BUCK: Here’s a simple way to get into a whole lot of other conversations and situations about the state of American politics right now. Biden has fallen to his lowest point yet now in terms of approval. I mean, this was just from a few hours ago. The CBS News and YouGov poll has his approval rating down to 42%, 42% approval rating.
Now, that 8% or so that has put him underwater, those are people who pay attention to things like, you know, the economy and inflation and the price of gas and — you’re never gonna get — Biden could do anything, and I mean anything, and 20% of the country would still say, ‘Well, he’s our guy.’ Maybe 30%. So, if you’re looking at this from the perspective of independents, persuadables and those in the middle who tend to determine national elections and are an important bellwether of where a midterm election is going, Joe Biden is in big trouble politically right now.
And I don’t see how any of this is going to get better. I also think that on the issue of the border, Clay, he’s gonna have a few things coming together. The inflation, which we’re gonna talk about in just a little bit and what that means, I think it’s gonna keep getting worse. Some folks are talking recession as a real possibility going — I mean, if you’re — if you have high inflation and a recession or the beginnings of a recession, even, going into a midterm election, you could expect that it’s going to be a wipeout based on that.
When you add to it that we may be in the worst immigration situation, illegal immigration situation ever, here’s what lieutenant governor Dan Patrick of Texas had to say about what we’re looking at the end of Biden’s first term with the current numbers.
PATRICK: We are facing a situation on the border by the end of the first term of Joe Biden nearly 20% of all Americans will be here illegally. That means in Joe Biden’s first term we will have more people coming to a-to-America illegally than we have in the entire state of Texas. There are 29 million people in Texas. Joe Biden is going to let in about 30 million people in his first term based on who we apprehend, one out of three. You add the 30 million in four years to the other 30 million, that’s 60 million people here illegally in the United States. That’s 20% of the population.
BUCK: Now, look. You could argue that his numbers are on the higher end of the estimates, to be sure. I can tell you that the 12 million illegal immigrant number is laughed at by border payroll and ICE officials you talk to. There’s no way. We’re — that’s been the same number for 10 years. There’s no way. It’s more like 20 million. He’s saying 30 million. But right now, Clay, we’re on track for two or three million a year, each year of the Biden administration. Feels unsustainable.
CLAY: I don’t know — and this is what we talked about last week. I sit and I look at what is coming for the Democrat Party in the midterms. And I think to myself, what can they possibly be thinking May 23rd ending Title 42? Because you know that the entire summer is then going to be expended with all of the footage of the border disaster. And I understand that maybe they’re hoping they’re gonna get some sort of rallying cry that comes out of the Supreme Court, depending on what the Supreme Court does with abortion, right?
BUCK: I think that’s — I think that’s gonna be overstated meaning even if they do something big it goes back to the states. I don’t think that’s gonna be enough of an outcry.
CLAY: I’m tending to think, too, Buck, because also the data, when you look at it, 95% of abortions happen before the first 15 weeks. So if they uphold the Mississippi law, it only would impact 5% of abortions that are going on, right? In terms of when they’re occurring. Ninety-five percent of them happen before week 15.
To your point, one possibility here is they just throw everything back to the states, which I think is probably ultimately what’s going to end up happening with Roe v. Wade. But I tend to think that that is not going to be as big of an issue as many people are anticipating.
And also, Buck, that it could be snowed under by all of the attention that I do think it will be impossible to ignore going on at the border because we see at Del Rio, Texas, that one shot of underneath the bridge of the 15,000 Haitians, that’s the only time the border has really been a story during Joe Biden’s term. That’s gonna be everywhere all over the border.
CLAY: Yeah, makes no sense.
BUCK: — that makes no sense, and it’s also, I think, a really clear reminder that we have been through this period where it is a Democrat ideology, it’s the authoritarian impulse of the Democratic Party on display, they’ll tell you, you can’t go to church, this is what you can buy, this is where you can go, mask up your kids, mask up your toddler, they’ll tell you the most minute detail. And if you have a problem with any of this, you’re reckless, you’re not obeying the law.
I mean, every time they read the stupid judge federal policy says you have to mask up between bites on a plane” and it really is mask up between bites, folks, that they — because they specify that while not actively eating or drinking, it’s mask up between bites. So they will micromanage every aspects of Americans’ lives under the notion of protecting us from covid. Mean — because it’s the law.
Meanwhile, at the border, come in illegally, lie to Border Patrol, don’t show up for your hearing, use fake documents, work illegally, don’t file taxes, and it’s, hey, we’re a nation of illegal immigrants, apparently. People are seeing this and they’re saying, this is a big problem. They can see there’s something wrong here.
CLAY: And it’s even a big problem for Democrats. Independents and Republicans, this is not a surprise that people would look at what Joe Biden’s doing at the border and say, this is a disaster. But even Democrats are looking at the border. Buck, look at the numbers — and I think it’s probably even going to accelerate.
Down in south Texas, the biggest cultural swing that has occurred in terms of the electorate, if you look at the numbers, is south Texas. That one area that went for overwhelmingly Hillary Clinton in 2016 that flipped to a large extent to Donald Trump in 2020 and probably in the midterms is going to continue that cycle even more so.
These are predominantly people obviously who have friends and family on both sides of the border, and they don’t support the lawlessness that is occurring down on the border, Hispanic-Americans. And so this is going to continue to be, I think, a bigger and a bigger issue.
And even with all the disasters that Biden has going on, this is one that I believe is going to linger, and to your point, Buck, you’re — what we talked about — you’re maintaining mask mandates on airplanes while changing Title 42. But also we’ve seen the president and the vice president obsessed with Ukrainian border sovereignty. They traveled to Europe, they got within a few miles of the border of Ukraine, they have obsessively talked about these armies coming across into Ukraine.
Well, effectively what we’re gonna have on the southern border is an army of illegal immigration coming right across our border and overwhelming the people who are designed to do the jobs there. And we’re not even gonna get a scintilla of the same level of attention from the president or the vice president.
What they do, Clay — and everyone I talk to on Border Patrol agrees that this is what’s going on — what they do is say, “Oh, no, no. We want border security too. We want border security too.” And then out of the other side of their mouth it’s, “Yeah, come on, illegals, come in. We’re not gonna process you. We’re not gonna do anything. We’re not gonna detain you. We’re not gonna deport you. And we’re gonna make sure that you have the most seamless, easiest process possible to come into the country at the U.S.-Mexico border.”
I mean, we just went through a time when Americans couldn’t even go to Canada because of covid right? Like total lockdown, not even allowed to go, and yet at our southern border it’s effectively wide open. I’ll just say this. You know, we had Stephen Miller on last week who was senior adviser to Trump specifically on immigration and he was one of the few people who talks about immigration policy and really knows down into the details ’cause it’s all about how the bureaucracy and the system actually functions versus what the talking points are from the Democrats. He’s taken it even a step farther, Clay. He’s saying that the Biden immigration policy is actually impeachable.
MILLER: What this president has done is he has turned Congress into a mere suggestion box. The entire Immigration and Nationality Act which governs who can enter our country, how you apply for a visa, what rules you have to comply with, where you have to apply from, that entire system has been rubbished and trashed by this president as though he were an emperor. And it is completely impeachable.
BUCK: Now, let’s just be clear. Democrats created this world where they impeach Donald Trump twice over bullcrap.
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: Bullcrap. What are Republicans, Republicans looking to have a majority in the House, you know, this — what is it, politics ain’t beanbag? Right? This is tough stuff. I’m not saying they’re gonna impeach him, but I am pointing out that the immigration issue is a serious vulnerability and Republicans need to find a way to make sure the American people know that. And we’ll see where it goes.
CLAY: I’ll also say this. We need to have a larger conversation and debate about immigration. I even think — and I’ve talked about this on the show before, and I think it’s almost third-railish, and people are like, oh, how in the world can you talk about this? One of the major incentives for illegal immigration, Buck, is the idea that your kid is born on United States soil, they become a United States citizen. I don’t think most Americans understand how understand how radical of a policy that is compared to even other democracies around the world.
I mean, Japan, for instance. It’s almost impossible for someone to become a Japanese citizen. The fact that you’re born in Japan doesn’t make you a Japanese citizen.
BUCK: The reason that I think a lot of people can really see this is that, you know, anchor babies, which is another term that you’re not allowed — you know, oh, you can’t say — been a term in use in politics in America for decades. The anchor baby scams. And they are scams that are run, particularly in California where you have Asian migrants who pay specifically to come to America, give birth to a baby here, go — and this is mostly China — go back to China, they keep their Chinese citizenship, have American citizenship, then get to show when they’re adults and say, “Oh, I want to go to, you know, college in California now and everything else.”
I mean, this is a scam. I mean, this is not the way it’s actually supposed to work. And the companies that do this get prosecuted, by the way, but the individuals who get their citizenship keep it. So, yeah, there should be a conversation about birthright citizenship. Stephen Miller wanted to have that conversation under Trump.
CLAY: Yeah. Well, look. I mean, it’s a game system. And I think it’s honestly a conversation that to me shouldn’t be partisan in nature. It’s a legitimate conversation that should be taking place because it’s a radical proposition that is being gamed and taken advantage of every single day all over the United States —
BUCK: I’m sorry. Just one of the ways at the border they scam the system is a lot of women who are seven or eight months pregnant show up at the southern border on foot.
CLAY: Of course.
CLAY: Of course. They want to come in here and have a baby. And the other thing is once you have — the concept, once you have the baby — some of these people leave, right, like in China, Chinese situation but once you have an American citizen baby, it becomes almost impossible to take the parents out of the country, right? They know that they are then anchored into the United States if they decide to leave.
Some of the Chinese people are super wealthy in China and they’re just playing the advantage game for their kids because they want to have that American citizenship. You can’t go to China and get dual Chinese citizenship if you’re an American citizen by having your baby in China. You certainly can’t do it in Japan. You can’t do it in many of the countries around the world.
BUCK: And when you look at how much China has been targeting very specifically high — the highest-end American research universities in aeronautics and sensitive military technology, I mean, imagine if you have a whole generation of, oh, on no what do you mean these are American citizens? They didn’t spend five minutes in America other than being born here until they went to university until, all of a sudden, you know, they’re at MIT and they’re studying laser and aeronautics and things that are really important to the 5G race going forward
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