O’Reilly Hits Trump On His Praise For ‘Operation Wetback’: It Was ‘Brutal’

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday night challenged Donald Trump over the Republican presidential candidate’s support for the deportation model used by Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, noting that the former president’s removal of immigrants at the time was “brutal.”

O’Reilly first asked Trump if he knew what Eisenhower named the deportation program.

“I do but I don’t like the term. I wouldn’t use the term,” Trump responded, alluding to the program’s title, “Operation Wetback.” O’Reilly said he was referring to another name for the deportation effort, “bracero.”

The Fox host then lectured Trump about Eisenhower’s deportation process, through which the U.S. deported hundreds of thousand of immigrants, often under horrific conditions. American officials dropped many of the immigrants off in remote areas of Mexico without a way to get home, and some died in the sweltering heat.

“That was brutal what they did to those people to kick them back,” O’Reilly told Trump on Wednesday night. “The stuff they did was really brutal, it could never happen today.”

“I’ve heard it both ways. I’ve heard good reports. I’ve heard bad reports,” Trump said in response. “We would do it in a very humane way.”

O’Reilly then told Trump that while he supports the real estate mogul’s plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, he does not back Trump’s deportation plan.

“I also don’t think you could deport these people because the federal courts would stop you,” O’Reilly said, noting that the federal courts would require each individual be granted due process.

Watch O’Reilly’s interview with Trump via Fox News:

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Huh?

    For “conservatives” and the modern GOP, such a plan being brutal is a feature, not a bug.

  2. Maybe Bill had a visit from Xmas future the night before last?

  3. The crops are all in and the peaches are rott’ning,
    The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
    They’re flying 'em back to the Mexican border
    To pay all their money to wade back again

    Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
    Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
    You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,
    All they will call you will be “deportees”

  4. You may be onto something-he doesn’t like the brutal idea, but the fantasy one is still cool. It would make sense.

  5. Avatar for fgs fgs says:

    Just to be clear, does BillO think The Rump has a bad idea, or a good idea which lamentably won’t fly because the courts aren’t brutal enough? He sounds more nostalgic for the brutal old days than anything, which is unsurprising given his predisposition towards epic fantasy, misremembering himself as a battlefield reporter.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

40 more replies

Participants

Avatar for jackson_frisell Avatar for fgs Avatar for brooklyndweller Avatar for coronakid Avatar for deckbose Avatar for goethean Avatar for leftflank Avatar for humpback Avatar for becca656 Avatar for mantan Avatar for sniffit Avatar for sherlock1 Avatar for ignoreland Avatar for russellsadler Avatar for tao Avatar for ronbyers Avatar for khaaannn Avatar for dnl Avatar for darrtown Avatar for kfraz43 Avatar for emilianoelmexicano Avatar for eatbees Avatar for edhedh Avatar for jalus

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: