TRUMP WILL INVOKE "ALIEN ENEMIES ACT" TO EXPEL HISPANICS - 10.14.24

SERIES 3 EPISODE 48: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

Three times this weekend Trump announced he will invoke "The Alien Enemies Act" which gives him the personal, arbitrary power to send to a concentration camp, or to deport, anybody in this country based on their race. Make no mistake that he means it. Trump’s anti-immigrant, specifically anti-Hispanic, hate speech has now climaxed with a promise to invoke the 1798 law that permits the president – in war time – to arrest and detain or deport without a hearing or without evidence of crime – American citizens and others – at his personal whim – based on their race. NOT where they were born, NOT whether they’ve committed or been suspected of a crime, NOT whether they are here legally or illegally. Based on their race. 

The last time this country used it, in one of the most shameful episodes in our history, they rounded up the Japanese. Nearly all that lived in the Continental United States. Nearly none of them accused of crimes. Nearly all of whom had been born here. And you were Japanese, if you were one-sixteenth Japanese.

The latest New York Times-Siena poll shows that among Hispanic voters Harris leads Trump by only 54 to 36. Mike Podhorzer, the recently retired political director of the AFL-CIO, explains that this poll number is just what you think it is. “When we do focus groups with the segment of Latinos that are answering survey questions saying that they’re comfortable with mass deportation, what comes out quickly is” nobody has told them that things like the Alien Enemies Act gives Trump the PERSONAL right to send to concentrate camps or expel from this country, not criminals, not suspects, not undocumented immigrants, not gang members, not rapists, not murderers, but THEM. Then, says Podhorzer, you explain: Trump will have the right to expel your wife. And your children. And you. And no lawyer or court can stop him. What happens then? “That focus group flips.”

Kamala Harris needs to get a direct-to-camera commercial up immediately warning Hispanics in this country that Trump can and will send to concentration camps, without as much as a hearing, their relatives and friends...and them.

AS TRUMP SAYS THE MILITARY SHOULD BE DEPLOYED during this election, we learn he really wanted to use it to back a "new election" in the summer of 2021. And the media is still responding by saying that his return to power would be a "boon" to the business side of news. Not even Andrew Ross Sorkin, nominally an economics guy at CNBC, seems to understand that Trump will happily declare that "The Alien Enemies Act" can be applied to an industry and shut down all the news organizations, seize their assets, and turn them into state-run media. After all, that's what Hitler did.

THE COMIC RELIEF? J.D. Vance says he forgot to wear his earrings to a town hall. Misplaced them? I think I know where you should look for them, Jayvee.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Here
the Countdown Columbus day headlines and surprise new documentary analyzing
his DNA shows it looks like Columbus was not from Italy,

(00:28):
that he was a Sephardic Jew, probably from Spain. This
actually matters today because if Columbus were here right now,
Trump has just revealed he would send him to a
concentration camp or deport him. Trump's anti immigrant, specifically anti
Hispanic hate speech has now climaxed with a promise to
invoke the same law that permits the president in wartime

(00:51):
to arrest and detain or deport without a hearing and
without evidence of crime American citizens and others at his
personal whim based on their race, not where they were born,
not whether they have committed or have been suspected of
a crime, not whether they are here legally or not

(01:14):
based on their race. The last time we did this,
it was with Japanese Americans citizens. This time Trump is
aiming to open concentration camps and fill them principally with Hispanics.
Trump in California and then Trump in Colorado, I will.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Invoke the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight to
target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on Americans.
Or but if they come back into our country, it's
an automatic ten years in jail with no possibility of parole.
Ten years. And if that doesn't work, it'll be twenty years.

