24 posts from Monday, February 23, 2026

I mean you got the support of President Trump, where do you stand? Are you ready to make the plunge? Well look, Sean, after a lot of prayer, a lot of thought with my family and my friends, I'm here to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Florida. And Sean, we have a wonderful state. I got to Florida when I was 17 years old, off of a Greyhound bus with just a trunk full of clothes. And over the rest of my time in Florida, I built a family, I built a career 17 years in financial services. I joined the Tea Party movement, was in the conservative movement. I was able to serve four years in the state legislature, four years in Congress. And I think now is the time to now take the mantle and lead our state into the future. We have a great governor. Granda Sanchez has done a tremendous job for our state. But now the job is to keep the best state in the country as the best state in the country. And so that's going to be the mission at hand. And I'm excited to announce my candidacy with you tonight.

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here with us now is Paul Perez from the National Border Patrol Council. Great to have you here, Paul. That judge saying that the state's arguments about being punished by federal government's operation Metro surge. Well, they just don't hold. What was your take away from this? Well, I mean, for one great to see that there's no judicial activism. But again, it allows us to go in and surge as we need to. But like President Trump said, we may do a drawdown, you know, depending on what Tom Holman says. But it gives us the opportunity to make sure that our agents and officers are protected while they're fulfilling the mission of removing those people from the United States. Yeah, absolutely. Paul, this comes after the borders are Tom Holman. He went in there to Minnesota and he tried to calm the tensions here. Holman had this message for people opposing ice. And he said this. Watch the hostile rhetoric and dangerous threats and hate must stop. And we all agreed to that. All everybody meant here today. We got to stop the rhetoric, the hateful rhetoric that has caused an increase in assaults. I begged for the last two months on TV for the rhetoric to stop. I said in March if the rhetoric didn't stop, there's gonna be bloodshed and there has been. I wish I wasn't right. I want to ask you how he handled that situation. You've got tensions on both sides. Holman goes in and he wants to calm those tensions. How do you think that those elected leaders in that state are now going to approach this situation? Look, he's absolutely right. They have to tone it down. You know, President Trump does not want anybody to get hurt, whether it's the protesters, whether it's the law enforcement officers and they've got to do a reset. The rhetoric is dangerous. It has cost people their lives. It's gotten people to be arrested. It's gotten people hurt. And most of all, it's gotten our agents hurt. Not only that, you've got the agents that want to go into the jails that would make it a lot more safe. But now these agitators, they are agitators. There are some protesters, but a lot of them are agitators and they're getting in the face of ice agents. We've seen that. Sadly, with Paredi, he went and he did it multiple times. It cost him his life. But I want to get this thought here from President Trump. He was asked about this and whether or not if this continues, if they continue to get spit in their face, they get pushed these ice agents. Well, now President Trump says this is how they can respond. Watch. I said you're allowed. If somebody does that, you could do something back. You're not going to stand there and take it. If somebody spits in your face and that will not be a pleasant thing for the person that's missing, we're not letting people spit in our soul in his face as they stand in attention. And they're not allowed to do anything. We saw this play out now. Lay, we've seen this happen in Minnesota. How is this going to change the rhetoric here? President Trump wants his agents to be protected. But is this going to cause more chaos? Well, look, it just shows that President Trump has the back of law enforcement and you know, we know he's got our back. So we're going to be able to protect ourselves, protect our fellow agents. That's essentially what it comes to. Nobody should be impeding, interfering, but most importantly, assaulting a law enforcement officer. There will be consequences and we support his efforts to make sure that he puts it out there so that they know it's coming. Paul, I want to get your thoughts on this because Governor Tim Walz says that, well, he wants safety in this community as well. He met with border czar Tom Holman and they agreed that they had a productive conversation. Then he goes on NPR and but he'd already made this comment about Gestapo watch Donald Trump's modern day. Gestapo. Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They're in unmarked vans wearing masks being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons. That was his comment. Then he was pressed again on NPR where they wanted him to double down or potentially walk back that statement. Here's what he had to say. Watch I've never said anything other than to be peacefully protesting and I'll stand by my words. I have to use the English language to describe what I'm seeing. So he did not walk back that Gestapo comment. What do you think he's gonna do with this? Is he is he gonna bend the knee to the Trump administration or is he gonna continue to make claims like this? I think he's too ignorant to do so. It's that exact dangerous rhetoric that has caused our agents and officers to see an increase in violent assaults. You know, when you compare an agency like ours, where the majority of our agents are Hispanic, calling us Gestapo, comparing us to Nazis, that's ignorant, that's stupid. But more importantly, it's dangerous. Yeah, absolutely. Paul, I gotta leave it there. Thank you so much for coming on. Paul Perez. Appreciate you as always.

