Batya Ungar-Sargon: The Case for MAGA Leftism
The author and columnist joins the show to discuss immigration, deportations, and being a "MAGA leftist."
Do people want President Donald Trump's deportation crackdown? And is the MAGA agenda actually a leftist one? Just asking questions.
Batya Ungar-Sargon, a columnist at The Free Press, joins the show today to address these questions and spar with us on immigration, tariffs, and wealth inequality. She's a self-described MAGA leftist and the author most recently of Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women.
Sources Referenced:
- The White House's Ghibli-style deportation cartoon
https://t.co/PVdINmsHXs pic.twitter.com/Bw5YUCI2xL
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 27, 2025
- Nayib Bukele on X
Oopsie…
Too late ???? pic.twitter.com/nDHL6deLJq
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 16, 2025
The U.S. is facing a judicial coup.
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 19, 2025
Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).
The United States will pay a very low fee for them,… pic.twitter.com/tfsi8cgpD6
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 16, 2025
- Text of the Alien Enemies Act
- Pew Research: "How Americans View the Situation at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Its Causes and Consequences"
- U.S. government 20th century revenue history with charts
- Pew Research: "For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades"
- American Enterprise Institute: Prices changes in U.S. consumer goods and services, January 2000 to June 2022
- Batya Ungar-Sargon on Bill Maher's show
- Video of Rumeysa Ozturk being arrested
- Marco Rubio's comments on the Ozturk arrest
- J.D. Vance discussing deportations in August
Chapters:
- 00:00:00 Coming up…
- 00:00:30 Introducing Batya Ungar-Sargon
- 00:03:50 Are campus protesters being unfairly targeted for deportation?
- 00:10:01 The legal vs. moral case for deporting pro-Palestine students.
- 00:17:19 Immigration, assimilation, and the limits of free speech
- 00:24:00 J.D. Vance's deportation agenda vs. Trump's actual policy.
- 00:30:33 Are asylum seekers being unjustly deported?
- 00:35:23 How immigration policy affects the working class
- 00:41:10 Do Americans really need multiple jobs to survive?
- 00:44:18 Expanding state power and due process concerns
- 00:48:32 Trump, Nayib Bukele, and deportation to El Salvador's prisons
- 00:54:08 Should Trump defy judges? Constitutional limits and Supreme Court battles
- 01:00:19 What is the MAGA left's economic agenda?
- 01:06:22 Are tariffs and immigration really to blame for middle-class decline?
- 01:14:01 Is the American dream still achievable?
- 01:16:46 What question should more people be asking?
- Producer: John Osterhoudt