(01:58):
And if that doesn't work, I guess it's going to
be the death penalty.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Right. It's elite squads of Ice patrol and federal law
enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest, and deport every last
illegal alien gang member until there is not a single
one left.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Elite squads. Now where in history did he find that phrase? Oh,
in the book of Hitler's speeches kept by his bedside.
It will make no difference to Trump, newly self installed
as dictator, that the Alien Enemies Act was designed and
has only been used as a wartime measure. The last

(02:34):
time this country did use it, in one of the
most shameful episodes in our history, they rounded up the Japanese,
nearly all that lived in the continental United States, nearly
none of them accused of crimes, nearly all of whom
had been born here. And you were Japanese. If you
were one sixteenth Japanese now Trump has directed this weapon

(02:59):
in peacetime against a population of people who are statistically
more law by day than Republicans in elected office, more
law abiding than any demographic of native born Americans. Others
will be swept up later. The first time he ran,
Trump's ire was directed principally at Muslims and those of

(03:20):
Arabic descent. We have seen him attack quote the Blacks.
He went after Jewish Americans again last week. His most
recent targets were fully documented Haitian immigrants. But make no mistake,
Trump went to California, where he stands no chance of
winning the state's electoral College votes, in order to tell

(03:40):
his fellow white supremacists there, who have for two hundred
years or more harbored, bitter, irrational, inherited rage at people
of Mexican and other Latin descent, to tell them to
get their applause when he says that he will imprison
and deport and intentionally or inadvertently or both kill the Hispanics.

(04:08):
The latest New York Times Siena poll shows that among
Hispanic voters, Harris leads Trump by only fifty four to
thirty six. Mike Podhorser, the recently retired political director of
the AFLCIO now an advisor there, explains that this poll number,
this suicidal poll number, fifty four to thirty six, Harris,

(04:28):
is just what you think it is, quoting Podhorzer. When
we do focus groups with the segment of Latinos that
are answering survey questions saying that they're comfortable with mass deportation,
what comes out quickly is nobody's told them that things
like the Alien Enemies Act gives Trump the personal right
to send to concentration camps or expel from this country.

(04:50):
Not criminals, not suspects, not undocumented immigrants, not gang members,
not rapists, not murderers, but them you personally. Then, says Podhowzer,
you explain Trump will have the right to expel your wife,

(05:10):
your kids, you, and no lawyer or court can stop him.
You will not even get a hearing what happens. Then, again,
quoting Podhorzer, that focus group flips. You bet your asset does.

(05:34):
And how did they not know this going in? How
do the thirty six percent of Hispanic voters supporting Trump
and his plans to expel in turn or kill them?
How do they not know they are voting for their own, expulsion, imprisonment,
even death. Podhworzer says the media has utterly failed to

(05:55):
explain how dictatorially Trump plans to use things like the
Alien Enemies Act. They don't, as he notes, work it
into daily coverage of the campaign. Even though Trump does
work it into daily coverage. He said it twice and
posted it once just this past weekend. But it's not
just the media, how Podhorzer wanted to know. Could Vice

(06:19):
President Harris have done a town hall on the Unevision
network last Thursday and never brought this up? The good
news is all pulling indicates that Hispanic support for Trump
is not that firm and appears to have reached its peak.
It is not growing, and the Vice President needs to

(06:41):
have a campaign add up as soon as possible in
which she speaks directly to camera and lays this out,
and she must say are you Hispanic? Did you know
Donald Trump will invocal law that allows him to put
you in a concentration camp because you are Hispanic, or
to deport you, or to deport your wife or your
children without a trial, without a hearing. Is not about

(07:05):
the border or criminals. We can fix those things. What
we cannot fix is Donald Trump is a racist who
wants to imprison you for being Hispanic. And by the way,
the definition of Hispanic is whatever Donald Trump says. It
is a reminder that Pastor Nie Muller was as ever correct.