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For more on this, I'm joined by Paul Perez, National Border Patrol Council President. Paul, thank you so much for joining us today. We're going to keep going on this to ask you, how does cutting federal funding to these sanctuary cities, which is happening very soon, help the president's immigration crackdown? And what do you think that will solve? Well, look, when they cut federal funding, that sends a message to these politicians that President Trump is serious about what he said he was going to do, which is to remove those people that should not be here in the country legally. He campaigned on that. He won on that. He's got a mandate he's going to follow through. You know, President Trump also says that federal agents will no longer engage with protesters. Yeah, we're going to see how that goes. Here's the president on Air Force One last night. Let's listen. If they want help, they have to ask for it. Because if we go in, all they do is complain. But if they want help, they can ask for it. And they're going to need help. Los Angeles, as an example, we went in, we solved it. The chief law enforcement officer at Los Angeles said they couldn't have done it without the federal government. A week later, he said they didn't need the federal government. You know, so we don't want that. If they want help, they'll ask, but they have to say please. All right. So I've got to ask you your response to that because, of course, it's a top talker for us today. Hearing what he said last night on Air Force One, how do you think it changes things for federal officers on the ground, number one? And do you think this tactic of asking Dems to say please is going to work? Look, President Trump is the ultimate master when it comes to going after those that have TDS. And so by forcing their hand to say please, it actually makes them want to resolve the issue without getting the federal government involved. And that's actually beneficial to us because we could get back to what we should be doing instead of dealing with these unruly protesters. You know, when we talk about the body cameras, this is such an interesting topic because we're all trying to understand who wears what. The president was asked about how he feels about federal officers wearing body cameras. I'm curious of your take, but I also want to listen to what he said. Do you think it's good having lots of cameras on these kinds of incidents between law enforcement and the people? I think it would help law enforcement, but I'd have to talk to them. I'm going to be talking to them tomorrow. Actually, I think it would help law enforcement. You know, that works both ways, but I think overall, I think it's 80 percent in favor of law enforcement. So I want to take a look at some stats because according to June data from the House Homeland Security Committee, 4400 ICE officers wear body cameras in a force of about 22,000 and nearly 13,000 border patrol agents wear cameras in a force of nearly 45,000. So we've got this huge bright spotlight on these immigration officers. Right. So as we're watching this all play out, many people say, hey, let's see it all. We want to see the videos that are being taken from the streets and we want to see the videos that's being worn. But do you think it's important for all ICE officers and border patrol agents to wear these body cameras because it does seem like it would make it a lot easier to investigate any incidents of violence, accusations of violence towards or involving officers? How do you see it? So most of our border patrol agents, like you said, have been wearing body cams. It doesn't change the fact that we're still going to have these aggressive protesters coming after us. All it's going to do is show exactly the perception or the view of the agent involved. But it doesn't change anything about who we're dealing with or how we're dealing with them. Listen, it's important, I think, for all of us to understand who's wearing them, how long they wear them. And it just kind of reminds me, if you even think about the cameras that we have in our cars, it's so important if you get in a traffic accident to have that footage, because it can be a, he said, he said, situation very easily. Paul Perez, National Border Patrol Council President. We want to thank you very much for your time and weighing in on this important topic. Thank you. Thank you.

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some people like to give you a quick opinion about something like this. This is the Supreme Court decision opinion on tariffs. Here's the problem. There's opinions within opinions. It's a mess. First, there was no need for the court to rule as it did, period. The majority is not even a majority, except in agreeing to hold that the tariffs were not authorized by Congress in a 1977 law. Second, the majority is split into two camps. You've got Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett, and then that camp is split somewhat between Gorsuch and Barrett. Third, the three other justices in the second camp of the majority, the usual leftists, well, they mostly agreed with each other, but went further in attacking the President's tariff authority. I can assure you they wouldn't have done it with a Biden or Obama. Number four, this explains why it took so long for the court to issue a ruling, because the ruling appears to be a variety of arguments intended to reach a result. That is, in my view, it was result-oriented, a result looking for a constitutional and/or legal justification. Now fifth, if the court, as here, is going to issue a ruling that is so destructive of, or contrary to, the executives' international economic, national security, and foreign policy objectives, and the President's strategies, the President and we, the people, deserve a lot better than the massive mess that these nine lawyers created. This ruling is more like some committee of lawyers, or some law review group of legal students in the law library, each vying to impose his or her own policy preferences on the President, while searching for some constitutional legal justifications to do so. In fact, this case was not complicated at all, although the decision, which is actually an accumulation of arguments within the court, is complicated because of its incoherence. Sixth, the court majority wants you to believe that this was a matter of statutory interpretation only, involving one statute passed in 1977, and Congress's power over the purse. Article I, Section 8. That's it. Well, then why did it take 177 pages? But there's more. But Congress's have passed multiple statutes, and even more historically, Presidents have used all kinds of trade tools to influence and affect international commerce, foreign policy, and national security. It simply does not just come down to the powers of the purse. Article II, Section 1, gives the President great power over conducting foreign policy. What are tariffs? Tariffs are effectively taxes imposed on foreign governments. Well, isn't that foreign policy? Yes. And when the President uses tariffs to influence foreign governments, whether it's over war and peace, whether it's over economic policy, whatever it's over, is that not the conduct of foreign policy? Of course it is. Seventh, the court bobbed and weaved, touching on congressional delegation or non-delegation, cherry-picking the historical record where Presidents have imposed tariffs and other