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Politics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCFM9WQjyzc

Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Matt Salmon (R-AZ) ripped into Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) over the $1.1 trillion cromnibus bill to fund the government that barely passed the House Thursday.

“Let’s do it together with conservatives,” said Rep. Gohmert during an interview with Sean Hannity, referring to a conversation he had with Speaker Boehner. “That’s the bulk of our conference, don’t make them take a wrong vote. Let’s fund everything for two months. Let us have a vote on defunding Obama’s amnesty, and we’ll even agree that the Senate can take it out if they take the hard vote to do that and let it go from there to the president.”

Gohmert went on to say that it is telling how Boehner worked wanted to work with the White House to get around members of his own party, and that the conference was willing to hatch out a compromise.

“We were willing to work with them to compromise, and not one word,” he added. “As you know, the calls went to the White House when in a time that the speaker needed votes he turned to somebody that he really identifies with, the president and liberal Democrats and got them to help him pass this vote.”

Rep. Salmon said House GOP leadership didn’t even try to gain concessions from Democrats.

“I said if we would send it to the Senate and then let it then work there will, we may be surprised,” Rep. Salmon said. “There may be a lot of Democrats over there feeling a lot of pain and heat from the election, and they’ll do the right thing.

“But we’ll never know,” he said. “You never know if you always punt the ball.”

Government funding technically ran out on midnight Thursday, but lawmakers are moving on a stopgap measure to buy time, because the Senate debate could very well last through the weekend and even into Monday. If the bill passes in the Senate without amendment, the showdown can only be interpreted as a victory for conservative Republicans in the smallest measure.

Though current plan would fund the government through September 2015, immigration services would only be funded through late February. By that time, a new Republican Senate majority will have more leverage to wage a battle over the president’s widely denounced executive order on immigration.

However, as Gohmert noted, there is a slight problem with that widely spread interpretation.

“The first rule of hostage negotiations is that you never take a hostage the other side wants you to shoot,” Gohmert said.

Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Matt

Politics

boehner suing obama

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Obama corralled enough votes to overcome an outright Democrat rebellion by a slim 219 – 206 vote margin in the House of Representatives.

House Democrats threatened a government shutdown Thursday after leftist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) urged Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to oppose the $1.1 trillion spending bill. Warren, who is now a member of the party leadership and widely thought to be the leftist alternative to Hillary Clinton in 2016, claimed the effort was to preserve the financial regulatory policy known as Dodd-Frank.

However, the deep divisions in the Democratic Party are apparently worse than the president initially estimated, as only 57 Democrats voted for the bill. House and Senate liberals couldn’t even agree on the one issue to oppose the bill over.

For instance, New York Rep. Nita Lowey, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, supported everything in the bill except for the provision allowing for an increase in limits on contributions to political parties. However, while she claims the provision is the fruit of the still Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, and Speaker Boehner, it isn’t at all an accurate claim.

“The Reid-Boehner provision to increase by tenfold the limits on contributions to political parties is excessive and also does not belong on this bill,” Ms. Lowey said on the House floor. Except, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said the campaign finance provision had already been agreed to by Senate Democrats.

“Democrats in the Senate consented to it and, I suspect, participated in it,” Rep. Cole said.

President Obama and Vice President Biden were calling House Democrats appealing for their support. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough also arrived on the Hill late Thursday to meet with the Democratic caucus to remind them that 70 House Democrats voted for a bill that included the very change to the Dodd-Frank regulations that they are now protesting.

Conservatives, to a far less extent, also had gripes with the bill. The protests involved the president’s recent executive action on immigration, which the members wanted to defund. However, some were voting no just to force a short-term continuing resolution so that the fight could again be waged with a far larger Republican majority in the House and new majority in the Senate.

“The fact of the matter is, if Democrats think they are going to renegotiate this in three months, they are going to have less leverage to do so,” White House Press Secretary Josh Ernest said earlier Thursday. “All the more reason for my Democratic colleagues to vote for the bill that’s on the floor now.”

The measure now moves to the Senate as a midnight funding deadline looms.

Government funding technically runs out at midnight Thursday, and lawmakers are expected to move on a stopgap measure to buy time, because the Senate debate could very well last through the weekend and even into Monday. If the bill passes in the Senate without amendment, the showdown can somewhat be interpreted as a victory for conservative Republicans only in the smallest measure.

Though current plan would fund the government through September 2015, immigration services would only be funded through late February. By that time, a new Republican Senate majority will have more leverage to wage a battle over the president’s widely denounced executive order on immigration.

Read Full Backstory

House Speaker John Boehner R-OH) and President

Politics

Elizabeth_Warren_Nancy_Pelosi

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), left, urged Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), right, to vote down a spending bill 70 House Democrats supported just a few months ago.

House Democrats threatened a government shutdown Thursday after leftist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) urged Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to oppose the $1.1 trillion spending bill. While Warren, who is now a member of the party leadership and widely thought to be the leftist alternative to Hillary Clinton in 2016, claims the effort is to preserve the financial regulatory policy known as Dodd-Frank, they are playing right into conservatives’ hands.

The spending bill barely passed on a 214 – 212 test vote, with all of the Democrats voting against it, while 16 conservative Republicans joined the opposition. In the end, Republican Reps. Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan and Marlin Stutzman of Indiana cast the final votes to clear the procedural obstacle.

President Obama and Vice President Biden were calling House Democrats appealing for their support. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough also arrived on the Hill late Thursday to meet with the Democratic caucus. But at this point, it appears the conservative members, who felt slighted by Republican leadership for not fighting on immigration now or passing a short-term funding bill until Republicans increase their majorities, are closer-than-ever to getting what they wanted in the first place.

“We expect the bill to pass with bipartisan support today, but if it does not, we will pass a short-term C.R. to avoid a government shutdown,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner. “The length and other details of that bill have not been determined.”

Pelosi said she was “enormously disappointed” in President Obama for deciding to support the bill. In fact, the minority leader said that she was “heart-broken” when she heard the news.

Of course, despite Pelosi’s email claiming they have “leverage” to wage the fight, the futility of the Democrat effort lays in the fact that in 3 months the Democrats will have 9 fewer votes in the Senate and 13 fewer votes in the House, a sentiment White House Press Secretary Josh Ernest said the president shares.

“The fact of the matter is, if Democrats think they are going to renegotiate this in three months, they are going to have less leverage to do so,” Ernest said. “All the more reason for my Democratic colleagues to vote for the bill that’s on the floor now.”

Adding to the hypocrisy and flat-out self-implosion of the Democratic Party in the eleventh hour, is that 70 House Democrats voted for a bill that included the very change to the Dodd-Frank regulations that they are now protesting. While both sides of the opposition — the conservative flank and the left-wing flank — condemn Wall Street bailouts, they aren’t the entire reason the entire Democratic caucus voted no on the bill.

New York Rep. Nita Lowey, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, supported everything in the bill except for the provision allowing for an increase in limits on contributions to political parties. However, while she claims the provision is the fruit of the still Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, and Speaker Boehner, it isn’t at all an accurate claim.

“The Reid-Boehner provision to increase by tenfold the limits on contributions to political parties is excessive and also does not belong on this bill,” Ms. Lowey said on the House floor. Except, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said the campaign finance provision had already been agreed to with Senate Democrats.

“Democrats in the Senate consented to it and, I suspect, participated in it,” Rep. Cole said.

Nevertheless, with the midnight deadline weighing on their minds, Democrats decided to follow Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi off the cliff.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), left, urged Minority

Politics

cia-chief-john-brennan-press-conference

CIA Director John Brennan pauses during a news conference at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014.
(Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

CIA Director John Brennan opened a first-of-its-kind news conference Thursday by recounting the horrors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then laid into the Senate report on enhanced interrogation.

“In the aftermath of 9/11, our nation ached, it prayed and it cried,” Brennan said. “Never again we cried, but Al Qaeda had different plans.”

The CIA chief said there were “numerous and credible reports” of second and third waves of attacks, and that “our government and our citizens understood the urgency of the task.”

“This is the backdrop by which the agency was tasked by President Bush to protect the homeland,” Brennan said. “The President authorized the program and it was our job to carry it out.”

While he conceded in rare instances unauthorized methods were used against terrorist detainees, he slammed what he called the “unusual” methods used by Senate Democrats to conduct the report recently released by a Democrat-led Senate panel headed up by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA).

The report was released Tuesday despite dire warnings from lawmakers and intel officials. These warnings, which were even echoed by some within the Obama administration, contended the findings would “endanger the lives of Americans” all over the world.

During the speech, Sen. Diane Feinstein tweeted repeatedly, claiming there was no evidence to suggest the program produced valuable intelligence, despite the testimony from various CIA officials involved in the program. The Senate Democrats’ report, however, did not interview those involved.

At the heart of the clash between the programs’ defenders and supporters is the question of results. While acknowledging their argument, supporters, including the CIA, say it is simply not a factual claim to make.

“However, CIA reviews indicate that the program, including interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used, did produce valuable and unique intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives,” an official CIA response said.

Jose Rodriguez, the ex-CIA chief in charge of the enhanced interrogation program, said Senate Democrats released a bogus partisan report aimed to throw the CIA under the bus in order to cover for themselves. He said both Republican and Democratic leadership in the upper and lower Houses of Congress knew, because they were briefed over 30 times over the life of the program.

CIA officials have been pushing back hard on the claims made in the report, including that the interrogation didn’t produce the very intelligence that led to Usama bin Laden and that the CIA lied to Congress and the Bush administration regarding the tactics.

Former CIA Directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden, and former CIA Deputy Directors John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland and Stephen R. Kappes, penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal claiming, in fact, the program did work and provided several detailed accounts of actionable intelligence gathering to prove it. One of those accounts included the events and interrogations that led to the location and killing of Usama bin Laden.

CIA Director John Brennan opened a first-of-its-kind

World

isis_fighters_interviews_mug_shots

“Dawen,” (l.), a Kurd who fought with ISIS for several weeks, says he has regrets. “Omar,” (r.), who admits killing 70 people for the terrorist army, does, too, but his captors don’t believe him. (Photo: FOX News)

in an exclusive interview with Fox News, an ISIS fighter gives a chilling account of killing 70 people in less than three weeks before his capture by the Kurds, who imprisoned him along with hundreds of Islamic State fighters at an undisclosed prison in Sulymaniyah.

Hollie McKay of FoxNews.com traveled last month to Kurdish-controlled territory in Iraq’s Sulymaniyah province, where she bravely met face-to-face with two imprisoned ex-Islamic State soldiers. The interviews were conducted over the course of several hours, during which no question was off-limits, and took place in an office at Sulymaniyah’s “Asaih,” or security facility, in the presence of a Kurdish colonel and an independent Kurdish translator.

“Omar, “ a 25-year-old former Islamic State fighter from the Iraqi village of Dor sal-hadeen, joined “Daesh” in June. Daesh is the name ISIS is known by Kurdish security forces in the region.

“They came to our area and forced me to protect their lands,” Omar said of his Islamic State commanders. “After a while they told me, ‘When are you going to start protecting your own land?’

“They told me to do it or die, and then they killed people in front of me,” said Omar, who is missing four fingers on his left hand as a result of what he claims was a 2009 industrial accident. The disability nearly got him killed by his ISIS handlers, he said, until he proved he could shoot right-handed.

Omar was convicted of terrorism and initially sentenced to death, but a judge commuted the sentence to life in prison. The interview provides insight into the absolute intolerance preached by the Islamic State and radical Islam, as a whole.

“We count Americans like Jews,” he said and when asked what he would do if he saw his female interviewer on the street, he gave a chilling response

“I would call you to Islam and if you didn’t, I would leave you alone,” he first said. But when pressed again, he corrected himself.

“I would call you to Islam and if you did not come, I would kill you.”

McKay also interviewed a 19-year-old Kurd they identified as “Dawen,” who was lured to the Islamic State through social media, specifically Facebook. Dawen, he contends, needed just 20 days to decide the terror army wasn’t what they claimed to be, nor were the Kurds what ISIS claimed they would be.

“I realized that this is not about God, especially after I was captured,” he said. “I realize this isn’t about God; it is about harming people. Also, the Kurdish people were nice even with my situation.”

He now faces terrorism charges, but insists he is on a different path.

“I called my family and they were not happy, it was shameful. I felt weak because they made me act and think a certain way,” he said. “I was asking for forgiveness, even while there.”

The two interviews shed light on the internal policy debate in America over whether or not winning the hearts and minds of the would-be radicalized is even possible. For their captors, the answer isn’t at all clear.

“Some regret their actions, some do not,” the facility’s director of security said. “Understand that most are young and have no information. They are impressionable. They listen to the second-life paradise story, 72 virgins, rivers of wine, and [staying] young forever. That is all they know.”

Still, despite the fact these men both claim they now want to join the Kurdish Peshmerga, Kurdish officials said neither can be trusted, citing the frequency of ISIS placing spies into Kurdistan. McKay reported that in private Kurdish officials believe there is “little doubt the two men, and others like them, would be back fighting for ISIS within days if they were ever freed.”

“We have been dealing with terrorist groups since the beginning, so this is not new for us,” they said. “We specialize in terrorists.”

in an exclusive interview with Fox News,

US

With all of the negative press surrounding police departments nationwide, there is a danger of forgetting the good these officers do everyday. KUTV reported on Helen “Skeeter” Smith, an 87 year-old woman who was rushed by police escort across counties to see her sick son at a hospital.

After receiving a call that her son had fallen ill, she headed from southern Nevada Friday via I-15 to embark on a 350-mile trip to Ogden. In central Utah, Smith told KUTV she “buzzed past” a Utah state trooper, who naturally pulled her over. However, the story begins after he let her off with a warning. “He was all nice,” said Helen. “Oh yeah, he was just doing his job.”

What happened next exceeded even the type of random acts of kindness we hoped to hear about during the holiday season, or year around. The story from KUTV:

Then Helen had perhaps the best accident she could have hoped for; instead of pulling forward to ease onto the interstate, she put her car in reverse and hit Trooper Jeff Jones’ patrol car.

“I put a little dent in his car,” she said. She also told Trooper Jones the reason why she was making the trip.

But that little dent convinced the trooper it wasn’t safe for her to continue her journey, so he had her car moved to a secure location, and gave her a ride from Fillmore to Juab County.

There, he handed Helen off to Trooper Jared Jensen, who drove her to Utah County.

Jensen handed her off to Trooper Chris Bishop, who drove her to Salt Lake County.

There, Trooper Andrew Pollard met her in Draper, and drove Helen all the way to Ogden Regional Medical Center.

“She was very excited to tell me about her dogs, her cat, and her hometown,” said Pollard, who is new to the Utah Highway Patrol. “To hold her hand walking into the hospital was very, very rewarding.”

After Helen saw how busy the freeway is on a Friday night, she was grateful to the chauffeurs.

“I ended up taking four patrol cars,” she said. “Four good-lookin’ patrol boys brought me.”

Helen made it to the hospital to see her son.  He is not doing well, but treatment is continuing; and a mother with undying love for her son said he’s also been able to express his love.

Now that’s protecting and serving the public and, despite the perpetual focus on the exception, Americans widely see the police as their community’s protector. In a recent examination of public opinion, PPD found that the public gives police officers high marks for the difficult job they do everyday. In this case, they took away valuable time from doing that job to help someone in need.

Helen "Skeeter" Smith, an 87 year-old woman

Politics, Video

WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Dick Cheney ripped the recently released Senate Democrats’ report on CIA enhanced interrogation techniques Wednesday, calling it “full of crap,” and a “terrible piece of work” that was “deeply flawed.”

Cheney, speaking on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier,” said the controversial techniques used on militants had been previously tested and that the interrogations, in fact, produced results.

Cheney had strongly defended the tactics even prior to the interview, including waterboarding and rectal hydration.

“What are you prepared to do to get the truth against future attacks against the United States?” Cheney asked.

Cheney also refuted claims that President George W. Bush was kept in the dark about the interrogations.

“I think he knew everything he wanted to know and needed to know,” Cheney told Baier.

A Democrat-led Senate panel released a scathing report Tuesday on CIA interrogation practices amid warnings from lawmakers that the findings could “endanger the lives of Americans” — a concern the Obama administration apparently shared as it put more than 6,000 Marines overseas on high alert.

