Live from Music Row Wednesday 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 author and former acting director of ICE under the Trump administration, Tom Homan to the newsmaker line to discuss his endorsement of Jim Lamon for Arizona’s Senate, the national security crisis at the southern border, and the potential further damage of lifting Title 42.
Leahy: We welcome to our microphones, a fellow upstate New Yorker, former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration, and our good friend, Tom Homan. Good morning, Tom.
Homan: Thanks for having me.
Leahy: Tom, our national political editor, Neil W. McCabe, was at the town hall that you were part of in Sun City, Arizona, on Friday. You were there, and you are supporting and have endorsed the leading candidate now in the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate there, Jim Lamon.
One part of his proposal, of his campaign pledge, I wanted to chat with you about. It’s quite interesting. We’ve got the story coming out shortly on this.
He said there that if he’s elected to the Senate, if he wins the GOP primary, and if he defeats Mark Kelly in November, the first thing he’s going to do is shut down the United States Senate in any way he can until they provide protection of our southern border. What do you think of that?
Homan: Well, look, I think basically he’s saying, why would any member of the Senate on the Republican side sit down and negotiate infrastructure bill budget or any legislation until they take some action on the border?
Why negotiate it and give this administration a win when they’re ignoring the border, which is causing a national security crisis?
Leahy: You’re asking a question that 50 U.S. Republican senators have not done much about since January of 2021. Have you advised Senate candidate Jim Lamon about this?
Homan: I sat down with Jim. Jim talked about it before I endorsed him. Jim sat down and talked to me about his positions on the border.
He supports all the Trump policies that we created and that this administration abolished within the first two weeks. Joe Biden is basically killing everything we created on the border to secure the border.
Jim is the Trump guy. He believes in the secure border. He believes in all the policies I helped create. He believes that the border is one of the most important things that the U.S. Congress should address. Jim recognizes it’s just not an immigration issue anymore.
Simon: This is Roger Simon here. Do you think it would work to shut down the Senate for this?
Homan: I don’t think the word was shut down the Senate. I don’t agree with shutting down the Senate. I think what he’s trying to get to, in my opinion, is that you don’t sit down and continue to negotiate other legislation until the Democrats show that they’re taking one step.
Show us one thing you’ve done to slow the flow, because they keep ignoring the southern border. They’ll go down and they’ll talk about an infrastructure bill.
They’ll talk about other legislation. And until you force your hand and say, we have a national security crisis on the border. Forty-two people have been arrested.
Simon: I thought Vice President Kamala Harris was going to solve that?
Leahy: Isn’t Vice President Kamala Harris on the job solving that, Tom?
Homan: Kamala Harris, she’s missing in action. That’s the worst pick he could have had for a border czar. Again, it shows this administration isn’t taking the border seriously. (Unintelligible talk)
Simon: Maybe they are taking it seriously but in the wrong way.
Leahy: Maybe this is intentional.
Simon: Exactly.
Homan: I’ve been saying that from day one. This isn’t by accident. This isn’t mismanagement. This isn’t incompetence. This is by design. And that’s why they’re not working to fix it. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, can’t tell you one thing that he’s done to slow the flow. Everything he’s done is about processing quicker, and releasing quicker, which only brings more.
Leahy: You’ve endorsed Jim Lamon in the Senate race in Arizona. Two other candidates here, the Attorney General, Mark Brnovich is running, and Blake Masters, who is Peter Thiel’s former colleague, running there as well.
I think Jim Lamon’s ahead slightly in the polls. Are there other Senate candidates that you think have that same attitude about protecting our southern borders that you’re supportive of?
Homan: No. I don’t endorse a lot of people. I think I’ve endorsed four or five people because I used to not do it. But because of the situation on the border right now, if there’s a strong candidate that believes our borders are important, that we should secure them, I’ll listen to them, and if they say the right things and promise the right actions, I’ll endorse them.
But I’ve endorsed a few people on the East Coast just because they believe in the borders. People didn’t understand the issue on the border right now is huge. It’s a national security issue, 700,000 got-aways.
Seven-hundred thousand people went to this country and haven’t been arrested since Joe Biden became president. They arrested 42 people out there in the screening database.
How many of the 700,000 are in that same screening database and got into the country? The border concerns me. It’s a huge national security issue.
Leahy: Let me ask you this. There’s been a lot of discussion about proposed changes in this Title 42 expulsion by the U.S. government of persons who have recently been in a country where a communicable disease was present.
This has been a policy that the Trump administration put in in early 2020. The Biden administration is threatening to get rid of that, I think next week sometime, a judge is saying, well, maybe not so much. Where do we stand on Title 42 enforcement?
Homan: Title 42 is important because it causes hundreds of thousands to be legally repatriated back to Mexico. However, people need to understand, that even with Title 42 in place, we’re at a place right now on a scale that we’re going to beat last year’s numbers.
Last year’s numbers are historic. 1.7 million. We’re already on a scale to beat last year’s numbers with Title 42. And if they lift Title 42, those numbers are just going to explode.
Simon: It almost seems like a conspiracy to addict half the country to fentanyl. It’s really a horrible situation. I have to agree with you. I think it’s worse than our media is even telling us.
Listen to the interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.Â