international trade tools to influence and affect foreign policy with the majority, we think, essentially ignoring or rejecting all contrary precedent in history. All precedent in history that came before is essentially written off. Number 8, the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, bluntly states that when he reads the text of the 1977 statute at issue, even those words specifically authorizing the President to quote, "regulate importation." It's in the statute. They're in the law, and in fact, are in several other laws, by the way, authorizing the President to impose tariffs. In this case, he says, "There are just too many words between the words 'regulate' and 'importation.'" Got that? Too many words between the words "regulate importation" for him to draw the conclusion that this particular statute authorized the President to regulate importation. Ninth, Justice Thomas went through the history of presidential power and tariffs, meticulously, as he always does, and that makes clear that President Trump has, in fact, been acting within the powers traditionally exercised by past presidents. Now, I know people who are opposed to tariffs, so that's not true, but it is true. So, what we're discussing here is the Constitution of the law, not policy preferences, and who makes those decisions? Six justices on the Supreme Court who can barely write a single majority opinion? In fact, they don't. Tenth, Justice Kavanaugh was brilliant in his dissent, and he went through the statutory history of delegations to presidents, of tariff powers, as well as other points, making clear that the President was, in fact, delegated authority under that 1977 statute to, quote, "regulate importations." Shame on Chief Justice Roberts, shame on Justices Barrett and Gorsuch, your word games and semantical ruminations had no place here. I was left thinking how lawyers can become so typically absurd when trying to prove how brilliant they are, or when, in fact, their egos get in the way of well-reasoned outcomes. And you can see that in some of the back and forth. It's really kind of appalling. Twelve, the Chief Justice appears to have come up with a so-called majority opinion that is as narrow as possible in order to attract enough votes to overturn the tariffs, at least under this one statute. But in doing so, he did not show leadership. He created a big mess. This so-called majority opinion provides no precedential value. It provides no constitutional or legal guidance. It says the court does not have the authority or the ability to get involved in policy, yet I found this ruling to be more about policy than the Constitution or law. The majority had a problem, which I knew they would. On the several occasions I've discussed this case with you right on this show. Where exactly is the separation of powers? Where is that line drawn when it comes to tariffs? Yes, Congress has the power of the purse. The president has broad power over foreign policy and national security and diplomacy. Obviously, trade and its relationship to the president's broad powers cannot be ignored. Yet the ruling essentially does that, but then the court says they're not doing that. It's just ruling on a single statute. In other words, the court's ruling was, as I said, result-oriented, policy-driven, despite the majority's disclaimers. When the Supreme Court cannot come up with a coherent, understandable decision based on the Constitution and the law, you know then it is conducting itself as politicians, it is activists, and it has no business doing what this court did. It interfered in a matter that should be left to the legislative and executive branches because the constitutional question on who gets to lay tariffs is in fact an absurd question. What do you mean, Mark? Because both Congress and the president have a role. And if Congress thought the president went too far, it could use the power of the purse, the appropriations process, under Article I, to stop him. As I've said here repeatedly, Congress didn't even try. And so this is the mix in the battle between the elected branches and to have basically six lawyers, a majority, who can't really come up with a single theory. Get involved and decide one way or another is appalling, it's absurd. So where are we now? It's a foolish overreach by the Supreme Court. There was a piece written by Stan Valger and Clark Packard a few months back, the American Enterprise Institute, and boy did they hate tariffs. That's fine, that's their view. They hate tariffs, they hate all these manipulations or involvement in trade and so forth and so on. And yet in their peace, while they're haranguing against the president's tariffs, they also provide the following, which is actually quite interesting. And they point out the first Trump administration of post-tariffs, usually at 25% on some two-thirds of imports from China under Section 301 of the Trade Act, in 1974, they're telling us actually the president has many alternatives to that one statute that the court, we think, ruled on. The Biden administration kept these measures largely intact, used the existing authority to layer on other tariffs, including 100% duties on Chinese electric vehicles. Most of these tariffs continue to this day. Because of the Section 301 measures, the effective tariff on imports from China remains particularly high, around 50%. Section 232 tariffs would also survive in administration loss in learnings, resources versus Trump. Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the president may restrict imports determined to pose a threat to national security, following an investigation by the Commerce Department. They go on. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, the provision empowers the president to address large insurance balance of payments deficits. Through import surcharges of up to 15% import quotas, or some combination of the two. Wow! Section 301, the basis for existing China tariffs, offers another avenue for reconstructing the tariffs that the court struck down, one where the president enjoys wide unilateral authority. It grants the US Trade Representative broad authority to investigate and remedy unfair foreign trade practices. That's not all. The old 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act, I know we don't like it. I'm just saying what's available. Now, it lets the president oppose tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries that discriminate against US commerce as compared to other nations. So what exactly did the Supreme Court accomplish? Nothing. It created a mess in terms of tariffs that had been paid. The president can follow other avenues if he wishes. I would argue that constitutionally he is the authority to do what he's doing, whether people like it or not. And Congress has the constitutional power to try and check that, and those lawyers on the Supreme Court had no business getting involved. They should have done what I said, not because I said it, because it would have been right, which was reverse the lower court that found those tariffs illegal, tell the judiciary below, stay out of this. The court should say, "We're going to stay out of it," because this really isn't justiciable in any rational or logical way. It hasn't really played out. It may never play out. It hasn't played out in 200 years and more of American constitutional history. But the court jumped in and they created a big splash, a big mess, and achieved nothing but chaos.

