Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Fox Nation contributor and host of “No Interruption,” Tomi Lahren to the newsmaker line to weigh in on the death of Colin Powell, the “Let’s Go Brandon” chant that’s sweeping the nation, and what it’s really like at the border for ranchers.
Leahy: We are joined on a newsmaker line by Tomi Lahren of Fox News. Tomi, there’s some breaking news just to get your reaction. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell died on Monday this morning at the age of 84 due to complications from Covid-19.
The family said that a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been fully vaccinated and was receiving treatment at Walter Reed National Medical Center. Any comments on that, Tomi?
Lahren: As somebody who kind of grew up seeing Colin Powell over the TV, especially during the Bush administration, obviously, it’s tragic you think about his family. And it’s just something that I think really hits you, especially when you’re at an age like mine.
I really grew up seeing him as one of our leaders at the time that I grew up with. So it’s incredibly tragic and heartbreaking. It’s just another reminder that this pandemic still isn’t over. It still needs to be taken seriously.
But I’m sure folks are having a lot of questions as well about the vaccine and how this really pertains to everything. It’s just a conversation, I think that is not going to end anytime soon.
Leahy: And our condolences to his family. He was 84. I didn’t realize he was that old but I guess he’s been around for a long time. And he had been fully vaccinated. So there’s going to be a lot of questions on that.
There are other things going on in the country, Tomi. I’ve been following with great interest this chant Let’s go Brandon. Have you followed that?
Lahren: (Laughs) I think that’s the greatest gift we’ve been given and given in these nine miserable months of the Biden administration.
If there’s one thing that I think is keeping everybody going right now and everybody’s spirits a little bit higher, it’s the Let’s Go Brandon chant.
Leahy: The real chant is an expletive aimed at Joe Biden. And of course, it started when a clever, manipulative NBC Sports reporter was interviewing a NASCAR driver who just won a race.
His name was Brandon. The crowd was chanting expletive Joe Biden, and she just turned it all around and said, Let’s go, Brandon. And it sort of backfired on her, hasn’t it?
Lahren: Oh, my goodness. I can’t imagine being her and knowing that she’s kind of the joke of a nation.
Lahren: But I think it is something that it’s wonderful for us Trump supporters and us Conservatives because we can say that. It’s not an expletive.
And it’s just like a little inside joke. And the thing is that some Liberals have not caught on to it yet. (Leahy laughs) And we’re seeing this nation on College football, especially SEC football. I saw it the other night at one of the baseball playoff games with people with Let’s go Brandon signs.
I think it’s just the greatest gift. We could do it without being something that children can still see. Unlike the days of Trump when they were actually using the F-word. Now we can just use that. And I think it’s a great, clean, wholesome gift that we’ve been given.
Leahy: I think that’s so true, Tomi. (Carmichael giggles) Now tell us what is on your agenda. What are the big things that you’re working on right now?
Lahren: I’ll tell you this one thing that I’m really keeping my eye on right now is this border and immigration. As you know, I’ve spent a lot of time at the border. I’ve made six trips to the border in various locations.
Now I hear that the Biden administration wants to bring back Remain in Mexico starting in November. I mean, it’s back and forth, back and forth.
Do they want to secure the border? Do they not want to secure the border? Why do we have those leaked border patrol documents that say that they are essentially just releasing them into our country in huge, large numbers?
Which we already knew, by the way, that’s what I’m hyper-focused on right now because I think that would really bring fundamental changes to our nation. And my concern, our voting system.
Leahy: Crom Carmichael has a question for you, Tomi.
Carmichael: I’d be a little bit cautious about the Remain in Mexico saying that Biden wants to reimplement it. The courts are forcing him to say he’s going to reimplement it. I don’t think he will.
Lahren: Yeah, you’re correct. He’s going to use his way to get around it because the court said that, of course, that policy needs to withstand. But they’ve already said that they’re going to use tricky ways to get around it.
Which wouldn’t surprise me at all. I just think that people take comfort in hearing it’s going to be reinstated. I don’t believe that it ever will. But our borders are open.
I was just on the other night with Judge Jeanine and the guest before me with Senator Lindsey Graham, and he was talking about Yuma, Arizona and Brazilians coming over with fancy luggage and fancy clothes.
And now they’re trying to come across the border in sizable numbers. So the message has gotten out to the world. If you want to come to the United States, you want to get a free pass and a free ride, come one, come all and come now because our President is asleep at the wheel. That’s a terrifying thought.
Leahy: Tomi, let me ask you describe what it’s like being on the border with your most recent trip? What have you noticed?
Lahren: It’s just mass chaos, and it’s completely different than what we saw under the Trump administration. Obviously, when Donald Trump got into office, it was a mess. And I was down there at the kind of early times of the Trump administration when he was figuring everything out.
