Trump’s Historic Border Crackdown, First 100 Days Media Tour, Eagles at White House： AM Update 4⧸29
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
157.61978
Summary
In an exclusive interview, Center for Immigration Studies fellow Todd Benzman breaks down the Trump administration s historic crackdown at the southern border. So many people are saying you've got to run again. President Trump speaks with the Atlantic about his first 100 days and what may be coming next. And which Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl star spent a morning golfing with President Trump ahead of his team s visit to the White House? All that and more coming up in just a moment on Your AM Update.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Good morning, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. It's Tuesday, April 29th, 2025. And this is your AM
00:00:08.900
Update. The numbers are down to historic levels. We have never seen numbers like this. If we stay
00:00:17.740
on track, it'll break the national record that predates 1960. In an exclusive interview,
00:00:24.820
Center for Immigration Studies fellow Todd Bensman breaks down the Trump administration's
00:00:29.100
historic crackdown at the southern border. So many people are saying you've got to run again.
00:00:34.080
President Trump speaks with the Atlantic about his first 100 days and what may be coming next.
00:00:40.680
And which Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl star spent a morning golfing with President Trump
00:00:46.200
ahead of his team's visit to the White House and which didn't show up at all. All that and more
00:00:51.480
coming up in just a moment on your AM Update. Are you a yo-yo dieter?
00:00:58.700
You diet, lose weight, then you gain it all back plus a few. Then later you lose it again
00:01:03.760
and the same cycle continues. Well, that can be dangerous. Studies show that this could actually
00:01:08.320
increase health problems and breaking free of this yo-yo diet pattern is not easy, but it's why
00:01:15.300
doctors created Lean. Lean is a supplement and you don't need a prescription. Lean includes natural
00:01:22.320
ingredients targeting weight loss in three powerful ways. Maintaining healthy blood sugar, controlling
00:01:27.460
appetite and cravings, and it helps burn fat by converting fat into energy. Listen, if you're
00:01:32.800
tired of losing weight and gaining it back and want to lose meaningful weight at a healthy pace,
00:01:37.900
Lean could be something for you to consider. Let me get you started with 20% off when you enter
00:01:43.620
MK20 at TakeLean.com. That's code MK20 at TakeLean.com. Check it out.
00:01:56.340
In 100 days, the second Trump administration flipping U.S. immigration policy on its head,
00:02:02.640
dismantling four years of Biden-era policies that effectively opened the southern border.
00:02:07.180
President Biden taking a series of steps to reverse Trump-era policies, ending the Remain
00:02:13.260
in Mexico program that required asylum seekers to wait outside the U.S. for their court hearings,
00:02:19.160
terminating Title 42 expulsions, a COVID-era policy that allowed the government to quickly
00:02:24.100
remove illegal aliens as public health threats, launching mass parole programs, facilitating the
00:02:30.460
arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants from countries like Venezuela and Haiti, and expanding
00:02:36.040
catch-and-release practices, leading to a tremendous backlog of illegal immigrants waiting for their
00:02:42.160
never-coming court dates. President Biden then asking Congress to pass an immigration reform bill,
00:02:48.560
saying without their help, his hands were tied. For much too long, as you all know, the immigration
00:02:53.180
system has been broken. And it's long past time to fix it. That's why months ago, I instructed my team
00:02:58.780
to begin negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators to seriously and finally fix our immigration system.