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I want to hit another subject before I end my opening statement. And that's Iran. What if we got the greatest deal ever from Iran? They're going to give up their nukes. They're going to give up their ballistic missiles. They're going to become boy scouts and girl scouts. No more terrorism. That's right. They're going to reject their own Islamist ideology of the seventh century that they've used to indoctrinate others, that they preach every single day. That's right. Khomeini's going to become Mahatma Gandhi and the world is going to have peace forever. Yeah, we'll sign that deal. Sure, we'll sign it. Now, why would they sign such a deal? What if it's the greatest deal of all deals ever? Why would they sign it? You see, the problem is, ladies and gentlemen, it's not a matter of a deal, a negotiation, or diplomacy, or playing this thing out. Khomeini, the Islamist Nazis, have told us what they're going to do. And they believe this is directed by God. And they have slaughtered tens of thousands of their own people in the last few weeks, over the years, in order to advance this agenda. Do you think signing a deal is going to stop anything? Do you think they're going to honor the deal? The issue isn't whether we negotiate. The question is, why do we negotiate? The question is, why do we think some deal is going to keep these people under control? It's not. No, it might temporarily. They may pull back temporarily exactly what North Korea did. Oh, they pulled back. They pulled back for a few years and all of a sudden, "Hey, guess what? We have a few nukes." They will play this game. They look at long ball. And even if they were to pull back during the Trump presidency, that's three more years. What about after that? What if we get a Biden or an Obama? Or what if we get some weak Republican? The only president to actually take forceful action against Iran is President today, Donald Trump. What happens when he leaves? Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot, as our generation, leave it to the next generation, our children and grandchildren, to deal with this. We must deal with this. Or they'll have tens of thousands of ballistic missiles, they'll have scores of nuclear warheads, and they will be able to reach our country. And since they've been willing to slaughter their own people by the tens of thousands, you better believe that they will use those nuclear warheads against our children and grandchildren. They're weaker than ever before. They're not going to be this weak ever again. And they do not follow agreements. When we pulled out of that Obama deal in 2018, they immediately began violating the deal that was still in place with Europe. Systematic breaches. Iran intentionally reduced its compliance with the agreement in a phased manner, leading to multiple ongoing violations rather than a single event. Enrichment levels. Iran increased its uranium enrichment to 60 percent, significantly higher than the 3.67 percent limit set by the agreement. Stockpile limits. By late 2019, Iran breached the 300-kilogram limit on enriched uranium, later exceeded permitted stockpiles by 30 times. Centrifuge usage. Iran installed and operated advanced centrifuges prohibited by the deal. Monitoring suspensions. Since February 2021, Iran restricted the International Atomic Energy Agency of the UN from fully monitoring its nuclear facilities. Formal termination. They announced it in October 2025. You think our envoys, or somebody else's envoys, or signing an agreement is going to change the mindset of a terrorist regime that is slaughtering its people as I speak, that is already trying to build new nukes? We signed a paper. Peace in our time? No. The problem isn't negotiations. The problem isn't they won't agree to this or that, or we can get the best deal in world history. The problem is them. The West needs to understand what we're dealing with. For 47 years, I don't know what it's going to take, but we need to comprehend what we're dealing with. That regime needs to be eliminated to save our children and grandchildren from having to deal with it, and to save the people of Iran who are, as I speak, being slaughtered.

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