CNN anchor Kasie Hunt was visibly surprised by border czar Tom Homan’s recent announcement that he would jail a Democratic mayor who said he might disagree with the second Trump administration’s deportation plans.
After playing a video Wednesday morning of Homan saying he was “willing to put” Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston in jail after declaring he would not deport illegal immigrants living in his city — Johnston had said himself that he was ready to be arrested. for his defiant stance — Hunt seemed visibly troubled and described the rhetoric as “more extreme” than that on the Trump campaign trail.
“This has some significant echoes and is more extreme than some of what we heard from the Trump campaign on the trail,” Hunt told a network panel that included former White House communications director Mike Dubke and Democratic operative Hyma Moore .
Johnston told 9News in a recent interview that he would be willing to go to jail to oppose any “illegal or immoral” deportation strategy the second Trump administration would implement to reduce the illegal immigration population. in the capital of Colorado. .
“Yeah, I’m not afraid of it, and I’m not looking for it either,” Johnston said in response to the prison question. “I think the point is that we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people about how to solve difficult problems,” he added, noting elsewhere that he supports limited deportations for those convicted of ” serious crimes”.
In a recent interview with Fox News Channel, Homan — who was nominated for border czar in early November — responded to the mayor’s comments, accusing him of “breaking the law” and saying he would be arrested. Johnston if he continued.
“You are absolutely breaking the law,” Homan told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “All he has to do is watch Arizona vs. USA and he’ll see that he’s breaking the law. But, look, the mayor of Denver and I agree on one thing. He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”
Hunt played clips of Johnston and Homan back-to-back and went wide-eyed after hearing the border czar candidate’s words. She then exhaled loudly, adding a worried, “Oooooof.”
She asked Dubke to comment on Homan’s rhetoric, and the former Trump official argued that it was an effective part of Trump’s first-term immigration strategy.
“There are several stages to some kind of arrest — and I have to pick another word — but immigration arrest at the border, one of which worked extremely well in the early days of the first Trump administration was rhetoric. So Tom Homan’s very strong language is going to limit and deter the number of people who are actually flooding the border,” he said.
“You’re saying it will discourage people from trying to come?” Hunt asked.
“Totally discourage that,” Dubke replied. “That’s very important and that’s something that we saw — when the Biden administration came in, there was a flood for a reason. The rhetoric softened.”
Fox News Digital’s Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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