The following is a lightly edited transcript of the June 13 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Suddenly, Democrats have a bunch of new openings to go on offense against President Donald Trump on immigration. First, Trump just openly admitted that his mass deportations are harming farmers and the economy. Second, Stephen Miller got into a yelling match with a GOP senator over deportation funding. And finally, Senator Alex Padilla was manhandled by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s goons, thrown to the ground and handcuffed—all because he tried to ask Noem a question about Trump’s likely illegal dispatching of troops into Los Angeles. We think all this suggests that the MAGA coalition is coming under new strains on this issue. And as it happens, the progressive group Way to Win just released some new polling that finds Democrats do have an opening to go on offense on immigration. So we’re talking about all this with Way to Win’s president, Tori Gavito. Thanks for coming on, Tori.
Tori Gavito: Thanks for having me.
Sargent: So let’s start with what happened to Senator Padilla. He tried to ask Kristi Noem a question at a presser in California. We’re going to play some audio of this. Here’s what you’ll hear. First, Padilla tries to ask the question. Then you can hear him protesting as he’s grabbed, manhandled, and hauled out. Then you can hear them push him to the ground while he struggles, and then the handcuffs clink. Listen to this.
Alex Padilla (audio voiceover): Sir, hands off. Hands off. I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary because the fact of the matter is I have a dozen violent criminals that you’re rotating on your.... Hands off.
Homeland Security (audio voiceover): On the ground. On the ground. Hands on your back. Hands on your back.
Padilla (audio voiceover): If you let me ... If you let my hands go, I’ll put them behind my back.
Homeland Security (audio voiceover): Alright. Cool. Hand. Lay flat, lay flat. Other hand, sir. Other hand.
Sargent: So Tori, by all indications, he’s now been released. But my God, have you ever seen anything like that before?
Gavito: I have never seen anything like this before. And let’s remember, Senator Padilla is a senator of California. She’s in his state; Kristi Noem is in his state. And he’s the ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Safety. So if anyone has a right to be there to ask a question, it’s Senator Padilla. It is remarkable.
Sargent: And by the way, I think we should really note the level of absolute contempt this shows for the entire process. She’s not a queen. She gets questioned by Congress on these issues—period. And for her people to throw him to the ground like that and cuff him.... It wasn’t as if he was doing something violent. The whole thing’s an absolute outrage.
Gavito: When I saw it the first time, honestly ... this is personal for me. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m Mexican American. My family’s from Brownsville, Texas. One time I wasted a bunch of money on a 23andMe that showed me I’m from Brownsville, Texas. And what I saw was someone who looks a lot like my dad, someone who looks a lot like my uncles, who has every right to be in the space that he was in being thrown down. And it’s just this reminder of it doesn’t matter if your name is Senator—if you have a Senator in your title—or if you went to MIT, which Senator Padilla did, or if you were born on U.S. soil, which he was. The Trump regime sees us Mexican Americans as a threat, sees us even on the Democratic side. He ran saying he was going to go after his enemies. This is how he treats his enemies. He did not have a mandate for this level of enforcement though.
Sargent: Absolutely. I want to go to what President Trump said today, and we’ll come back later to this incident with Padilla and what it reveals. Trump really made an extraordinary admission. Here’s what he tweeted on Truth Social, “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.” Tori, that’s really something. It’s a straight up admission that his own policy of mass deportations is targeting hardworking people—not criminals, hardworking people—whose jobs cannot be replaced when they are removed. Your thoughts on this?
Gavito: Where to start? Where to start? The immigrant rights community has long made an argument that it is immigrants who are the backbone of the U.S. economy. Whether that argument was salient or not last cycle, I think we learned it wasn’t because the people really were telling us.... What voters told us were things are tough, and Trump had a villain for why things were tough. Trump said it’s because of immigrants, it’s because of crime. There was some bit of acceptance, I think, that U.S. voters had for Trump to take a tougher stand on immigration.
But now that it’s being enforced in the way he’s enforcing it and the real-life consequences are hitting American businesses, his regime was not meeting the quotas of finding and rounding up the criminals. So he pushed them to go further and deeper into the beating heartbeat of American communities—churches, schools, workplaces—and this is the consequence. He’s rounding up not just immigrants that may not be here with documents, but he’s also rounding up people with mixed status, people who are trying to do their best just to follow a process to get in the right lines and get their papers. And it’s definitely showing that the Republicans are imploding on this a little. He must be getting heat from American businesses to put out that statement on Truth Social. And between that and then the heat that Miller’s getting in private meetings, where people are starting to question, How many billions do you want for this enforcement process that nobody likes?... Anyway, it’s a real opportunity for Democrats to just push.