00:03:05.280
President Trump cruising to victory largely on a promise to lock down the border. On January 20th,
00:03:10.940
the second Trump administration getting right to work. President Trump signing a series of
00:03:15.300
immigration-related executive orders, declaring a national emergency at the southern border,
00:03:20.280
reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, terminating the CBP1 app used by the Biden administration to
00:03:26.940
make it easier for migrants to enter the country, and many, many more. The result? A historic drop in
00:03:33.460
illegal border crossings. In March, total border patrol encounters totaling 7,100 and change,
00:03:41.080
representing a 95% decrease from the same time period in 2024. We spoke to Todd Benzman, fellow at the
00:03:49.120
Center for Immigration Studies and author of Overrun, how Joe Biden unleashed the greatest border crisis in
00:03:55.200
U.S. history about the historic effort. This is probably his earliest signature achievement is closing
00:04:03.100
the border and putting it to a place as close to operationally secure as we have ever seen. The numbers
00:04:12.380
are down to historic levels. We have never seen numbers like this. If we stay on track, it'll break
00:04:21.120
the national record that predates 1960. That's when we first started keeping track of the numbers. So
00:04:28.420
this is a major achievement. It took all of one hour on the first day of inauguration. The new president,
00:04:37.940
Trump, just came in and used the tools that were always available to end catch and release
00:04:44.940
and to begin detentions and deportations at 100%. And that was all it took. No comprehensive
00:04:51.500
immigration reform necessary. No root causes had to be, you know, addressed in Central America or any
00:04:58.740
of that stuff. That was all just a bunch of junk. Nothing about it true. That last reference to root
00:05:05.200
causes, recalling Vice President Kamala Harris's tenure as Biden's borders are, during which she was
00:05:11.000
supposed to prioritize addressing migration through foreign aid initiatives in Central and South
00:05:16.100
America, rather than through direct enforcement at the U.S. border. On Monday, President Trump's border
00:05:21.560
czar, Tom Homan, highlighting the dramatic turnaround in morale among Border Patrol and ICE agents under the
00:05:27.740
Trump administration. The morale of ICE and Border Patrol is at all-time high because they're getting
00:05:33.160
to uphold the oath they took and they're enforcing the law. Border Patrol and the Biden administration,
00:05:37.980
I met with hundreds of them. They felt like Uber drivers and tourist agents. These men and women
00:05:43.260
joined the ranks of ICE and Border Patrol to enforce the law and make the community safer and protect
00:05:47.580
national security. Mr. Bensman saying the damage ran even deeper, describing how Biden-era policies
00:05:52.940
stripped agents of their core mission, crippling enforcement efforts at the border and inside the
00:05:58.300
country as well. Border Patrol agents are trained to catch, tackle, arrest, detain, cuff, deport. That's
00:06:06.860
their cops. They're border cops. That's what they do. And so imagine if you were to tell any cop that you have
00:06:15.100
to release all the criminals and reward them for their criminal activity. ICE agents who were by and large
00:06:23.660
prohibited from arresting anyone in the interior without permission from Washington go through this
00:06:32.460
whole approval process and they were chained to their desks. They were not allowed to do their jobs at all.
00:06:40.620
In the initial weeks of the second Trump administration, the president receiving strong
00:06:44.620
public support for his handling of the border. February polling from Pew Research showing 59% of
00:06:50.700
U.S. adults approved of his efforts to deport individuals in the country illegally. However,
00:06:56.060
a Friday poll from ABC slash Washington Post finding 53% of Americans now disapprove of President Trump's
00:07:03.340
handling of immigration. The possible shift in public sentiment following intense and slanted media
00:07:09.340
focus on emotional cases. Stories Mr. Bensman says are designed to undercut support for the administration's
00:07:16.220
enforcement policies. One such story now making headlines claiming that the Trump administration deported
00:07:21.740
three American citizen children from two families to Honduras. On Friday, there were three American
00:07:28.540
citizen children born here who were deported along with their mothers from Louisiana down to Honduras.
00:07:36.380
A U.S. district judge says the deportation quote had no meaningful process. These children ages two,
00:07:43.180
four and seven are U.S. citizens and were sent with their mothers who were deported Friday morning.
00:07:48.780
This gets at the central question about whether the administration is moving too aggressively,
00:07:54.620
too quickly to carry out these mass deportation operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and
00:08:00.300
border czar Tom Homan dumping cold water on those reports. On the headline, that's a misleading
00:08:05.180
headline. Okay, three U.S. citizens ages four, seven and two were not deported. Their mothers who are
00:08:10.780
legally in this country were deported. The children went with their mothers. If those children are U.S.
