On this episode of The War Room, we review the year that was 2020, and look at how the rise of the MAGA movement led to the fall of Ron DeSantis in the primary, and what it taught us about how not to run a campaign.
00:03:22.360There are so many different elements to this, whether you want to take the kind of the boorish arrogance of somebody like Jeff Rowe,
00:03:30.680whether you want to take the sort of the grifting nature of van der Plaats and those people who are brought on using $100,000 checks to the process,
00:03:40.580whether you want to look at it from the perspective of who Ron was allowing to run his campaign and what Ron thought about himself as a result of having won his own elections in Florida,
00:03:52.120convinced himself that Donald Trump had nothing to do with those wins, where in reality Donald Trump had everything to do with those wins.
00:03:59.520You can look at the people who have endorsed him.
00:04:02.820You can look at how they set about the campaign in the first instance.
00:04:05.860There was, by the way, it's not often you'll get me complimenting New York Times reporting,
00:04:09.540but there was a fabulous piece of New York Times reporting towards the latter part of this year,
00:04:13.220which walked people through exactly, you know, what took place and when within that campaign.
00:04:19.840And, you know, you go from the original sin of that campaign was hiring Jeff Rowe.
00:04:29.640Because they're buddies and he knew that in hiring Jeff Rowe, it took Ted Cruz and Glenn Youngkin out of the running for the race
00:04:37.020because they would naturally go to Rowe, their buddy as well, to run their campaigns.
00:04:40.680It was all of this what we call too clever by half, right?
00:04:44.360Too cute way of trying to run this campaign.
00:04:46.900And they thought, all of them, by the way, thought that, oh, if we're doing the opposite of what all of the MAGA world people think we should be doing,
00:04:58.740Well, look, this year has taught us something very fundamental because at first we were told, all right, you know, wait until he gets in the race.
00:05:06.380Then we were told, OK, wait until he debates.
00:05:08.440Then we were told, OK, wait until, you know, whatever it is.
00:05:11.960And now it's wait until Iowa, which is just in a couple of days' time at this point, and no sign of any serious movement for DeSantis there.
00:05:22.220And even if there was, even if there was, he runs up against his 8% in New Hampshire.
00:05:28.100So some of it is philosophical, right?
00:05:32.140You can't hologram your way into being the leader of a mass movement, especially not the MAGA movement, because the MAGA movement is something more than just politics.
00:06:11.280So I think the focus on what went wrong, focus on the R-O-N in the word wrong there, will actually be the most fascinating part of Ron DeSantis' political career.
00:06:26.260This MAGA not abandoning Trump, even though some of the polling initially where people were having ā some people definitely were having some doubts.
00:06:39.020But MAGA finding its home with President Trump, having his back, seeing DeSantis out of the box, and at the exact time having the back of Matt Gaetz and these rebels starting in January.
00:06:50.780Both of these show both at the House and Congress level and at the executive branch for a broad national election the rise and ascendancy and the self-assurance of this movement where it became very clear what ā they see it very clearly what needs to be done.
00:07:10.100And no matter what Murdoch news ā because remember, Murdoch news was absolutely 1,000 percent against this audience and what it believed in the whole McCarthy thing, right?
00:07:22.600And it was 1,000 percent in back of DeSantis as the replacement for Trump, and it was 1,000 percent in back of the Ukraine war.
00:07:32.640On those three elements, this audience went very clearly, right, took the exact opposite of what they knew was at the center of gravity of the America First movement.
00:08:19.460He fully takes into account ā I mean, you look at the abortion argument as a massive part of this, right?
00:08:26.840Typically, that would have been the end for a Republican politician to kind of come out and say, like, hey, there's too much of a grift in this pro-life inc organizations in Washington, D.C.
00:08:39.840I think we just actually need to keep advancing the ball here rather than sticking to a list of bullet points that somebody 40, 50 years ago wrote down on a piece of paper in northern Virginia, right, when they were setting up some C3 or C4.
00:08:56.080And typically, that would have been, you know, the end of a conservative politician, a Republican politician.
00:09:01.020But he manages to explain it, walk the audience through it, and actually channel them in such a way that they go, yeah, actually, that is how I feel about that issue.
00:09:11.240That is how I want this issue advanced.
00:09:13.620And it's a perfectly reasonable way to go and do it.
00:09:17.120And whether you look at that stuff or anything else, you have to understand this.
00:09:25.860Matt Gaetz, all of those guys, they work in ā I'll say the same about you, by the way ā they work in the very same way, is they are not trying to put their belief system on their audience.
00:10:00.180What's the takeaway from particularly this historic where you actually remove a speaker?
00:10:06.140What's the takeaway you take from the speaker?
00:10:08.780The battle was enjoined in the very first days of 2023.
00:10:12.740This audience had Gaetz's back, Rosendale's back, Eli Crane's back, the heroic folks that stood in the breach.
00:10:21.800And then later, it took nine months to get there.
00:10:25.000And there's still all types of ā and remember, Johnson is no ā he's a good man, but he needs a lot of training and he needs to be able to stand in the breach.
00:10:32.880What's your takeaway from this historic removal of Kevin McCarthy?
00:10:40.360The people need to internalize that history can be made every single day, right?
00:10:49.100I say it as somebody who cannot believe the rooms that I'm in as a kid from Uxbridge, West London, right, who came from no money, no political family, no dynasty, no nothing.
00:11:05.560And I look around me sometimes and I just think history is being made right around me right now.
00:11:10.100You know, and this audience made history.
00:11:13.540It was obviously not just historical because of what happened.
00:11:18.000It was historical because of the precedent set that will be used again in future as a result.
00:11:33.440That understanding of that is now coming back.
00:11:35.380And the lessons of that can be applied across the board.
00:11:39.320It can be applied to election integrity.
00:11:41.580It can be applied to the life argument.
00:11:44.260It can be applied all through the political issues, the border, the political issues that you know, that we know, that we care about.
00:11:51.460So for me, 2023 was a critical year in reminding ourselves, I'll use this word, maybe Media Matters will pick it up, reminding ourselves that we can bully our way to victory.
00:12:09.380And I think in 2024, take those lessons and bully your way to victory.
00:12:14.620Raheem is going to join us for the New Year's Day show.
00:12:19.800Incredible year in peace looking forward about 2024 and what a historical year it's going to be, a historic year it's going to be.
00:12:28.360Raheem, how do people get to the National Pulse?
00:12:30.340Because what you guys do, you provide something quite unique.
00:12:33.860I would say it's as close to probably, is it Vox that you're probably closest to?
00:12:38.120The left has a couple of these by very smart guys who stepped out and done it.
00:12:41.580But we essentially have National Pulse.
00:16:33.080The rising power of the America First and the MAGA movement of which you, this audience, is the tip of the spear.
00:16:39.480One of the reasons of your empowerment and your impact on the political structure and process in the United States of America, the most powerful nation on Earth, and quite frankly, the most powerful nation in the history of the Earth, is because of the information that you're able to get access to and then kind of think it through yourself.
00:17:00.120And for that, we have to thank many, many people.
00:17:05.060Two of the ones that we're going to bring on next are two of the most important about the invasion of this country is Todd Benzman from CIS and Oscar Blue Ramirez, who's always in harm's way and now is down in southern Mexico today.
00:17:21.480You've been in harm's way many, many times.
00:17:24.800You've been all the way from the Darien Gap to the border down there with Columbia.
00:17:28.380You've covered all the migrant caravans.
00:17:32.000You've covered, you know, the most serious aspects of this.
00:17:35.960You've been to Tijuana, the Rio Grande Valley, all of it.
00:17:38.620Put in perspective the invasion of the United States of America as you've seen it through the whole year of 2023.
00:17:47.140This was not happening under the Trump administration because Donald Trump did not give the power to the United Nations.
