On Monday, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro appeared on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” to discuss the actions of Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who livestreamed on Sunday his attempt to enter a Texas immigrant detention center in order to slam the Trump Administration, an action Shapiro called a “ridiculous stunt.”
After Merkley was barred from entering, he complained, “I was barred entry. Asked repeatedly to speak to a supervisor — he finally came out and said he can’t tell us anything. Police were called on us. Children should never be ripped from their families & held in secretive detention centers.” Merkley acknowledged later he had been warned he would not be allowed to enter prior to his arrival.
White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley blasted Merkley, saying he was “irresponsibly spreading blatant lies” and “smearing hardworking, dedicated law enforcement officials,” adding, “No one is taking a public safety lecture from Sen. Merkley, whose own policies endanger children, empower human smugglers and drug cartels, and allow violent criminal aliens to flood into American communities.”
MacCallum started the segment by noting Shapiro had called Merkley’s actions a ridiculous stunt. She asked, “What do you mean?”
Shapiro answered:
It’s a ridiculous stunt in the sense that if Congress wants to change the law right now to allow illegal immigrant detainees to stay with their children they could theoretically do that. The Democrats are not moving to do that. Here’s the real issue: The issue is, that under American law, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has said this, when illegal immigrants enter the country with illegal immigrant children, those children are not allowed to be kept in custody longer than 20 days. They must be referred out of the system to some sort of other guardian figure. What that means is that these kids are going to be, by law, separated from their parents when their illegal immigrant parents cross the border.
Democrats’ response to this has been to say that Trump is the one who is forcibly separating these kids from their parents, but in reality what Democrats mean by that is that what they would like to see is a mass attempt by the Trump administration not to actually enforce immigration law at all. Their answer is, instead of just releasing the kids and keeping the parents, let’s release everybody. Let’s release the kids; let’s release the parents; let’s release everybody, when in reality if you actually want to enforce immigration law and you want to keep the kids with their parents, you theoretically could actually make a legal fix for that sort of thing.
MacCallum pointed out that the situation was not as simple as Democrats would have people believe; some children might not be the actual children of their supposed parents; other children may have been trafficked into the United States. She asked Shapiro, “Do you believe it’s true that they’ve brought it on themselves?”
Shapiro replied, “I don’t think the kids brought it on themselves, obviously.”
McCallum clarified, “No, I mean the families.”
Shapiro continued:
I think that when the parents come across the border, knowing what the status of the law is, if the status of the law is, what the status of the law is, then I’m not sure why that changes based on the president of the United States and his administration enforcing law. Again, I would like to see these kids stay with the parents, but the easiest way is to change the law to allow the kids to stay with the parents or for the parents not to come illegally in the first place.
Democrats like Merkley are insisting that the best way to fix the law is just not to enforce the law at all. Just anyone who comes across the border with a kid, we let go straight into society. This is why Merkley is in favor of sanctuary cities; this is why he’s been in favor of catch-and-release policies that allow illegal immigrant parents to just be released and then they never show up for their court date. If you’re going to enforce immigration law, under the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, you must take the kids away from the parents.
That’s not the fault of a bunch of conservatives; that’s the fault of a bunch of people on the Left who sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and are beloved by Democrats the world over.
MacCallum pointed out that over the weekend President Trump noted that it was the 500th day of his presidency. She said, “I’m curious what you think on day 500. How do you think he’s doing?”
Shapiro responded, “He’s governed more conservatively than I certainly could have imagined. He’s the most conservative president of my lifetime through his first 500 days, so in terms of policy, I’m extraordinarily happy with President Trump. In terms of his rhetoric, you said what you said about the Twitter. I mean, the Twitter is what the Twitter is. And President Trump’s rhetoric is what President Trump’s rhetoric is. I think we have a lot of areas to be grateful for in terms of policy. I wish the president could keep his rhetorical habits a little bit more under control, and then we could all appreciate the winning.”
MacCallum said the Philadelphia Eagles decided not to go to the White House, adding that President Trump said, “They don’t like my policy.” She asked Shapiro, “What do you think about that?”
Shapiro took the opportunity to denounce celebrity culture:
The president has a habit of saying to people, “Well, you can’t quit, you’re fired.” So I’m not particularly shocked by the president’s response to all of this. I’ve never been a fan of sports teams visiting the White House. It just seems like celebrity culture at its finest. I hate celebrity culture in general. I don’t like Kim Kardashian at the White House; I don’t like the Eagles at White House; I don’t like anybody who’s famous for the sake of being famous at the White House. It seems to me that this, again, is the people’s house where policy should be getting done, not a bunch of photo ops, whether it’s Obama doing it, or Bush doing it, or President Trump doing it.
Video below: