Live from Music Row Thursday 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. – guest host Gulbransen welcomed U.S. Congressman Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-04) to the newsmaker line to discuss his recent op-ed on the hypocrisy of the left as sanctuary cities prove to be backfiring.
Gulbransen: We have on our newsmaker line, which I want to go right to Congressman Scott Desjarlais. How are you, sir? I’m doing good.
Desjarlais: How are you this morning, Aaron?
Gulbransen: I didn’t just butcher your name; if I did, I’m sorry.
Desjarlais: You’re fine.
Gulbransen: In my defense, I don’t live in your district. But you have a great op ed that we’ve published entitled “No City is Prepared for Sanctuary Status”. Do you want to talk about that?
Desjarlais: It’s just interesting, especially right here in DC, where I’m at this morning. Mayor Muriel Bowser was wanting to call out the National Guard and invoke emergencies and asking for help with the illegals that had been sent up here from Governor Abbott, Texas, and also Arizona.
And she declared this a sanctuary city and that everyone was welcome and now that she’s living a life in the day of Texas or Arizona or any of those southern border states, she pushes the panic button and all her bravado doesn’t seem to fit the narrative anymore.
I just thought it was worth pointing out that we’ve been shedding light on this border crisis since Biden canceled many of the Trump-era policies that were working to keep our southern border secure. And these cities think it’s great until a problem descends upon them.
Carmichael: Representatives, Crom Carmichael, I have a question for you. What is the legal rationale for a city or even a state to be able to declare that it’s going to ignore federal law?
Desjarlais: That’s been a big debate up here, as you know. And I wish I could give you a good legal rationale because I don’t think that it is legal. The Constitution gives rights to American citizens, but we’re seeing the laws basically ignored and disregarded, so I don’t think that it’s legal.
I don’t know why the Supreme Court hasn’t taken that up. But basically, you can’t go into another country illegally and unannounced. We can’t go to other nations around the world and do that. Most people don’t even try.
They know they’ll be locked up, put away. Any number of bad things will happen. But yet in our country, the baby liberal side of the aisle, just turn a blind eye to this. Meanwhile, the taxpayers are putting the bill for all the problems, not to mention families are suffering the injustices at the hands of what Trump was criticized for saying were bad people.
People that were bringing drugs into our country. Correct. People who are raping people and killing people. Correct. And so he was villainized for that. But yet we see that come to fruition in almost daily as you hear news reports of murders, rapes, record sentinel deaths in Tennessee, 3000 people have died, and he was spot on.
And without border security, we have no national security. Biden is concerned about securing Ukraine’s borders, but he has no interest in securing ours. So I’m going to throw the question right back at you because I don’t think you know either.
Carmichael: No, I don’t know. I was asking. That was not a rhetorical question. So I guess my question is, if Republicans regain control of the House, the Senate, and then eventually in 2024 the presidency, can that problem be fixed by statute so that in the future, states and cities can’t declare themselves to be outside of a federal law that has been explicitly passed? One that doesn’t exist now, but one that you all could pass to stop that process?
Desjarlais: I think we can. You remember one thing, funding is always key. And President Trump was going to withhold funding to these cities that didn’t follow the law, and it seemed like that hit a roadblock.
I can’t remember the exact reasoning, but certainly, there are a number of things that we can do to mitigate the problem, and we’re looking forward to getting that opportunity.
Carmichael: Well, I’m hoping that whatever solution you all come up with is one that can’t be changed if the person sitting in the Oval Office changes, but make it a statute that people would be breaking the law if they do this because I’m with you. I think it’s destroying our country. It certainly is destroying the states and the cities that are allowing it.
Desjarlais: Yes. There’s no question. And so those things simply have to be addressed. The absolute only reason I can think that the left would be turning the blind eye to this is somehow they think this helps them electorally in the future by bringing in people saying, here, we’re the one that allowed you in here. You need to support us.
But you see that strategy turning on them in races like the Mayra Flores in Texas who flipped 150-year Democratic seat right there on the border. The Hispanic people are not in favor of seeing the country destroyed.
A lot of people who migrate here legally, they’ll appreciate America, unlike a lot of the citizens that live here now, who seem to disregard it. So we see a big shift in the electorate, and hopefully that will come to fruition in 2022 and 2024 and give us the opportunity to do that.
But you bring up an interesting point. It seems like the legislating that comes out of Congress has been negated by the executive orders that come from the president. And we’ve seen that since Obama.
Trump did a lot of executive orders. Biden, certainly on day one, undid all the policies that Trump had on the border in other areas, like energy, where we were energy independent and he shut down the ability for us to do so.
We really do need to address how we keep the pendulum from swinging back and forth every two to four years based on who’s in power. We need to be able to codify these things moving forward.
But it seems so fundamental in terms of illegal immigration that our country is literally being destroyed before our eyes. We watch it. We see it every day. Mayorkas goes on TV and says there’s not a border crisis. There’s not a problem. It’s secure.
It’s just absolutely ridiculous. You can see it with your own eyes. And now, again, coming back full circle here in DC where they’ve had four or 5,000 people bust here, which I think is a great source strategy…
Listen to the interview:
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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.