A Democrat-led Senate panel headed up by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) released the CIA report on enhanced interrogation Tuesday despite dire warnings from lawmakers and intel officials. These warnings, which were even echoed by some within the Obama administration, contended the findings would “endanger the lives of Americans” all over the world.

The report, from the Senate intelligence committee, claimed the interrogation techniques used were “brutal and far worse” than the CIA represented to lawmakers. Further, the report claimed the tactics were not effective and the spy agency gave “inaccurate” information about it to Congress and the White House.

Feinstein alleged on the Senate floor on Tuesday that the CIA techniques in some cases amounted to “torture.”

“History will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say ‘never again’,” she said on the floor. “There may never be the right time to release this report. … But this report is too important to shelve indefinitely.”

Jose Rodriguez, the ex-CIA chief in charge of the enhanced interrogation program, said Senate Democrats released a bogus partisan report aimed to throw the CIA under the bus in order to cover for themselves. He said both Republican and Democratic leadership in the upper and lower Houses of Congress knew, because they were briefed over 30 times over the life of the program.

CIA officials have been pushing back hard on the claims made in the report, including that the interrogation didn’t produce intelligence and that the CIA lied to the Bush administration regarding the tactics.

Former CIA Directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden, and former CIA Deputy Directors John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland and Stephen R. Kappes, penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal claiming, in fact, the program did work and provided plenty detailed accounts of actionable intelligence gathering to prove it.

Dec. 10, 2014 - 13:43 - Former

Economy

import export

(Photo: REUTERS)

U.S. import prices saw their largest decline in almost 2-1/2 years in November fueled by a falling cost for petroleum products, stifling imported inflation.

A Labor Department report on Thursday found import prices fell 1.5 percent last month, which is the largest decline since June of 2012, after dropping 1.2 percent in September. November represents the fifth consecutive month of decreases in import prices.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast import prices dropping 1.8 percent last month, while through the 12 months leading up to November, prices dropped 2.3 percent.

Brent crude oil prices have tumbled to near five-year lows as faltering global growth decreases demand. However, markets don’t occur in a vacuum, and it is only because of an increase in shale production in the United States that a reduction in the nation’s dependence on foreign oil is even possible.

A relatively — relative to other weak currencies — strong dollar aided in helping to keep imported inflation subdued.

Imported petroleum prices fell 6.9 percent in November, also the biggest drop since June of 2012, after declining 6.4 percent the prior month.

Meanwhile, imported food prices fell 0.4 percent, but excluding petroleum, they fell 0.3 percent last month, after falling by 0.2 percent in October.

The Labor Department report also showed export prices fell 1.0 percent in November after dropping 0.9 percent in October. In the 12 months through November, export prices fell 1.9 percent.

U.S. import prices saw their largest decline

Economy

retail sales

(Photo: REUTERS)

Fueled by lower gasoline prices and the holiday shopping season, consumer spending increased greater-than-expected in the month of November. The Commerce Department said Thursday that retail sales excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, increased 0.6 percent last month after an unrevised 0.5 percent rise in October.

The so-called core retail sales measurement is the best indicator of how the consumer spending factor will increase or decrease gross domestic product. Economists polled by Reuters had expected core retail sales to rise 0.4 percent last month.

The increase indicates an increase in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. It appears to have ticked up in the fourth quarter following a slowdown in the months of July and September.

Core sales last month increased by a 1.2 percent jump in receipts at clothing stores, no doubt a result of the holiday shopping season kicking off, with retailers offering deep discounts to attract shoppers. However, despite this report, holiday shopping was relatively weak, and decreased 11 percent overall from the year prior.

Still, sales at online stores increased 1.0 percent; electronic and appliance stores increased 0.9 percent; furniture stores saw a 0.5 percent increase.; sporting goods stores rose, as well as receipts at health and personal care stores.

With declining gasoline prices, service station sales saw their receipts fall 0.8 percent.

Yet, those results were offset by a 1.7 percent surge in automobile sales, which helped to lift overall retail sales by 0.7 percent in November. An independent auto sales report found strong sales data during the holiday shopping season. In the Commerce Report, auto sales saw their largest gain since March and came after an upwardly revised 0.5 percent increase in October.

Retail sales excluding gasoline stations increased 0.9 percent. Sales building materials and garden equipment increased 1.4 percent. Sales at restaurants and bars rose 0.7 percent.

Fueled by lower gasoline costs and the

Politics, Video

Univision’s Jorge Ramos pressed a filibustering President Obama over his flip-flops on immigration, and asked whether he’s concerned about being impeached. The president said he was not concerned about impeachment and that his recent executive order to grant what will result in amnesty for at least 5 million illegal immigrants was a “lawful” action.

“No, because what we’ve done is not only lawful, based on the evaluations of the Office of Legal Counsel,” Obama said. “But is of the same type of action that was taken by every Democratic and Republican president over the last 20, 30 years.”

However, on Wednesday, 7 more states joined the lawsuit against the unilateral order, bring the total number to 24. On at least 25 separate occasions, including several instances on Univision, President Obama admitted he did not have the power to defer deportation for anyone, even the so-called “Dreamers” and their families.

Meanwhile, recent polling shows Americans deeply disapprove of the president’s executive order, even if they agree with the outcome. Further, more than two-thirds — 68 percent of voters — are concerned Obama’s use of executive orders and unilateral actions may be “permanently altering” our country’s system of checks and balances, including 42 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents and 93 percent of Republicans.

In a Bloomberg poll conducted just prior to the FOX Poll, 56 percent of Americans disapprove of the order and just 39 percent approve.

The states now suing Obama over his unilateral amnesty order now includes Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

READ TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

JORGE RAMOS, FUSION: Republicans have filed a lawsuit against you trying to block your decision on immigration. Are you concerned about being impeached?

POTUS: No, because what we’ve done is not only lawful, based on the evaluations of the Office of Legal Counsel, but is of the same type of action that was taken by every Democratic and Republican president over the last 20, 30 years…

RAMOS: So it’s not that you changed your mind on this?

POTUS: What was —

RAMOS: Or that you were convinced otherwise?

POTUS: — what was clear was that we could reprioritize how we deploy the limited resources we have to focus on the borders, to focus on criminals. We began that process as soon as I came into office. We amplified that approach through the DACA program that we instituted, and then we continued to see what else we could do. And Jay Johnson, I think, has done a terrific job in saying, here are our priorities. We’re not going to separate families. We’re going to focus on criminals. We’re going to focus on borders. We’re going to focus on new arrivals. Because one of the things that I think is important to understand is that although we are reprioritizing to make sure that we’re not in the business of separating families, we are still sending a message to people who have not yet come here, we’re going to be enforcing those immigration laws so that newcomers, people who just arrived, you are likely to be sent back. And we’re going to still be focused on making sure that, not just from Mexico but anywhere around the world, that we can actually enforce better the laws that we have. In the meantime, the people who have lived here, let’s make sure that they’re treated as the members of our community that they truly are.

RAMOS: But if you — as you were saying, you always had the legal authority to stop deportations, then why did you deport two million people?

POTUS: Jorge, we’re not going to —

RAMOS: For six years you did it.

POTUS: No. Listen, Jorge —

RAMOS: You destroyed many families. They called you deporter-in-chief.

POTUS: You called me deporter-in-chief.

RAMOS: It was Janet Murguia from La Raza.

POTUS: Yeah, but let me say this, Jorge —

RAMOS: Well, you could have stopped deportations.

POTUS: No, no, no.

RAMOS: That’s the whole idea.

POTUS: That is not true. Listen, here’s the fact of the matter.

RAMOS: You could have stopped them.

POTUS: Jorge, here’s the fact of the matter. As President of the United States I’m always responsible for problems that aren’t solved right away. I regret millions of people who didn’t get health insurance before I passed health insurance and before I implemented it. I regret the fact that there are kids who should’ve been going to college during my presidency, but because we didn’t get to them fast enough, they gave up on college. The question is, are we doing the right thing, and have we consistently tried to move this country in a better direction. And those, like you sometimes, Jorge, who suggests that there are simple quick answers to these problems.

Univision's Jorge Ramos pressed a filibustering President

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