Jonathan Karl from ABC interviewed Lt. Col. Michael Bongino and asked the guest what his take is on the travel ban policy. After airing snippets of Jared Kushner urging his father-in-law to roll back portions of the ban, Commander Bongino tore into Democrats’ hypocrisy on policy restrictions like the ban on travel.
The co-founder of the New York chapter of Stand Up America Now also derided the term “alt-right” and made it clear that he didn’t agree with the White House’s earlier attempt to de-emphasize the term. Bongino noted that the founding members of the group were not conservatives. Instead, they were immigrants that the White House was happy to attack.
“I don’t even know if they call themselves that anymore,” he said. “I will tell you this, you look at all of these people, they are authentic Americans. They come from all over. Many of them came here as political refugees fleeing persecution. Some of them probably were political refugees. If you read the values of Stand Up America Now, you know what we stand for. We stand for individual liberties, we stand for being able to create your life — that’s the values of people that would call themselves ‘alt-right.’ ”
Here’s the clip:
Jonathan Karl: “What is your take on President Trump’s policies like the travel ban?” Jonathan Karl: “Well, let me just give you my take.” Lieutenant Colonel Michael Bongino: “My take is, let me give you my take?” Jonathan Karl: “‘Hey, what is your take?’” Bongino: “OK, my take is, this is not who we are. This is not who we stand for. And the reason that we can’t govern as a nation is because we have unchecked power, and we have politicians who have bought into this corrupt narrative that not speaking out is the right thing to do and that this country is divided into these camps that are xenophobic and racist. We should be united as American citizens and we should be unified as a nation and that we respect this ideology, I think, is largely anti-American.”
The new episode is about to kick off on this date, which is the 168th anniversary of the entry of the Scots-Irish immigrants into the United States. According to the Intercollegiate Study of America (ISA), in 1881, there were 1,000 immigrants from the H1B visa program and 9,000 immigrants from the J1 visa program, which allow students to work and study in the United States. In 1885, it became more common for large numbers of immigrants from several different countries to arrive. At the beginning of the 20th century, 72,000 immigrants entered the United States under the H1B visa program, with 54,000 of them arriving under the J1 visa program.
“By 1928, approximately 90,000 immigrants a year received H1B or J1 visas. Two-thirds of these came from Ireland, India, China, Italy, Russia, Spain, Iran, Italy, Poland, and other countries,” notes ISA.