Republican Revolt - September 25, 2026

Cenk Uygur (0:31)

So I would tell you, don't panic, but maybe. So but Iran has given us a little window for potential peace. Will we jump into it? I say jump in it, right? But a lot of people, of course, say no. In fact, I had a debate earlier today where the person was saying, no, no, let's just stay indefinitely and then win, whatever that means. I don't even know what it means, and he doesn't seem to know what it means.

So, this is our tiny window, we'll see if we can hit it.

But the Republicans are in a panic. I mean, if you consider that good news, my God, are they in a panic? Because they're about to get annihilated in these elections. Like the chickens are on their way to the roost, okay?

John Iadarola (1:17)

Don't give me hope.

Cenk Uygur (1:18)

No, I know, I know. You're not supposed to say it, and hey, let's all knock on wood together, two, two, two, okay? To take away some power from Trump and these madmen that are in charge right now.

But things do look good. All right, so let's jump into it.

SPEAKER_3 (1:34)

Yes.

65% of everybody ICE arresting is a criminal. For every criminal alien we remove from this country makes this community safer. It means less ancient moms and dads are coming to bear. We're gonna keep pushing, we're not gonna apologize. The media back there, you can hate us all you want. We're not going anywhere. ICE will continue doing their job every day across this country, especially in sanctuary cities where we'll surge resources and flood the zone.

Cenk Uygur (2:01)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of BS.

It's polling disastrously. There's now a Republican who's written an op-ed going, we gotta stop, this is killing us for moral reasons. Now as I'm gonna show you later in this story, the person who wrote it, I'll take it, I'll take it, it was a good op-ed. But he wrote it for different reasons. And when I tell you those reasons, you're gonna go, okay. But John, Tom says, we got this, we're only arresting criminals and keeping America safe. Is that really how it's going?

John Iadarola (2:36)

There is nothing he loves more than lying about the mass deportation scheme. Well, that's not true. He likes a sack full of $50,000 more, but he really likes lying as well. Hopefully, they'll return to that when the Democrats are in charge of oversight. But anyway, the reason that the members of the administration are gesticulating so wildly over the mass deportation is that people see that it's a disaster. They've seen it all year. The numbers are really bad and more and more Republicans even are willing to admit that. Now, last week, we showed you an ad by Republican Representative Maria Salazar indicating some pushback against Donald Trump's immigration policy. Take a look.

Maria Salazar (3:18)

Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who help you get to the White House in 2024, feel betrayed today. You can be for immigration when Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. I'm not talking about giving them amnesty. I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land. I am Marie Islevira Salazar and I approve this message.

John Iadarola (3:49)

So that was pushback. I mean, again, she did the thing that Republicans always do where Donald Trump could never do anything wrong. But those advisors, they're leading them down the wrong path. And so she was attacked a lot by the right and she regrettably kind of backed off from that position a little bit. But it was good to put out the ad. And the reason that she can do that is that she's seen the polling. She knows that Donald Trump is wildly unpopular in general, but also across all of these issue areas.

And so let's turn from her to another representative who is pushing back. And that is, this is who Cenk alluded to, Representative Don Bacon, who wrote an op-ed just released on the Washington Post, slamming the party's stance and policies on immigration. And in specific talking about how they're targeting the wrong people, basically calling Homan's lies out. Homan, like Trump, like Stephen Miller, pretend that it's about getting the worst of the worst out. It has never ever been about that. And it's less about that with every day that passes. And so in his op-ed, he talks about a woman named Mariana, who lived in Omaha and came to the US eight years ago with her mother from Mexico. Now eventually her mother did go back to Mexico. She was left with relatives and she flourished while in the United States, going to school, earning an aviation degree and training to become a commercial pilot while supporting herself.