Trump’s Immigration Pivot? Farm Labor, Reality Checks, and the MAGA Dilemma

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Is Donald Trump rethinking immigration, or just riffing in real time? His latest CNBC appearance stirred the pot, especially with remarks on undocumented farm workers and who’s really doing the heavy lifting in America’s fields. While social media fixates on fact checks, the real issue might be economic—farmers can’t find workers, and it’s not just a U.S. problem. From Greece to Italy, nations are facing the same labor shortages and turning to migrants to fill the gap. Will Trump’s base get on board with a more pragmatic approach—or will ideology keep clashing with reality?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Is Trump doing an immigration rethink or rethought or I
don't know. He changes his mind on this quite a bit.
And if it's the case, I'm going to be honest,
I'm a fan. All of the talking heads and the
influencers and everybody out there. They are talking about his
appearance today on CNBC. He was interviewed, well, they tried

(00:41):
to interview him, Joe Kernin, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin,
and you know, he doesn't really allow much in regards
to questions. It's Donald Trump being Donald Trump. But they
talked about immigration, talked about immigration, and this is what
he said about undocumented farm workers. People that live in

(01:01):
the inner city are not going to do that work.
They've tried, We've tried, tried. They don't do it. These
people do it naturally. Naturally, they don't get a bad back,
because if they get a bad back, they die. Now again,
the social media influencers they're crowing about the fact that
Donald Trump got fact checked on the amount of votes

(01:24):
he got in the state of Texas, and he was
right on that one. They bear no mind the other
things he got checked on and he was wrong neither
here nor there. Interesting today, this was actually in the
Greek newspaper actually talking about the Greeks right now. They
need agriculture workers and they are thinking about bringing people

(01:48):
from Mexico, Central America and South America to Greece to
do the work. Here's the quote. They're Christians, peaceful people.
They could easily be employed in our agricultural sector. Again,
it's not just the United States that has these problems.
I think I might have mentioned this on the program

(02:11):
Great Show. Stanley Tucci is doing a new show on
Italy and we talked to it back up in the
Lombardi region which does a lot of the for milk
dairy products for Italy, and how they lost workers and
they actually imported seekhs from India that have basically taken

(02:34):
over that industry as far as workers are concerned. They
you know, went to people that were familiar with cows
and how to handle them, and it's worked out really good. Again,
this the Magabase is not going to be too happy
about this. They have been loud when it comes to
deport everyone, get everybody out, kick them all out, you know,

(02:58):
mass deportation. And again they're not really thinking it through.
I mean, they'll bring up points so all load of
traffic is so much better right now, and they'll you know,
all these other things. Then they failed to realize that
you're just not going to get Americans to go out
there and do that type of work. Just not going

(03:20):
to happen. Again, this is why our immigration policies are
just ridiculous, the way that we handle things. I've always
talked about the need. I never liked the whole migrant
worker bit. I'd like to see people that actually want
to come here and actually build a life for themselves here.
Don't have a single problem with that at all. And

(03:40):
again we talked about represented salves Our's Dignity Act here
on the program in the past. We're going to see
what happens with this. I think the rubbers kind of
meet in the road right now, and I think they're
getting plenty of phone calls from farmers and other you know,
construction and various if another things saying what do you do, man?

(04:02):
We can't. We can't pick our crops, we can't do
the jobs. And again, I understand, I understand the you
want to automate more and more and more, and I
think you know, we'll get to that point in time.
We're just not there yet. Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com