Sargent: I just want to add one thing to what you said there. I agree that he’s getting heat from businesses clearly, and maybe he realizes he’s had plenty of undocumented workers himself over the years. But I also think what that shows is Trump recognizing his own vulnerability on this issue. He knows that these removals are being perceived as removing hardworking people. This is the thing Stephen Miller wants everyone to not see, right? Stephen Miller is out there shrieking bloody murder at ICE officials saying, Go to the nearest Home Depot and give me 30 more arrests. You know what I mean? And Miller keeps up this endless stream of agitprop saying they’re all criminals, they’re all criminals, they’re all criminals. But Trump, think on some level knows that’s not really how it’s seen. And I think that’s what this shows. There’s a real schism developing here in MAGA GOP world on this, I think.
Gavito: There really is. And you can see it even in that one Truth Social post. He goes from admitting that it’s removing hardworking people. And then he goes to saying, But remember the criminals. But remember, Joe Biden led in criminals. And I feel like he’s trying to play some shell game with us to get our eyes distracted back on the Miller rants when it’s just not how it’s being witnessed. And it’s not just L.A.; it’s all over the country. I mentioned that I’m from a border community. This Father’s Day, I’m going to head down to Brownsville to see my dad. He’s telling me three of the restaurants we normally go to are just totally closed. And I said, Why? Because the immigrant workers are scared? And he’s like, No, no, no, the raids have already happened. They’re closed. And it’s just like, my God, this is happening so swiftly across this country.
Sargent: That is amazing. I want to move to your polling now. You guys polled 1,000 voters in competitive congressional districts. You found that 50 percent of voters still do have confidence in Trump generally on immigration. But at the same time, you find that 52 percent oppose how enforcement is being carried out. And I thought this was critical: Younger Latinos are turning on Trump over enforcement in your polling, right? That seems key to me because it suggests an opening for Dems to deepen this fracture, as you guys put it, in the Trump coalition and repair relations with the younger Latinos and drive the wedge more, right?
Gavito: Correct. Looking at Catalist data from 2024, it’s very clear that there were a number of shifts in the Latino vote. One was many, many Latinos did change their votes from Democrats to Trump. And secondly, many, many Latinos stayed home. And when we went after some initial research on those Latinos who had voted for Biden in 2020 but stayed home in 2024, one of the things that was really clear in our research was they just didn’t see Democrats fighting for them. And so then that permeated, I think, the entire story of why there was Latino vote switching too. They just didn’t see people fighting for them, and they were going to give Trump a chance. Now, giving him a chance and [seeing] Trump then [go] after workplaces where Latinos are getting swept up into the raids or know people that do—these are fathers and brothers—is remarkable.
I don’t think we have a total grasp on just how mixed-status immigrant families really are. In one family—in a parent and sibling unit—you can have five different statuses, quite frankly. And so it’s sweeping everybody up. The Democrats—if they say, if they lean in on Trump is harming Americans and sweeping you into this ham-fisted enforcement measure.... This is not what they signed up for, and we can move Trump’s favorability that’s on immigration job approval, particularly from plus one to negative nine generally. But the move is even more swift among Latinos. It’s about a 17-point drop.
Sargent: Well, it was really interesting to me that you guys tested this message saying that Trump and Republicans are ignoring courts and due process, trampling people’s rights and abusing their power. And you found that voters are receptive to the idea that that’s a threat to Americans as well. That seems critical. It seems to mean voters are starting to see the Trump immigration crackdown as something fundamentally dangerous and malevolent, right? As posing a broader threat. What’s the significance of that?
Gavito: I think the significance is that when we look at 2024, some other research that we’ve done shows that Republicans outspent Democrats about seven to one on immigration messages. And we can remember it. I think we could probably repeat the tropes of the Republican message frame from the 2024 election cycle. It’s not worth me repeating it for you. But when we dove deeper into what the Democrats [were] saying about it, we mainly played on their turf, keeping it an issue about criminals. And when you play on their turf—if you remain silent or if you play on their turf—you are accepting the Republican worldview. But now we’re out of the conversation about criminals. Everybody agrees: Let’s get rid of criminals. Nobody wants criminals running rampant around our cities.
But what is clear is that that is not what Trump is doing. He is not going after criminals. He’s going after the workers—and the workers include you and me and our brothers and our sisters. So now it’s just way out of line. Americans know this is not making them safer. I was on a a briefing call from California this morning where immigrant advocates were saying there were reported over 30 workplace raids in L.A. County alone since Friday. When you think about that, that’s hundreds of people getting swept in. Now, Mayor Karen Bass in L.A. is saying there are whole functions of the city not working because people are so afraid. So if whole functions of the city are not working because people aren’t going to work, how does that keep normal Californians safe? This is absolutely tearing apart the fabric of what keeps America working, keeps us going, keeps us safe in our streets. So it’s definitely overreach.