00:17:53.200Immediately when Joe Biden came in, Steve, he was a collaborator of the Global Compact on Migration, and that basically opened the door and the floodgates for people to come in through non-ports of entry to be arriving through non-ports of entry.
00:18:07.860In the meantime that the United States of America and other countries are involved in this globalist agreement of this humanitarian idea that it will create a better atmosphere for migrants, you will have these kind of problems and these kind of situations at every border.
00:18:23.340It doesn't even matter how large the wall is going to be built as long as we keep the priority out.
00:18:31.360That is the United Nations and the United States need to pull out immediately from the Global Compact on Migration as soon as Donald Trump steps into office and push Mexico to do exactly the same.
00:18:41.620And that way and that way will completely do a domino effect as he was doing strategically and smart with the tariff that he was putting on Mexico to tariff them under the automobile industry, avocado and beer.
00:18:53.460And that completely shut down, you know, the massive influx that was coming in from Guatemala.
00:19:00.360And ultimately Guatemala was going to do exactly the same and the same and the same.
00:19:04.060Even the Panamanian authorities and the Darien Gap, they said when Mexico was applied with the tariff, that completely slowed down and it completely slowed down in the borders with the United States.
00:19:15.020As you see, migrants are walking behind me again, Steve, for the 11th caravan that we have covered with the war room in the south border of Mexico, Steve.
00:19:28.000This Global Compact, which is really essentially a treaty, never went through the Senate.
00:19:32.600Biden just kind of signed on at the beginning of his of his regime.
00:19:36.360Walk us through why it's so it's it's so deadly to the United States of America or any nation that wants to declare and have its own sovereignty.
00:19:46.000Basically, the United Nations created this idea of, you know, of open borders by doing it in a humanitarian way.
00:19:54.540And 140 countries are signed at first.
00:19:58.160This Global Compact tells you that every migrant that enters to a non-port of entry or through a port of entry needs to be attended and needs to be given education, job, everything that they need in the comfort to stay.
00:20:08.360But this, you know, also says that the migration needs to be done in an orderly fashion, documented peacefully and with a purpose that is completely the opposite of what the United Nations has done.
00:20:19.340But what if you pull out of this, you will also cut the funding to the NGOs that they're part of this enormous problem that they're aiding and abating this to continue to every border.
00:20:29.900NGOs from the United States of America, that they are funded by the Biden administration and, you know, the billions that they are funded.
00:20:36.000They're part of this global problem. And then, you know, the cartel knows that the cartel is growing massively with billions of dollars.
00:20:43.260What the Biden administration has done is created wars on the other side of Mexico where the wall is not built.
00:20:50.740They're fighting for these open border gaps because they know that extracontinental migrants are paying between $25,000 to $30,000 to $35,000 to get all the way to the border.
00:21:00.760You know, and an average migrant is paying $2,500 to $4,000.
00:21:05.220Talking about these numbers in a high scale, talking about millions of people, you're talking about high numbers of quantities of money.
00:21:12.300So this is the reason why the global compact needs to be dismantled, disabled and disappeared and eradicated from every country and every border.
00:21:20.740I want to go back to the NGOs for a second as being an absolutely part, inassertively linked part of making this operate.
00:21:30.020You've covered with Burquam, I think it's Panama, where the NGOs, the old military bases are now taken over by the NGOs.
00:21:38.660You've got the United States, but talk to us about and name a couple because I think a lot of people naively are still giving money to people or are not putting pressure on their reps to cut the funding to the NGOs in this budget process.
00:21:52.040So walk us through their key part of it and where the funding comes from.
00:21:57.200Well, the funding comes from the ā and sadly, I'm going to say this to the United States people, it comes from your taxpayer.
00:22:05.900And some of the ā and the most important NGOs are the Catholic charities.
00:22:10.320They use the Catholic Church as a frame and as a smokescreen to drag people and to donate a lot of this humongous money.
