Tell-all book on Trump
White House intensifies US political crisis
By
Barry Grey
6 January 2018
The release Friday of the damning book on Donald Trump and his
inner circle, Fire and Fury: Inside the
Trump White House, has brought the political crisis in Washington
to a new pitch of intensity. The devastating picture by journalist Michael
Wolff, based largely on interviews with Trump’s former top aide Stephen Bannon,
of chaos, incompetence and ignorance, centered in the figure of the president
himself, has escalated the fracturing of the US political establishment.
The publisher, Henry Holt & Co., moved up the date of release
to Friday after Trump’s attorneys sent cease-and-desist letters to Holt, Wolff
and Bannon in an attempt to block the book’s release, following the publication
of excerpts in the press beginning on Wednesday. Bookstores sold out within
minutes of opening, and the book immediately reached the top of national
best-seller lists.
The book quotes Bannon and cites other top White House officials
who describe Trump as infantile, erratic, barely literate, an “idiot” and a
“moron.” In a particularly revealing passage, Wolff writes: “He didn’t process
information in any conventional sense. He didn’t read. He didn’t really even
skim. Some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than
semi-literate.”
The book has received nonstop media coverage and provided new
ammunition for those factions within the ruling class and the state that are
pushing for Trump’s removal from office, either by forcing him to resign,
invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the removal
of a president who can no longer serve, or by means of impeachment.
There are two main prongs to this offensive: the claim that Trump
is mentally unfit to serve as president and charges that he colluded with
Russia in its alleged meddling in the 2016 election and is guilty of
obstruction of justice in connection with the Justice Department’s Russia
investigation.
Fueling the latter charge, Bannon is quoted in the Wolff book as
calling the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials,
including Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr. and then-campaign head Paul Manafort,
and various Russians “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” Bannon adds that there is
“no chance” Trump did not know of the meeting.
Trump has fiercely denounced Wolff and, above all, Bannon,
effectively severing relations with his former top aide, at least for the
present, and rallying support from within the Republican establishment,
including among former backers of Bannon.
NBC News’ “Today Show” featured a friendly interview with Wolff
Friday morning, in which the author made the case that Trump is unfit for his
office. “I will tell you,” he said, “the one description that everyone gave,
everyone had in common: They all say he is like a child. And what they mean by
that is, he has a need for immediate gratification. It is all about him.”
Wolff added that “100 percent of the people around” Trump, “senior
advisors, family members, every single one of them, questions his intelligence
and fitness for office.” He singled out as a sign of mental decline that
Trump’s habit of repeating statements and phrases has grown noticeably more
pronounced in the course of his year in office.
This followed a half-hour interview with former Vice President Joe
Biden on Thursday evening’s PBS nightly news program, in which Biden was asked
directly of Trump: “It’s been a year. Is he fit to be president?”
Biden avoided a direct answer, but said that Trump “undermines the
office” and “our place in the world.”
Asked if he agreed with the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, who said on Sunday that the United States under Trump
was closer than ever before to nuclear war, Biden replied, “Yes, I do.”
On Friday, the New York
Times ran as its front-page lead story a report making the
case for an obstruction of justice charge against Trump by Special Counsel
Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s supposed intervention into the
2016 elections in opposition to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and
possible collusion by the Trump campaign.
Featuring the sub-headline, “Obstruction of Justice Is Viewed as
Central to Mueller’s Scrutiny,” the article cites unnamed sources, evidently
from within the Mueller investigation, who say Trump ordered his White House
counsel to pressure Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself in the
Justice Department’s Russia probe. When Sessions recused himself in March,
Trump reacted with fury and threatened to fire him.
The article, also citing the Mueller investigation, claims that
former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus turned over handwritten notes
of conversations with Trump that corroborate the testimony of former FBI
Director James Comey about improper efforts by Trump to pressure him into
publicly declaring that Trump was not a target of his investigation. Trump
fired Comey last May after he refused to end his investigation of former
National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. The deputy attorney general then
appointed former FBI Director Mueller as special counsel to head up the
investigation.
The pro-Trump camp, for its part, has launched its own
counteroffensive. On Thursday night, Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of hedge fund
billionaire and long-time Bannon backer Robert Mercer, released a statement
backing Trump and disavowing Bannon. She added, “I have a minority interest
in Breitbart News and
I remain committed to my support for them”—suggesting she might move to push
Bannon out. Questioned Thursday at her White House news briefing on the matter,
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “I certainly think that’s
something they should look at and consider.”
The Wall
Street Journal published an editorial Friday praising Trump
for breaking with Bannon. Alluding to last month’s passage of a
multitrillion-dollar tax cut for the rich, the newspaper wrote: “The
Trump-Bannon divorce is therefore a political relief … The president’s
successes have come when he has bursts of discipline while pursuing the more
conventional conservative agenda on judges, tax reform, regulation and foreign
policy.”
Also on Friday, press reports emerged that the FBI has for months
been investigating the Clinton Foundation, in accordance with repeated
accusations by Trump and some Republicans that Hillary Clinton, while secretary
of state, granted favors to foreign donors to the foundation.
And two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Chairman Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham, sent a referral to the Justice
Department requesting that it open up a criminal investigation of Christopher
Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier on alleged Trump
campaign collusion with Russia. Steele’s dossier was cited in last January’s
intelligence report claiming, without providing any real evidence, that Russia
had hacked Democratic Party emails and otherwise meddled in the election in
order to tip the campaign in favor of Trump.
Despite the intensity of the conflict within the political
establishment and the state, it has not arisen because of disagreements with
the reactionary political agenda of the Trump administration. Rather, it is
rooted in a loss of confidence within sections of the ruling class that Trump
is capable of carrying the agenda out.
Trump himself is not some alien aberration of an otherwise healthy
social and political system. He is the ugly product of American bourgeois
politics, the embodiment of all that is corrupt and backward after decades of
political reaction, unending war and social counterrevolution. In his
narcissism and single-minded concern for his own wealth and power, he
personifies the American financial oligarchy, which, along with the military
and the CIA, dominates his administration.
The United States in 2018 faces major geopolitical challenges, an
extremely unstable financial situation and the prospect of growing opposition
in the working class. Under these conditions, there is a sense in significant
sections of the ruling class that Trump is neither intellectually nor
politically up to the task of defending its interests. Hence the accelerating
drive for a palace coup to replace him with a more effective and no less
ruthless head of state.
ANALYSIS: Michael Wolff Makes the Argument for Removing Trump Under 25th Amendment
Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, has encouraged an effort by Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans to have President Donald Trump removed from office under the 25th Amendment for what they claim is mental incapacity.
The accuracy of the book has been disputed, not only by the White House but also by journalists who cover the president. (Wolff himself calls “looseness with the truth” an “elemental thread of the book.”)
Still, Wolff himself is increasingly explicit, in promoting Fire and Fury, in his insistence that the book shows the president should not be in office.
On Friday morning, Wolff told NBC’s Today that Trump’s legal effort to block publication of the book was not only helping drive sales, but “helping me prove the point of the book.” That point was that President Trump “cannot do this job.”
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment provides (emphasis added):
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Trump’s most determined opponents floated the idea of using the 25th Amendment to remove him almost as soon as he was elected in November 2016. Then, in May, the New York Times‘ resident conservative columnist Ross Douthat, a devout NeverTrumper, wrotea column titled, “The 25th Amendment Solution for Removing Trump.” In 2018, reporters have returned to that theme, with CNN’s Brian Stelter calling Trump “a person who is not well.”
It is not clear that those who spoke to Wolff understood his aim. Wolff admitted to NBC that he had not told all of his subjects — including the president — that they were being interviewed. “I absolutely spoke to the president,” Wolff said. “Whether he realized it was an interview or not, I don’t know. But it certainly was not off the record.”
Though President Trump tweeted that he had authorized “Zero” access for Wolff, the author remembers otherwise, writing that Trump seemed to have allowed him access to the West Wing after press aide — later, White House Director of Communications — Hope Hicks praised Wolff’s previous work:
I interviewed Donald Trump for The Hollywood Reporter in June 2016, and he seemed to have liked — or not disliked — the piece I wrote. “Great cover!” his press assistant, Hope Hicks, emailed me after it came out (it was a picture of a belligerent Trump in mirrored sunglasses). After the election, I proposed to him that I come to the White House and report an inside story for later publication — journalistically, as a fly on the wall — which he seemed to misconstrue as a request for a job. No, I said. I’d like to just watch and write a book. “A book?” he responded, losing interest. “I hear a lot of people want to write books,” he added, clearly not understanding why anybody would. “Do you know Ed Klein?”— author of several virulently anti-Hillary books. “Great guy. I think he should write a book about me.” But sure, Trump seemed to say, knock yourself out.
An editor’s note that accompanies an excerpt from Wolff’s book in New York magazine suggests that the president himself was thought to have authorized Wolff’s presence:
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Wolff says, he was able to take up “something like a semi-permanent seat on a couch in the West Wing” — an idea encouraged by the president himself. Because no one was in a position to either officially approve or formally deny such access, Wolff became “more a constant interloper than an invited guest.” There were no ground rules placed on his access, and he was required to make no promises about how he would report on what he witnessed.
Early excerpts of Wolff’s book suggested that the controversial author had the 25th Amendment in mind when he stitched together snippets of conversations (or, as some critics suggest, figments of his imagination). For example:
Donald Trump’s small staff of factotums, advisors and family began, on Jan. 20, 2017, an experience that none of them, by any right or logic, thought they would — or, in many cases, should — have, being part of a Trump presidency. Hoping for the best, with their personal futures as well as the country’s future depending on it, my indelible impression of talking to them and observing them through much of the first year of his presidency, is that they all — 100 percent — came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job.At Mar-a-Lago, just before the new year, a heavily made-up Trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends.
Some Beltway veterans immediately understood the implications of Wolff’s book, and reacted accordingly:
CNN’s Stelter used the book to press his point, again: “The book suggests that President Trump is unstable and raises alarms about his fitness for office.”
Others agreed, and the topic was debated furiously Thursday afternoon and Friday morning:
Likewise, The Hill reported: “Fears about President Trump’s mental fitness have burst into public view with the upcoming release of a new book detailing the chaotic early months of his presidency. … Some people have even floated the far-fetched possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president and the majority of the Cabinet to remove the president from office.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
"Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a large percentage of the nation’s annual income has shifted to investors and away from employees."
OPEN BORDERS AND NON-ENFORCEMENT IS ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED!
"Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a large percentage of the nation’s annual income has shifted to investors and away from employees."
Report: VP Pence Invites Sen. Flake To Lobby Trump For Amnesty
Vice President Mike Pence has invited Sen. Jeff Flake and other pro-amnesty Senators to meet with President Donald Trump next week as business-first advocates scramble to shift the president’s pro-American immigration priorities.
The invite was leaked to Politico:
The invite to amnesty-advocate Flake came just as his group of pro-amnesty establishment Senators split over Democrats’ refusal to accept any of President Trump’s popular immigration reform measures. Those measures include easier deportation rules, a border wall and an end to chain-migration and the visa-lottery.
The establishment group, which include Flake, split when Sen. Thom Tillis and Sen. James Lankford exited on Thursday, saying:
Over the course of the last several weeks, we have negotiated in good faith with Senate Democrats on a DACA agreement. Unfortunately, our discussions on border security and enforcement with Democrats are much further apart, and that is key to getting a bipartisan deal on DACA. Until that happens, we cannot accomplish the solutions our country needs and many families deserve. More work remains ahead.
Before Tillis quit, he told reporters at the White House in the morning that administration officials would offer a revised list of Trump priorities to the establishment group in a White House meeting next week. According to a report in Roll Call:
Lawmakers and the administration had settled on a general framework and the plan would be shared with Democrats as early as Tuesday.“We are all going to have an opportunity to get in a room next week and everybody’s going to see the single version,” Tillis told reporters at the Capitol.
The news that Pence invited Flake and the other leaders came after Tillis’ prediction of a meeting next week.
The Thursday afternoon exit of Tillis and Lankford cripples the establishment group, which also includes GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Cory Gardner, and Democratic Sens. Richard Durbin and Michael Bennett.
The group split after Trump used a White House meeting on Thursday morning to show that he would not be pushed away from his election-winning immigration agenda, despite pleading by Graham, Tillis, and Lankford.
Trump laid out his agenda on the campaign trail and formalized it in October with a long list of popular immigration principles. Since the list was published, Democrats have tried to get whittle it down by asking for updates and clarifications.
Before being picked for Vice President, Pence served in the House of Representatives with Flake, and the two became close friends.
Once elected to the Senate, Flake embraced the amnesty cause and became a charter member of the disastrous 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty group. Led by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, the gang’s amnesty bill helped the Democrats lose nine seats in the 2014 midterm elections, and allowed Trump to win the 2016 primary race.
But the Pence-Flake alliance was cracked by Flake’s steady opposition to Trump, according to an engaging article in Politico:
The old allies aren’t exactly estranged. Pence gave Flake’s son a tour of the West Wing at the White House Christmas party, and back in June, Flake snapped a photo on his iPhone as their wives reunited at the White House picnic. But it’s nothing like their heyday in the House, when one man could always be found at the other’s side. “I think that would be tough for him to explain to the president,” Flake says, grinning, “‘I was out with Flake last night.’” Whatever personal affection may have been lost, a political bond endures. At their November dinner, as the vice president pressed the senator for his vote [on the tax bill], Flake made an offer: In exchange for backing the GOP tax bill, he wanted a promise that the White House would “enact fair and permanent protections for DACA recipients.” Pence made the commitment [for an amnesty] then and there. Flake, in turn, voted to secure the administration’s first major legislative victory.This fleeting alliance aside, in the age of Trump, a pair of conjoined political twins has been separated: Flake heading home, his star now dimmed, and Pence preparing for the possibility of succeeding Trump atop the Republican Party, be it in 2024, 2020 or, potentially, even sooner.
Pence’s record shows that he would do much more than support than a mere amnesty. In 2006, Pence used a Wall Street Journal article to tout very different legislation which would allow employers to hire an unlimited number of cheap and temporary foreign workers instead of middle-class American voters. He wrote:
Private worker-placement agencies — “Ellis Island Centers” — would be licensed by the federal government to match guest workers with jobs that employers cannot fill with American workers. These agencies will match guest workers with jobs, perform health screening, fingerprint them, and convey the appropriate information to the FBI and Homeland Security so that a background check can be performed. Once this is done, the guest worker would be provided with a visa issued by the State Department. The whole process will take a matter of one week, or less …There will initially be no cap on the number of visas that can be issued; for the first three years, the market and the needs of U.S. employers will set the limit on the number of guest workers … After three years, however, a reasonable limit on the number of these “W” visas will be determined by the Department of Labor, based on employment statistics, employer needs and other research.
Pence actually described his business-first, cheap-labor-for-ever proposal as “the real rational middle ground.”
In contrast, real-estate entrepreneur Trump won the 2016 election with a popular pro-employee agenda, which is now helping Americans win higher salaries because companies can’t easily import foreign replacements across the line at the United States-Mexican border.
In the Thursday White House meeting with Trump, Pence declined to support Trump’s plan to change the law so that immigration rules help Americans, and he instead touted a quick amnesty for ‘DACA’ illegals:
Mr. President, you’ve made immigration a centerpiece in the national debate over the last year and a half. And you said all along the way we’re going to build a wall and reform our immigration system. We’re going to enforce the laws of this country for the citizens of this country.But you’ve also said along the way we’re going to do it with a big heart. And you’ve opened the door to an agreement on DACA, and today is part of an ongoing discussion with these Republican leaders but also with Democrats on Capitol Hill to accomplish that. And I look forward to being a part of it.
However, the exit of Tillis and Lankford from the “ongoing discussion” will make it harder for Pence “to being a part of it.” Before the group split Thursday afternoon, Pence Tweeted:
Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for the Vice President, dismissed Breitbart’s questions about Pence’s commitment to Trump’s high-wages policy. “Of course the VICE PRESIDENT supports the President’s agenda– it’s their shared agenda that they work on together day in and day out,” she said in an E-mail.
However, she twice declined to say if Pence has renounced his 2007 “moderate” op-ed. She also declined to say if Pence had invited Flake to the meeting.
In a later comment, she added:
Your story yesterday is false. The VP doesn’t invite any individuals to meetings unless its at the President’s direction.
Trump’s aggressive reiteration of his pro-American policies during the meeting was a shocking turnabout for pro-amnesty GOP Senators, who had hoped to persuade Trump to make amnesty concessions to Democrats, partly by backing industry claims that Trump faces a staged January 19 deadline for a deal.
Trump’s priorities are very popular with voters and can help GOP candidates overcome the expected wave of angry Democratic voters in November 2018.
