“We Didn’t Need New Laws — We Needed a New President”: McClintock Looks Back on Trump’s 2024 Victory
Congressman Tom McClintock isn’t mincing words — the 2024 election, he says, came down to just two issues: border security and the economy. And in his view, President Trump has already delivered one of the most decisive border crackdowns in U.S. history.
Within a month of returning to office, Trump’s policies slashed illegal crossings by a staggering 96%, McClintock claimed. “We didn’t need new laws,” he told listeners. “We needed a new president.”
The congressman painted a grim picture of the Biden years: schools overcrowded with non–English-speaking students, hospitals overwhelmed, Americans forced out of homeless shelters, and a $160 billion annual bill for food, housing, transportation, and other benefits for those who crossed illegally.
Now, McClintock says, comes the next chapter — “the largest legal repatriation program in world history” — to undo what he calls four years of record-breaking illegal migration.
On enforcement, he pushed back hard against the left’s “innocent victim” narrative, stressing that ICE is targeting criminals first and enforcing long-standing laws Democrats ignored. “Every adult who enters our country illegally shall be detained — those are the words of the law,” he said, adding that detention is short-term. “The average stay is eight days. They’re free to leave anytime — just not into the United States.”
As for the economy? McClintock’s betting big. With Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” now law, he predicts Americans will see a dramatic improvement in their lives within the next year.
The message was clear: for McClintock, Trump’s border win isn’t just a headline — it’s the opening salvo in what he sees as the two-issue fight that will decide the White House.
Transcript
Chuck Warren: Would you say President Trump's advances to closing the border have been one his biggest achievements in the first seven months?
Congressman McClintock: Oh yeah well too the entire 2024 elections decided on two critical issues. The open borders of the Biden aministration which flooded our schools with non english-speaking students and packed hospitals with illegal demanding free care. Americans were were pushed out of homeless shelters to make room for illegals.
It cost Americans about a hundred and sixty billion dollars a year to pay for free food, free legal services, free transportation, free housing, free clothing, free cell phones for all of those who've broken into our country and the President President Trump was actually right. We didn't need new laws we needed a new President we got one and within a month we had secured our borders. Illegal crossings dropped ninety six percent.
And now the Democrats are just outraged that the following four years of the largest mass illegal migration in human history. We now have to implement the largest legal uh... repatriation program uh... in a in in world history and thats what the President is doing right now and the other thing is the economy and and uh... the big beautiful bill is going to go a long ways. I think we'll over the next year people will be feeling a dramatic improvement in their uh... in their lives as a result of that.
Sam Stone: Congressman, does the President, the leaders of ICE and so forth, do they need to do a better job of PR? Because you and I know what's going on, and maybe many of our listeners do too, is when people who are not violent criminals get caught up in these immigration sweeps, it's because they're there beside a violent criminal that is being targeted, then ICE is checking everyone's status, and if they're here illegally, they're doing their job and removing them.
Do we need to do, that's the one thing I think the left has gained traction on, the talking points, is the notion of innocent. I don't believe that because they crossed the border illegally, they broke the law to come here, but do we need to do a better job of defining what's happening and how ICE is going about this process?
Congressman McClintock: Well, ISIS is simply enforcing the law. What does the law says? It says that every adult who illegally enters our country shall be detained. Those are the words of the law, shall be detained. But... ...law that Biden and the Democrats ignored for four years.
Chuck Warren: That's the problem, that's the problem, congressman. Yeah, they don't like the problem is they just decide what laws they like and don't like right, right? I mean, that's the law if you don't like that law change that law, but I think that's always been our law has it not?
Congressman McClintock: Well that that's what Lincoln used to say, he said the best way to repeal a bad law is to enforce it. Now I have to believe it's very good law but uh.. you know what the President is doing is adhering to his ode to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Miss Tom Holman's pointed out their their their first targets of the six hundred thousand criminal illegal aliens the democrats released with their sanctuary laws uh... and and seventy percent of the detainments are illegal aliens with criminal convictions or charges.
But one thing about detention, unless you're charged with another crime and being held on criminal charges, in which case you have all your due process rights, you're free to lead detention. Any time you want for any country that will accept you. You they talk about these concentration camps where the average stay in these detention centers is eight days because they're simply arranging for transportation back to their home country. Either the government's doing it for them or they’re doing it themselves but the point is they're free to leave detention anytime they like. They're not free to enter our country in violation of the law.
Chuck Warren: Well, Congressman, thank you for joining us.
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