00:22:19.680Also, the ACLU is part of this humongous problem of bringing people ā the ACLU just to put attention to people and do what they have done.
00:22:27.380Donald Trump wanted to stop child trafficking and wanted to put DNA testing in their borders because of the enormous fake families that they were coming in.
00:22:36.960Just to remember everybody in the year 2018, there were more than 58 fake families that they were detected because Donald Trump was really strict on the borders.
00:22:45.360When he was trying to do the DNA testing, the ACLU immediately stepped in and hardly was attacking Donald Trump.
00:22:53.720All these NGOs that they are working on, not only in the borders with the United States, they're spreading the information on how to cheat on the system.
00:23:04.760They're educating the migrant to say, you know what, I can enter to a non-port of entry and I can stay there and I can possibly make it and I can possibly don't.
00:23:12.480I'm going to be released immediately and possibly I'm not going to be released.
00:23:16.620But they're willing to risk that, Steve.
00:23:18.320That is the problem, that they already found a loophole, that humongous loophole, through social media, through applications like TikTok, through where the cartel works continuously.
00:23:29.980These No More Debts, it's another NGO that works on the desert in Arizona.
00:23:35.960They're in cahoots with the cartel and everybody knows it.
00:23:38.720You know, all these NGOs, they need to be eradicated also.
00:23:41.820Stop the funding to these people and you will see that the problem will be cleared immediately.
00:23:58.480Todd, you've been now, I think, on the show starting from 2020 and the pandemic.
00:24:05.640If when you first started coming on the show, I think it was in the spring and summer of 2020.
00:24:10.140If I had told you that in December of 23, that the invasion and the surge would be at its worst, in fact, it would be multiple times worse than even what you were seeing in 2020 or the years that you had worked in this beforehand.
00:24:30.580I mean, what gets me about this story, it literally gets worse every day.
00:24:35.700And with the exposure it has now, now it's starting to have big political consequences for the Democrats.
00:24:41.020But did you in your wildest dreams ever think we've talked about the scale of this thing ramping up to where the scale is now?
00:24:47.480Well, normal, regular people would probably be surprised, but I actually wrote a big column predicting that the biggest mass migration that we've ever seen was on the way.
00:25:00.800I wrote that thing in November of 2020, that it was coming.
00:25:05.940And so because it was obvious with the policies that the Biden campaign was promising to bring in, that the world of aspiring immigrants was going to respond to those promises and already were.
00:25:21.340You could see it in interviews down in Tapachula and all over Mexico as they were already starting to come to wait for the shift, the change in administrations.
00:25:33.320By the tens of thousands, they were coming already just in anticipation.
00:25:38.300Trump was still in office blocking them, but they were coming already.
00:25:43.220But I will say that I'm maybe a little bit surprised by the volume and scale.
00:25:50.480I really, I mean, we're looking at, I think in the last three years, I'm going to say a minimum.
00:25:58.940I know that the range is wide, but I like to play it a little conservative that we probably have 6 million foreign nationals that came over the border living in the United States in the last 36 months.
00:26:11.640In just 2023, my guess is a good informed guess is a minimum of 2.5 million and probably 3 million plus when you calculate the different gotaways numbers.
00:26:29.420And also, you know, they put in these new CBP-1 app and they're flying, you can fly in from foreign countries secretly into U.S. airports.
00:26:40.400By the hundreds of thousands, they're flying in.
00:26:43.940And nobody's really accounting for those.
00:26:46.260I mean, we really had millions of people cross in to the United States over that southern border in one way or another and stayed in the United States.
00:26:57.620I think we're going to see 2024 even more that will have higher volumes than 2024 because unless the administration shifts policies, I don't see any change.
00:27:17.140I mean, the messaging to the world is that you've got a 90 percent chance when you lay your money, you're smuggling money down on the felt of getting into the United States within a day and being allowed to stay for your whole life.
00:27:31.880So why not drop 10 grand on smuggling it so you're going to pay it back plus many multiples?
00:27:37.500That's really what what's going on here.