(07:46):
First they came for the Hispanics. Who knows who will
be next for Trump, but he has now turned this
election into a referendum simply put on whether or not
only white people will be living here period.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
I don't think the other problem in terms of election.
I think the bigger problem are the people from within.
We have some very bad people, We have some sick people,
radical left lunatics, and I think the O the bay
and it should be very easily handled by if necessary,
by national God or if really necessary, by the military.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
And if you are still harboring suspicions that Trump is
just talking about elite squads and indemnifying the police and
using the military domestically, here's a quick reading from the
new Bob Woodward book confirming something long reported, rumored presumed
quote Trump would not or could not let his stolen

(08:41):
election mantra go. In June twenty twenty one, the former
president pushed Republicans to support reinstating him as president. He
told his aides he would move back into the White
House by August, a date QAnon conspiracy theorists had latched
onto in online forums. Quote he had an army, an

(09:03):
army for Trump. He wants that back, Brad Parscale, Trump's
former campaign manager, said privately in July, I don't think
he sees it as a comeback. He sees it as vengeance.
Trump phoned Republican Representative for Alabama Mo Brooks, a staunch
Trump supporter, and asked him to publicly call for a

(09:24):
special election to reinstate him as president. Brooks, who had
supported the plan by Trump and conservative lawyer John Eastman
to challenge the certification of Biden's win, pointed out that
Joe Biden was president. Brooks said Biden's victory had been
certified and there was no legal pathway for Trump to
rescind it. The Constitution provided no mechanism to reinstate a president. Trump,

(09:50):
Woodward Writes, was enraged. He later withdrew his endorsement of
Brooks in the Alabama Senate race. Brooks lost in the
Republican primary. This is who we are dealing with. Are
you hispanic? Are you one sixteenth Hispanic. Do you know

(10:12):
anyone who has won sixteenth Hispanic? If so, this advice
pack or help them pack. This is what is planned.
If there is good news on this Trump campaign of
hate and death and racism and vengeance, it's that even

(10:35):
the New York Times has noticed. It reports that two
weeks ago, last night, Trump railed at his own donors
for not giving him enough money to help him turn
this country into his personal property. Quoting The New York Times,
he disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris as quote retarded unquote.

(10:56):
He complained about the number of Jews still backing Miss Harris,
saying they needed their heads examined for not supporting him
despite everything he had done for the state of Israel unquote.
If there is more good news on the Trump campaign
of hate and death, it's that even Politico noticed, quote
we watched twenty Trump rallies. His racist, anti immigrant messaging

(11:20):
is getting darker. They wimp out because, of course, because
American news has lost the plot. American news has lost
the realization that it is a reporter's job to stick
his head out the window and say it's raining. Not
to call around until you find somebody else to say

(11:42):
it for you who you can quote, just in case
Politico again quote It's a stark escalation over the last
month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and
immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
I didn't say that, I'm just quoting. I called a guy.
He told me that, my God, stand for something. Stand
for something before you are prevented from doing so. Stand
for something before Trump cuts your legs off, or before
Trump decides the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight
can be applied not just to ethnicities but to industries.

(12:24):
And he decides his next target with the Alien Enemies
Act is journalist Americans. Even those who get this don't
really get it. Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC literally said
he prayed that the impact of the election on the
news industry as a financial matter would be taken out

(12:47):
of the equation of how the media should cover the election.
Even he said that, and even he still got the
basic part of this wrong. This is from a media
height podcast called Press Club.

Speaker 5 (12:58):
I'm going to be excoriated for this answer.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Keep it rolling, I would.

Speaker 5 (13:02):
Bet from a pure just media eyeballs readership way measure.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
That.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
And this is what I think Jeff Zucker might have said.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Or a certain CBS News chief who will not be
named might have said.

Speaker 5 (13:23):
Was a lesson who said this it was less just okay, that's.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
What I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
Where I'm going is not forod CBS News. Where I'm
going is not good. My point is, yes, I think
people are fascinated by former President Trump, and so if
you're asking me strictly on that basis what it portends
for the next four years of the media business.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
It's a boon.

Speaker 5 (13:45):
It might be, It might be I pray that I
think we should take that equation out of how anybody's
supposed to think about this stuff.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Though, Right Andrew, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 5 (13:59):
I really appreciate it having me have I got fired
for doing this.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
All of the coverage of those comments by Sorkin make
them sound simultaneously more nightmarish than they are and less
nightmarish because he didn't say he was in favor of
Trump being elected because it would be good for business.
But he also doesn't realize he's wrong on that point.
He's wrong, He's wrong on it being good for anybody's business.

(14:26):
He's wrong on the economics, and he's an economics guy.
He doesn't see it. The networks don't see it. The
corporations that own the networks don't see it. Reporters don't
see it. A Trump victory would not be some kind
of boon to the media industry. It would be the
end of the media industry. There is a false assumption,
even in somebody like Sorkin of CNBC, that somehow the

(14:49):
cataclysm Trump would inflict on groups he does not like Hispanics, Jews, Blacks,
critics that would never touch the media industry. Okay, there'd
be dark, frightening changes, but they'd never ever touch the
profits at CBS. Why they might be a boon. Trump

(15:12):
says he wants to cancel CBS's license to do news.
And he said all the others licenses. All the others
means all the others NBC, CNN, the New York Times,
the Daily Beast, Fox, iHeart podcasts. All means all that

(15:34):
none of them have licenses. Means nothing to Trump, as
reality means nothing to Trump. There aren't really news licenses. Okay,
I'm creating news licenses, mister Sorkin and guess what you're
not getting one go look up what happened to broadcasting

(15:54):
and newspapers when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Always a
much more interesting character for us to cover. Oh, our
industry is just nationalized. A boon, you say. Still, if

(16:19):
you are panicking, stop deep breathe, and get to work.
The five thirty eight average of polls is Harris two
point four. On September twenty fourth, the five thirty eight
average of polls was Harris two point four. On September eleventh,
it was Harris two point four. On August twelfth, it

(16:39):
was Harris two point three. Pennsylvania, per the New York
Times poll, Harris fifty Trump forty seven, Harris by three,
or with the third parties in Pennsylvania, Harris by four, or,
as longtime Republican strategist Matt Dowd noted yesterday, NBC has
the race tide right now. NBC also had the race

(16:59):
tide at this point in twenty twelve, Romney tied with Obama.
Right now, ABC has Harris by two and CBS has
Harris by three. In twenty twelve, CBS had Obama by
two and ABC had Obama by three. You want to
worry about something, worry about somebody in Harris's campaign letting

(17:24):
up on the gas of we're not going back. And
I know Donald Trump's type. You want to do ads
on the economy, go for it. I don't know if
it's going to work or not, but go for it.
In addition to not in lieu of the apocalyptic anti
Trump ads, he just says he wants to invoke the

(17:44):
law that let them put the Japanese in internment camps,
only he's going to use it on Hispanics. Madam Vice President,
if your advisors won't wake up every voter in every
minority demographic with that, if they won't let you to
ask voters, are you next? Does Trump want to put
your family in a constant dration camp fire? All of

(18:07):
your advisors right now? Also? JD. Vance is a fountain
of anti Trump ads. Use him. Of course. Vance is
going to refuse to say he'd have certified the twenty
twenty election. That's how he got this job. Of course
he's going to refuse to say Trump lost. But in

(18:30):
his rush to do that, he said January sixth was
just quote. A few knuckleheads went off and did something.
They shouldn't do. That's not on Trump, that's on them. Unquote.
Vance just contradicted a cardinal tenet of the Trump Nazi
Party that the January sixth insurrectionists were patriots and martyrs

(18:50):
and heroes acting for America and Trump will pardon them all.
Vance just called them knuckleheads who had nothing to do
with Trump. Smother Vance with this SoundBite, and to close
on a lighter note, every Vance condescending racist dunning Krueger

(19:13):
effect wise crack about Kamala Harris, blows up in his face,
wipes the eyeliner off his eyes every single time. But
some are so spectacular that they require that some kind
of hall of fame be built to house Vance's vast, undulating,

(19:38):
radiant ability to find every rake on every lawn in
America and step on it. We didn't tell him beforehand.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
There's nobody is zeer.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
No cute earrings, There's nothing like that.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
No, I'm just reminding everybody that this is all organic.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Okay, I left my bluetooth ear rings at home, so
can't find your ear rings. JD. Did you did you look?
Did you look in the couch? Did you look? Did
you look between the couch cushions back with a full

(20:18):
countdown tomorrow. For now, I'm Keith Alramman. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olreman is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.