For example, a December poll of likely 2018 voters shows two-to-one support for Trump’s pro-American immigration policies, and a lopsided four-to-one opposition against the cheap-labor, mass-immigration, economic policy pushed by bipartisan establishment-backed D.C. interest-groups.
The poll for NumbersUSA is another reminder to politicians that the business-funded ‘Nation of Immigrants” polls distract attention from voters’ private views, which were shockingly displayed on the evening of November 8, 2016.
Business groups and Democrats tout the misleading, industry-funded “Nation of Immigrants” polls because they which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants, including the roughly 700,000 ‘DACA’ illegals and the roughly 3 million ‘dreamer’ illegals.
The alternative “priority” or “fairness” polls — plus the 2016 election — show that voters in the polling booths put a much higher priority on helping their families, neighbors, and fellow nationals get decent jobs in a high-tech, high-immigration, low-wage economy.
Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market.
But the federal government inflates the supply of new labor by annually accepting more than 1 million new legal immigrants, by providing work-permits to roughly 3 million resident foreigners, and by doing little to block the employment of roughly 8 million illegal immigrants.
This Washington-imposed economic policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
The cheap-labor policy has also reduced investment and job creation in many interior states because the coastal cities have a surplus of imported labor. For example, almost 27 percent of zip codes in Missouri had fewer jobs or businesses in 2015 than in 2000, according to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group. In Kansas, almost 29 percent of zip codes had fewer jobs and businesses in 2015 compared to 2000, which was a two-decade period of massive cheap-labor immigration.
Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a large percentage of the nation’s annual income has shifted to investors and away from employees.
"Congress must prioritize four repairs for the immigration system before contemplating any DACA-style amnesty negotiation, said Brat: 1. Ending chain migration and the visa lottery; 2. Mandating employer use of E-Verify; 3. Construction of a southern border wall; and 4. Interior enforcement of immigration law." REP. DAVE BRAT
“The cost of the Dream Act is far bigger than the Democrats or their media allies admit. Instead of covering 690,000 younger illegals now enrolled in former President Barack Obama’s 2012 “DACA” amnesty, the Dream Act would legalize at least 3.3 million illegals, according to a pro-immigration group, the Migration Policy Institute.”
AMERICAN POVERTY and the LA RAZA MEXICAN WELFARE STATE on AMERICA’S BACKS.
GOP Senators Asking for Amnesty Concessions from Trump
http://www.breitbart.com/economics/2018/01/04/gop-senators-asking-amnesty-concessions-from-trump/
GOP politicians are needling, pressuring and cajoling President Donald Trump to drop some of his popular, pro-American immigration priorities.
Trump is meeting today with a group of pro-amnesty Republican Senators in the White House, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, the GOP Senator who put together the “Gang of Eight” amnesty in 2013 which split the GOP. Throughout the 2016 campaign, Graham slammed Trump while boosting Jeb Bush.
The face-to-face meeting gives Graham and other pro-amnesty Senators another opportunity to salami-slice Trump’s list of priorities, even before the GOP Senators offer further concessions to Democratic Senators. Normally, this form of direct lobbying of the president is blocked when Trump’s top deputies meet and negotiate with business-first GOP Senators and immigrant-first Democrats.
The bipartisan establishment’s salami-slice strategy was sketched by Texas GOP Sen. Jon Cornyn:
But Trump and his deputies have repeatedly described his priorities in great detail since October 8, when he released his immigration principles.
Trump has used his Twitter account to repeatedly declare that he wants to end chain migration, the visa lottery and to reform tangled immigration laws that hinder repatriations of illegals.
Cornyn opposes Trump’s plan to quickly end chain-migration. If implemented, the plan would halve the annual delivery of wage-cutting cheap-workers and welfare-aided consumers to American business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
According to the McClatchy new service:
Trump hasn’t been involved in the day-to-day negotiations on Dreamers ever since he was accused of backing out of a tentative agreement with Democrats in September and insisted the issue be part of a larger immigration package.Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. confirmed to McClatchy Wednesday night that they planned to attend the White House meeting. An aide to Sen. Thom Tillis said the North Carolina Republican would also participate.
Graham is a sponsor of the Democrats’s huge DREAM Act amnesty, which would deliver millions of foreign migrants into the nation’s consumer and labor markets at the cost of at least $26 billion during the first ten years.
Tillis is an outsourcing-advocate who is pushing a similar amnesty bill, dubbed the SUCCEED Act.
Lankford, who is helping Tillis, argues that illegal immigration promotes competition in the labor market.
The Thursday meeting is being praised by advocates for a cheap-labor economy. According to McClatchy:
“It’s clear there’s a deal to be struck on protecting Dreamers and strengthening border security, so the fact that the president and Republicans in the Senate are actively meeting on this is very promising,” said Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the Partnership for a New American Economy, which is working with Republicans and Democrats who support protecting DACA recipients.
Robbins’ group was created by billionaires Mike Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, both of whose businesses would gain from an extra inflow of cheap labor and welfare-aided consumers.
Trump’s priorities are very popular with voters and likely will help in the 2018 elections.
A December poll of likely 2018 voters shows two-to-one support for Trump’s pro-American immigration policies, and a lopsided four-to-one opposition against the cheap-labor, mass-immigration, economic policy pushed by bipartisan establishment-backed D.C. interest-groups. The poll for NumbersUSA is another reminder to politicians that the business-funded ‘Nation of Immigrants” polls distract attention from voters’ private views, which were shockingly displayed on the evening of November 8, 2016.
Business groups and Democrats tout the misleading, industry-funded “Nation of Immigrants” polls because they which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants, including the roughly 700,000 ‘DACA’ illegals and the roughly 3 million ‘dreamer’ illegals.
The alternative “priority or fairness” polls — plus the 2016 election — show that voters in the polling booth put a much higher priority on helping their families, neighbors, and fellow nationals get decent jobs in a high-tech, high-immigration, low-wage economy.
Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market.
But the federal government inflates the supply of new labor by annually accepting 1 million new legal immigrants, by providing work-permits to roughly 3 million resident foreigners, and by doing little to block the employment of roughly 8 million illegal immigrants.
The Washington-imposed economic policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
The cheap-labor policy has also reduced investment and job creation in many interior states because the coastal cities have a surplus of imported labor. For example, almost 27 percent of zip codes in Missouri had fewer jobs or businesses in 2015 than in 2000, according to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group. In Kansas, almost 29 percent of zip codes had fewer jobs and businesses in 2015 compared to 2000, which was a two-decade period of massive cheap-labor immigration.
Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a large percentage of the nation’s annual income has shifted to investors and away from employees.
Kris Kobach: DACA Amnesty Will ‘Cause Surge in Illegal Immigration,’ Trump Must ‘Demand E-Verify’
In an appearance on FNC’s “Fox News @ Night” on Tuesday, Kansas Secretary of State and gubernatorial hopeful Kris Kobach said any plan that gives amnesty to nearly 800,000 illegal aliens shielded from deportation by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy would “cause a surge in illegal immigration.”
He added that surge in illegal immigration should be combatted with multiple reforms, including mandatory E-Verify, which would bar employers from hiring illegal aliens for U.S. jobs.
Partial transcript as follows:
DACA is bad policy. It’s going to hurt … those 800,000 illegal aliens are in their 20’s and 30’s, they’re not kids. And they’re competing for jobs with Americans who in that age group are facing 9 percent unemployment, 19 percent under-employment. So we’re going to be taking Americans out of jobs and giving those jobs to DACA recipients effectively.And it’s going to cause a surge in illegal immigration. So what would President Trump be willing to take that hit — that bad policy that’s also going to anger his base — you know what would he be willing to get… what would he be willing to demand? And I think he has to demand more than just the RAISE Act, which is the end to chain migration, and more than just the border wall. He’d have to demand E-Verify, mandatory nationwide as well to make sure that this new surge of illegal aliens — which will come in, there’s no question, if we grant an amnesty, they will come in — make sure that they don’t take additional jobs from Americans.So I see the president kind of staking out the grounds for the discussion, but I think he needs to take an even stronger position and say ‘I need three things, at a minimum. If I don’t get all three, I’m walking.’ And you know we know that he’s a great dealmaker, but… I’m hoping that he holds the line and says ‘No, this is absolutely non-negotiable.’
Follow John Binder on Twitter at @JxhnBinder
"Congress must prioritize four repairs for the immigration system before contemplating any DACA-style amnesty negotiation, said Brat: 1. Ending chain migration and the visa lottery; 2. Mandating employer use of E-Verify; 3. Construction of a southern border wall; and 4. Interior enforcement of immigration law." REP. DAVE BRAT
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