00:37:09.600One one extra minute to give a slight silver lining, possibly a silver lining for 2024.
00:37:17.480I don't want to be all doom and gloom.
00:37:19.220People complain that I always depress them after they see me.
00:37:22.020But if you something to pay attention to for the 2024 election cycle are Democratic constituencies in the big blue cities that are taking the brunt of this mass migration now and are loudly complaining.
00:37:40.400And in many cases are loudly promising that they are switching to the Republican Party.
00:37:46.760Black communities in Chicago, Denver, New York, Latino communities that are classic Democratic base constituencies forever, generationally, are now coming out and saying, you know, we we really don't like this.
00:38:04.800And we don't like it so much that we're going to switch our political allegiance.
00:38:11.420And the reason is because these Democratic municipal governments are diverting massive resources that should have gone to helping black communities with housing subsidies and jobs and all the rest of that are instead going to illegal immigrants and foreign nationals that are not even supposed to be here.
00:38:35.600And it's happening right in front of their faces, in their neighborhoods, and they've had it.
00:38:42.720I would just say that that's maybe a little glimmer of change in the 2024 election that is different than the 22 midterms because those numbers that hadn't really happened by the by the 2022 midterms.
00:39:02.660It's part of the tectonic plate shift.
00:39:04.100What I call the Patrick Henry who stood up at the that individual who stood up at the Chicago city council meeting and said, you need Trump back to clean up this mess.
00:39:15.600I thought I think spoke for a lot of folks in the in the black community.
00:39:31.300I work for the Center for Immigration Studies, CIS.org.
00:39:37.460You can find a lot of my work there and my and they support all my travel and all of my field work on donations.
00:39:45.540So keep that in mind for the holidays and Todd Benzman dot com where you can find everything all together and sign up for my newsletter to.
00:40:01.640Look forward to having you back on the show in the new year.
00:40:06.820Todd Benzman, one of the most brilliant guys out there about this.
00:40:10.160Oscar Blue Ramirez, you put yourself in harm's way in twenty twenty three.
00:40:13.800What's your wrap up for the year and your warning to to the folks in this audience?
00:40:20.160Well, Steve, I just talked to my brother, Ben Berkwano, a couple of days ago, and it was really sad to talk to him in a way that he said we're really close, Oscar, to lose our country.
00:40:29.640And it is not only at the voters, it is because they they've forgotten, you know, the Constitution of the United States of America was first God and liberty and freedom.
00:40:39.680And as a foreigner to your country, Steve, I can tell you that that is the number one thing that Americans are forgetting, that the Constitution says about God, freedom and and respectful law and order.
00:40:49.580And those are the founding things that the United States was built upon.
00:40:53.460And you can see that the actual administration of the United States of America does not care about those foundations and those things that they are so important to represent the United States.
00:41:07.880But it's just a lot of Americans have told me as a foreigner, you know, the Mexico is corrupt.
00:41:13.420Mexico has a lot of corruption and has a lot of corrupt politicians.
00:41:16.100And right now, sadly, I can say how far are the politicians from the United States corruptibly and almost exactly the same or worse than the ones in Mexico, because they know what is happening at your borders.
00:41:27.520They know what is actually continuously going on at the borders.
00:41:43.440And it is just it is just impossible for a country to sustain this.
00:41:47.460It is just unbelievable to sustain it.
00:41:49.720And for what Bob Benzman was telling about the year 2024, I believe that is going to be double the influx.
00:41:56.340It is going to be worse than 2023 already.
00:41:59.720Steve, just for you to let you know, Central and South American authorities are already preparing because they know that election year is going to be the next 2024.
00:42:08.840And already preparing in the Darien Gap, they're already preparing in Central and South America how they're going to combat the organized crime, how they are going to try to slow down the pace.
00:42:18.760What the Biden administration has done to the continent of America and the world is just the idea that there is no border.
00:42:25.020There's no country and you don't deserve a border and there's no need for a border.