murderers, rapists—that’s not what he said!
For the record, many people who are being deported are not "here illegally." (Many others are.) But let's leave that state of affairs for another day.
For today, this basic dispute goes on and on, with no end in sight. We're pleased to make the following announcement:
In the current case, it's possible that Harf and White were each telling the truth!
We think we can settle this matter right here! Assiduous research demonstrates this:
During the last campaign, the candidate promised "Mass deportation" on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he thoughtfully said that he would target only "the worst of the worst."
For extra credit only: To evaluate what Mayor Bass said, you'd have to consider a lengthy CNN news report on which she'd been asked to comment.
To peruse the relevant CNN transcript from last Friday's Situation Room, first you have to click here, then you have to click this. On today's Outnumbered program, Lahren played tape of a tiny part of what Bass said, shorn of any context.
Lahren then provided her "translation" of what Bass had said. This is a standard part of the endless clowning performed on Fox News Channel programs.
Videotape of Lahren's "translation" is included as part of the Mediaite report.
ReplyDelete"Last year, did Candidate Trump say he would execute "mass deportations" when he returned to the White House? Or did he actually say that he was only going to deport "the worst of the worst?""
What difference does it make? Illegal migrants are "the worst of the worst" of all the migrants. All of them should be deported. That's the law. Denying it is completely idiotic.
"For the record, many people who are being deported are not "here illegally.""
Oh, really? Do you mean people whose visas have been cancelled? Once your visa (or "protected status" or some such) had been cancelled, you are here illegally. Stop your idiotic sophistry, please.
"many" is a vague word Trump has deported around 600,000 illegal immigrants. Also, around 1,5000,00 left voluntarily. By comparison, how many legal immigrants were wrongly deported. Ten? Two?
DeleteWhy not focus in what he’s doing, instead of past statements?
Delete1,5000,00 is not a number. Didn’t it look odd to you are a career as an actuary?
DeleteA lot more than 10 or 2, but when you don’t keep track of such things, how can you claim transparency and how can people evaluate the program? I see several of these wrongful deportation stories per week. That is way more than should be tolerated, in my opinion.
Delete4:12 It is good to see a well thought out and balanced analysis of a complex situation.
ReplyDelete4:12 It is good to see a well thought out and balanced analysis of a complex situation.
ReplyDeleteWhen you Magats lose Marge, FFS...
ReplyDelete"That was when the stress fracture that had been steadily widening between Greene and her political godfather became an irrevocable break. She had increasingly taken stands apart from the president and the Republican Party: declaring the war in Gaza a “genocide”; objecting to cryptocurrency and artificial-intelligence policies that, from her perspective, prioritized billionaire donors over working-class Americans; criticizing the Trump administration for approving foreign student visas, for enacting tariffs that hurt businesses in her district and for allowing Obamacare subsidies to expire.
Most significant, she defied the president and compliant House Republican leaders as she argued that all investigative material pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein should be released."
Haha.Sad to be you.
It's a nonsensical discussion in the first place. The rapists, the murderers, and other criminals are already incarcerated, which is how they know that they are bad people.
ReplyDeleteTerrorizing the population, particularly the immigrant community is the point. Although, this type of brutality permeates the society in general and makes it coarse and brittle.
Yes, ICE efforts are terrorizing illegal immigrants. That has had the beneficial effect of persuading 1.9 million illegal immigrants to self-deport.
DeleteAnd, as I've oft mentioned, under the law and the Constitution the President is tasked with deporting all the illegal immigrants. It's his duty.
Please quote the law or section of the constitution that tasks the president with deporting all illegal immigrants, DiC.
DeleteThey are terrorizing all immigrants, including legal residents, naturalized citizens and citizens with immigrant relatives. These are people who shouldn’t have to fear. They are also terrorizing bystanders, employers, people running businesses, legal protesters, attorneys, family, and people with brown skin or spanish surnames (born in the USA). That isn’t right but it is happening.
Delete@7:16
Delete“ The U.S. Constitution, specifically Article II, establishes the Executive Branch, led by the President, with the core duty to enforce the laws made by Congress, ensuring they are "faithfully executed" through various departments, agencies (like the FBI, EPA), and officials, fulfilling the system of separation of powers. ”
These self-deporting numbers keep growing in your telling, like the proverbial fish story. How do you get these statistics, Dickhead in Cal? Do they send you a love note when they cross the border, fuckface?
DeleteAnd what law, DiC, specifically states that all illegal immigrants must be deported, no exceptions?
DeleteYes, the LA Fire Dept. could have prevented the Pacific Palisade fire.
ReplyDeleteA batch of just-released text messages and other communications between California officials and the Los Angeles Fire Department from the run-up to the Pacific Palisades Fire reveals a system more concerned with a few endangered plants than with massive destruction and death.
We learned why on Saturday in a Los Angeles Times report... So here are the first three paragraphs of Jenny Jarvie and Alene Tchekmedyian's story, reproduced exactly as they appear (just) outside of the paper's paywall:
An hour after midnight Jan. 1, as a small brush fire blazed across Topanga State Park, a California State Parks employee texted the Los Angeles Fire Department’s heavy equipment supervisor to find out if they were sending in bulldozers.
“Heck no that area is full of endangered plants,” Capt. Richard Diede replied at 9:52 a.m, five hours after LAFD declared the fire contained.
“I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area,” he wrote. “I’m so trained.”
Nothing would have prevented the fires. Fully contained means the bulldozers were not needed at that time.
DeleteOnly a real idiot would overlook that.
Delete