TUESDAY: Is Adam Smith allowed to say that?

TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2026

What the congressman said: Adam Smith appeared as a guest on Fox News Sunday last weekend. 

We refer to Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), a Democrat from the state of Washington. In our view, he tends to be smart and sane. 

He serves as Ranking Member of (as top Democrat on) the House Armed Services Committee. It was in that capacity that he appeared on Fox News Sunday with its anchor, Shannon Bream, who has sometimes also been caught being both smart and sane. 

Bream isn't the standard Fox News Channel messenger person. On Sunday, she and Smith had a lengthy discussion about the current partial government shutdown.

In the main, we aren't concerned today with the shape of that longer discussion. Along the way, Smith surprised us with something he actually said. We join that discussion in progress:

BREAM (3/29/26): If you [Democrats] all want to change ICE policy, why not fund everyone as these bills were already agreed to? There was a bipartisan agreement on these bills. They hit this block in the Senate after they'd already been part of a bipartisan negotiation.

SMITH: Yes! They hit the block in the Senate after two American citizens were killed in Minneapolis, without any accountability!

BREAM: Which is a tragedy, but there are Americans too—Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray—I mean, those are Americans who have been killed too.

SMITH: We have a legitimate debate to be had over how to do immigration enforcement. And by the way, I agree with Senator Cotton [an earlier guest]. The Biden administration did not do immigration enforcement the way it should have. We should have the border more secure than it was. But there's plenty of room between that policy, between the "radical left" policy you keep talking about—you know, open borders and all of that—and having masked, unidentifiable ICE agents show up, no probable cause, no due process, killing two people, warrantless searches of peoples' homes, detaining people without any due process. Can't we get somewhere in between in those two extremes? 

And so on from there. 

You're looking at part of a longer discussion. We're mainly concerned with these highlighted statements by Smith: 

The Biden administration did not do immigration enforcement the way it should have. We should have the border more secure than it was. 

We think we may have heard some major Democrat making some such statements before. But we're not totally sure that we have.

The handling of the southern border under President Biden remains the political gift which keeps on giving to purveyors of agitprop inside Silo Red. It's always there for Red American messengers to mention and fall back on. 

To the best of our knowledge, the handling of the southern border under President Biden remains unexplained to this day. Smith has at least acknowledged a fact what will seem to be obvious to tens of millions of voters: 

Absent some future explanation, the first three-plus years of border policy under President Biden are very hard to affirm. It seems to us that Smith had the right idea in admitting that this unexplained policy matter went wrong. 

A final point: 

Who were Rachel Morin and Jocelyn Nungaray?  Every Fox News Channel viewer will know. Some Blue Americans may not.

In our view, we Blues have promulgated some slippery evasions regarding the way they (and others) were sexually assaulted and murdered in recent years. Jocelyn Nungaray was only 12 years old at the time of her vicious killing by a pair of assailants. 

In our view, attention should have been paid by Blues as well as by Reds.

We Blues may be inclined to cling to our tribal dodges. It's a very human thing to do, but as we try to shape the future, we think it's a bad idea.