00:08:15.260
citizens, they can come back into the United States if there's their father or someone here who wants
00:08:19.900
to assume them. What we did is remove children with their mothers who requested the children depart
00:08:25.180
with them. This was a parental decision. Parenting 101. The mothers made that choice. And I tell you
00:08:31.900
what, if we didn't do it, the story today would be Trump administration separating families again. No,
00:08:36.700
we're keeping families together. So when a parent says, I want my two-year-old baby to go with me,
00:08:43.100
we made that happen. They weren't deported. We don't deport U.S. citizens. The parents made
00:08:47.500
that decision, not the United States government. Mr. Benjamin saying the decrease in public support
00:08:51.820
is part of a strategy by the president's detractors to stymie his agenda. The public
00:08:58.780
elected him on this. And the public, all the way up until relatively recently,
00:09:04.620
was overwhelmingly in favor of mass deportations in the 50 percentile range, even for non-criminals,
00:09:14.540
but in the 80 percentile range for criminals. So the task and challenge for the pro criminal alien
00:09:22.780
crowd and the pro illegal immigrant crowd is to put sob stories. I call it injustice porn,
00:09:31.980
to fill the media with injustice porn stories that are mostly fraudulent, fake, untrue,
00:09:41.580
using narratives that are easily disproved, but which make their way into multiple news cycles long
00:09:50.700
enough that it can influence public opinion. And we've seen recently swings in public opinion away from
00:09:58.620
the mass deportation program and some of the particular programs that Trump is doing.
00:10:06.540
Coming up, President Trump reveals to the Atlantic magazine just how seriously he's considering a run
00:10:12.060
for a third term in office. And a star Philadelphia Eagles player snaps back at critics angered by his
00:10:21.500
Tax day may have passed, but for millions of Americans, the real trouble is just the beginning.
00:10:32.940
If you miss the April 15th deadline or still owe back taxes, the IRS is ramping up enforcement and
00:10:39.340
every day you wait might make things worse. With over 5,000 new tax liens filed daily and tools like
00:10:45.020
property seizures, bank levies, and wage garnishments, you don't want to mess around, okay? The good news
00:10:50.460
is there's still time for Tax Network USA to help. Self-employed or a business owner, even if your books
00:10:56.380
are a mess, they've got it covered. Tax Network USA specializes in cleaning up financial chaos and
00:11:02.220
getting you back on track fast. Even after the deadline, it's not too late to regain control.
00:11:07.500
Your consultation is completely free and acting now could stop penalties, threatening letters,
00:11:12.460
and surprise levies before they escalate. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com.
00:11:19.020
You may have missed April 15th, but you haven't run out of options. Let Tax Network USA help
00:11:35.500
On Monday, the Atlantic dropping a lengthy piece chronicling the president's political comeback from
00:11:40.980
the lowest days in the aftermath of January 6th until now. The piece, which includes excerpts from
00:11:47.380
an interview with the president coming as a shock given the Atlantic's contentious history with Mr.
00:11:52.500
Trump, publishing the infamous suckers and losers story during Mr. Trump's first term claiming he
00:11:58.260
disparaged fallen troops during a 2018 trip to France. At least 21 Trump officials, including John Bolton,
00:12:05.860
no friend to Mr. Trump, went on record denying that claim. More recently, the Atlantic triggering
00:12:12.420
Trump 2.0's first major scandal after National Security Advisor Mike Walls mistakenly looped in
00:12:18.660
Mr. Goldberg on a chat discussing attacks on Houthi rebels. Last Thursday, President Trump posting on
00:12:25.220
Truth Social that he would be meeting with, quote, of all people, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the
00:12:30.580
Atlantic and the person responsible for many fictional stories about me. Mr. Trump adding
00:12:35.780
that Mr. Goldberg would be joined by Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, quote, not exactly pro-Trump
00:12:41.060
writers, saying he was doing the interview, quote, out of curiosity to see if the Atlantic could be
00:12:46.660
truthful, adding, the way I look at it, what can be so bad? I won. President Trump telling the Atlantic
00:12:53.180
the second term feels much different from the first, saying, quote, the first time I had two things
00:12:58.260
to do, run the country and survive. I had all these crooked guys. And the second time, I run the
00:13:04.320
country and the world. The president later saying, quote, I'm having a lot of fun considering what I
00:13:09.520
do, he said. You know, what I do is such serious stuff. The report describes a 2024 team much more
00:13:16.220
focused on building a government committed to the president's agenda. One staffer summing up the
00:13:20.960