He was implementing a zero-tolerance policy. Of course, the left is going crazy about that because he was separating families.
A lot of people don’t understand that those families largely had to be separated for their own good so that you didn’t have unaccompanied minors with adults that may or may not even be their relation or their parents or know them whatsoever.
But then I saw the policies really come into play, especially Remain in Mexico. People that don’t understand Remain in Mexico. I’ll try to explain it really briefly.
When people are coming over and they’re spending thousands of dollars, usually tens of thousands of dollars that they’re paying to criminal organizations and cartels to get across our borders if they know that they’re going to get across and then be sent back to Mexico to wait.
That really disincentivizes that journey and that trip. This is why remain in Mexico was so popular. But what you have now is you have catch and release!
And so when you have catch and release, they’re thinking, all right, I’ll pay a few thousand dollars to a criminal organization. I’ll get into the United States, I’ll escape into the shadows, and then in some states, I can get health care and benefits.
So of course, they’re coming over. It makes absolute sense. We have created a magnet, and it’s not going to end anytime soon.
Leahy: Where did you go most recently? Was it the McAllen area? Where did you go?
Lahren: Most recently, I was in Arizona, and I’ve spent some time in McAllen. I’ve spent a lot of time in Arizona, and I spent some time in San Diego.
Leahy: What’s the border location in Arizona where you were, Tomi? Was it Yuma?
Lahren: I was in the Tucson area, Nogales.
Leahy: I think the guy that heads up the Border Patrol group is based in the Nogales area. When do you go down there are you concerned for your physical safety?
Lahren: I never have been because every trip I’ve ever taken has been with Border Patrol. However, this recent trip that I took, I was not accompanied by Border Patrol because the Biden administration has kind of put somewhat of a gag order on our Border Patrol agents and doesn’t allow them to spend a lot of time talking to media, especially media, with a Fox on it.
So I was actually having to go and spend time with ranchers and community members and the Border Patrol Council because the actual agents weren’t available and at our disposal as they were during the Trump administration.
I spent a lot of time with ranchers in that area who are saying we’re having people come over. They’re staying on our land and it was a little colder outside at nighttime, they were starting fires on these ranchers’ properties, cutting their fences, and sabotaging their water.
I mean, this is something that they’ve dealt with being in a border state and a border community for many, many years. But now because Border Patrol is stretched so thin, they’re unable to respond to these ranchers and these landowners because they’re having to babysit these unaccompanied minors.
So that leaves a huge national security concern for not only the people on the border. But because of the Biden administration, we’ve all become a border state.
Leahy: What about the security for those ranchers? If you’ve got a ranch on the border, do you have any control over your private property, or is it basically being violated at every moment by these illegal immigrants?
Lahren: It’s completely violated. And it’s on a daily basis. And they’re cutting wire and cutting fences. And that’s what these ranchers have to deal with. It’s their livelihood. They already went through the pandemic, which is a hard time.
And now they’re having to safeguard their land. They’ve got thousands and thousands of acres. It’s not easy for them to have to go around and make sure that their fences are all up because these illegal immigrants are cutting their fences.
But then let’s also keep in mind that a lot of these illegal immigrants coming over their felons and they’re criminals. And they’ve got these people in their backyard.
They’ve got these people that are brazen that are using their barns, using their lands, coming up to their homes and knocking on their doors and demanding resources.
That’s the environment that we’ve created right now. And we already know that we’ve defunded law enforcement, demoralized, law enforcement, certainly overstressed Border Patrol.
So the loser in all this is those people in those border towns who are really having to protect and defend themselves. One of the ranchers that you talk to, who are in these circumstances, what do they think about the United States government right now?
Lahren: They are furious. And I’ll tell you another reason why. I spent some time and saw it firsthand. There are pieces of the border walls that are sitting there, stacked up, and machinery that’s sitting there that is locked up.
It’s still sitting there rusting away. That equipment and materials that the American taxpayer has already paid for to fill the gaps of that wall.
But because the Biden administration wants to come in and virtue signal, that equipment and those materials are just sitting there, even though they’ve already been paid for and not being constructed as a part of that border wall that was so effective.
Especially for these ranchers and landowners, and that makes them furious. And it should make the American taxpayer furious. We’ve already paid for it, but it’s sitting there rusting away. Thanks to Sleepy Joe.
Leahy: Tomi Lahren and with Fox News. Thanks so much for giving us that first hand report of what’s going on at the border and be safe and be careful. And we’ll be praying for you next time you go down.
Lahren: Thank you, and bless you guys.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Not sure anyone cares what a pro-life RINO has to say.