Video transcript
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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