new strategy, telling the Atlantic, quote, don't hire anyone who wasn't committed to the agenda the last
00:13:26.180
time. Despite the natural confidence boost of winning the popular vote, the Atlantic reporting
00:13:31.280
President Trump recognizes and accepts certain limitations on his presidential power. From the
00:13:36.700
piece, quote, in our March conversation, he seemed frustrated at the notion that a court might try to
00:13:41.820
curb his ability to deport anyone he wanted, however he wanted. Yet when we asked if he would go so far as
00:13:47.840
to actively disregard a judicial order, his answer suggested that he understood the Constitution would
00:13:53.380
not allow that. Quote, I think the judge is horrible, he said, referring to James Bosberg, the federal
00:13:59.240
district court judge who had tried to stop deportations of Venezuela migrants to El Salvador. But Trump
00:14:04.500
then referenced the Supreme Court's more congenial opinion in Trump v. U.S., which had given him immunity from
00:14:11.080
criminal prosecution for anything he does as part of his core official duties as president. Quote, but I've had a lot of
00:14:17.980
horrible judges and I won on appeal, right? I got immunity on appeal, he said. He told us that the
00:14:23.900
court is going to do what's right when reviewing his expansive use of executive power. In recent weeks, the
00:14:30.400
president publicly floating the idea of a third term. No matter how you look at it, we've got a long time
00:14:36.820
to go. You know, we have almost four years to go. But despite that, so many people are saying you've got to
00:14:43.180
run again. They love the job window. Most importantly, they love the job window. The president
00:14:47.860
even selling Trump 2028 hats. The Atlantic asking directly if Mr. Trump tasked the DOJ with studying
00:14:55.460
the feasibility of running again. The Atlantic writes, he said he had not, but then seemed to leave
00:15:01.180
open the possibility. Was this the rare Democratic norm he was unwilling to shatter? That would be a big
00:15:07.320
shattering, wouldn't it? He mused, laughing. Well, maybe I'm just trying to shatter. He noted twice
00:15:13.160
that his supporters regularly shout for him to seek a third term, but concluded, it's not something
00:15:17.820
that I'm looking to do, and I think it would be a very hard thing to do. The president also addressing
00:15:22.920
the fallout from the Atlantic's so-called signal gate story. In recent weeks, Defense Secretary Pete
00:15:28.660
Hegseth facing a steady stream of media reports portraying the Pentagon as chaotic and out of control.
00:15:34.460
President Trump once again standing by his team, saying of Hegseth, quote, I think he's going to get it
00:15:39.300
together. I had a talk with him, a positive talk, but I had a talk with him. Trump also said that Waltz
00:15:45.240
was fine, despite being beat up by accidentally adding Goldberg to the Signal chat. What had Trump told
00:15:51.860
his staff after the controversy? Maybe don't use Signal, okay?
00:16:00.640
Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley spotted on Sunday golfing with President Trump at
00:16:06.140
Mar-a-Lago. Critics of the president quickly sounding off on X. Mr. Barkley responding on X,
00:16:11.800
writing, LOL. Some people are really upset because I played golf and flew to the White House with the
00:16:16.620
president. Maybe I just respect the office, not a hard concept to understand. Just golfed with Obama
00:16:22.580
not too long ago and look forward to finishing my round with Trump. Now you get out of my mentions
00:16:27.840
with all this politics and have an amazing day. The star running back and Super Bowl winner ending the
00:16:33.200
post with a laughing, smiling emoji. On Monday, the Eagles attended a White House ceremony honoring
00:16:38.900
their Super Bowl win, despite earlier reporting that the team might decline the invitation,
00:16:44.120
as many players did during Trump 1.0, causing Mr. Trump to rescind that invitation. Quarterback
00:16:50.840
Jalen Hurts, however, opting to skip the event. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt releasing a statement
00:16:56.000
reading, quote, the vast majority of the team is coming and those who cannot attend had scheduling
00:17:01.300
conflicts. And that'll do it for your AM update. I'm Megan Kelly. Join me back here for the Megan
00:17:06.200
Kelly Show live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 at noon east on youtube.com slash Megan Kelly and on all
00:17:12.980
podcast platforms. Your business doesn't move in a straight line. Some days bring growth, others bring
00:17:23.000
challenges. But what if you or a partner needs to step away? When the unexpected happens, count on Canada
00:17:29.720
Life's flexible life and health insurance to help your business keep working, even when you can't.
00:17:35.160
Don't let life's challenges stand in the way of your success. Protect what you've built today.
00:17:40.640
Visit CanadaLife.com slash business protection to learn more. Canada Life. Insurance. Investments. Advice.