Sargent: And I think there’s a lot of discomfort now among some Republicans with both the overreach and the cost of the deportations. There’s this new reporting from Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News; he reported today that inside the Senate GOP meeting with Stephen Miller, according to sources, Senator Ron Johnson got into a shouting match about the border security funding number. Johnson said Miller’s numbers don’t add up. A lot of GOP senators were frustrated. I don’t think we know exactly what’s going on there, but it sure looks to me like Stephen Miller is saying more, more, more. We need to get everybody out. Just give us billions and billions and billions and billions. And GOP senators are like, It was all fun and games during the campaign when we could just say remove all the criminals. But now that you’re making us pay for it, I don’t know, man. Isn’t that another sign of what looks like a schism in the MAGA GOP here?
Gavito: Yeah, they’re definitely imploding. $150 billion is what Axios reported as what Stephen Miller was asking for for this enforcement measure. $150 billion is a lot of money. Karen Bass, the mayor of L.A., was also reporting there are 700 Marines right now in L.A. That costs a ton of money. What are they even doing? What are they even doing with their time? It doesn’t appear that the protests are even ongoing anymore. So it seems like a total waste of money on work that isn’t even working.
Sargent: It’s a policy that Trump himself said is hurting farmers and the economy.
Gavito: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And we know it’s true. This weekend is going to be very interesting. I don’t know, Greg, [if] you know, this weekend on Saturday, there’s a big “No Kings” rally. I think it’s being sponsored by different activist groups across the nation. Already mayors are reporting that National Guards are being deployed. Trump is deploying National Guard in blue cities where he can make a big story out of his fight with Democrats. And then the Republicans are doing his bidding in red states like Abbott sending National Guard in San Antonio, for example. Why? I guarantee the images from these protests are going to be multigenerational people in their sun hats because it’s summer [and they’re] trying to escape the heat.
This is not a time for any more deployment of force. It’s just costing way too much money. And I believe there was a poll even yesterday from YouGov that found double-digit disapproval of sending extra enforcement to places like California—so in specific to Marines in L.A.
Sargent: Yeah, the YouGov poll actually found that a small minority, in the 30s somewhere, favored sending in the Marines or the National Guard, while pluralities in the 40s opposed both. There are a bunch of undecideds out there, but it’s clear that this is tilting against Trump fairly heavily already. So there’s not like this reflexive move by voters to say, Oh, Trump’s sending in the military. Well, I want him to be tough. They’re not saying that. No matter how many times idiot pundits tell us otherwise, that’s not what voters are concluding.
Gavito: Right. And again, not to take us too far back, but I do think the pushing and shoving and arresting of Senator Padilla reminds us: If they can do it to a senator, who won’t they do it to? And we tell ourselves stories of the American dream where if we get the right education and if we wear the right suit and if we show up to the right places, we will be embraced in this story of what it means to be American. Certainly Senator Padilla has those credentials—and it didn’t work for him. So I do think everyone needs to be on guard about what this means. I did see some reporting, too, this morning of unmarked cars ramming into private citizens cars. The people that were pulled out by ICE from this—they rammed in to wedge this car in—[were] reported to be citizens. What is the old phrase, Greg? When everything looks like a nail, you’re a hammer? I don’t remember how the phrase goes, but it feels like that’s what’s happening with this level of enforcement.
Sargent: Yeah, I’m really glad you brought it back to Padilla, because I do think that this serves this larger impression that something really deeply wrong is afoot—that this unleashing of this enforcement regime is profoundly malevolent, dangerous, un-American in many ways, and just very threatening to Americans as well. And it seems to me that that’s what’s being typified here. Democrats have to jump on this now. This is the time. It’s a watershed moment. What do you think?
Gavito: There’s no hiding under the covers on this one. This is the thing that I think more Democrats need to understand about the modern media environment. We’re talking about this on a podcast. I am convinced a number of other podcasters across the ecosystem are talking about some version of this, whether they’re taking a left, right, or center stance. Everybody’s talking about it. I was at the gym yesterday and I saw people scrolling in between their sets, looking at images from these protests. Across the ecosystem from mainstream media to digital media, people are having this conversation. And there are some Democrats that hope that they can just.... There were Democrats at the start of the year that said, Can we just play dead? Can we just play dead and let Trump [hoist] himself by his own petard? But when you don’t talk about it, you’re not in the discourse, you’re not relevant, and you’re not seen as fighting for something.
Fight for something you believe in. And people have said time and again—in our focus groups, our polling, in our research—about why they stayed home between 2020 and 2024: They just didn’t see Democrats speaking up, fighting for them. They didn’t hear from Democrats until very late in the cycle. In the last 100 days is when there was some breaking through. This is one of those opportunities for us to just get out there and speak from the heart. You don’t need polling every single time before you say a word. Just speak from the heart that what you see is messed up. It is messed up to see a man pushed to the ground and handcuffed for going to a press conference to ask a question when he has every authority to do that from being a senator to being on that particular subcommittee. So use your words, Democrats. Now’s the time.
Sargent: Use your words. Very well said. Tori Gavito, thanks so much for coming on with us. Great to talk to you.
Gavito: Good to talk to you. Thank you.