Bill O’Reilly and News Nation host Chris Cuomo clashed Wednesday over the impact on border security that former President Donald Trump had, pushing O’Reilly to call one of Cuomo’s claims “BS.”
O’Reilly appeared on “Cuomo” to discuss the ongoing southern border crisis. During the discussion, the two argued over Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, with O’Reilly arguing for the policy and Cuomo arguing against it. (RELATED: Senate Republicans Block Border Bill)
“[He] put the remain in Mexico policy, which was not voted on by Congress, into play with an executive order, and went into the federal court system,” O’Reilly said. “It went into the federal court system, and the federal court system held it, and that stopped most of the illegal immigration. Biden could do the same thing in an executive order, and say, ‘We are not going to accept any asylum claims for six months. Obviously, we have an emergency situation. We’re going to reorganize that, and then we’ll start.'”
“It’s tricky legally. Remain in Mexico was a good policy, but it was not really impactful. It was less than a hundred thousand people that went through,” Cuomo stated.
“Oh, of course, it was impactful! The numbers cascaded down almost immediately when that was put into place,” O’Reilly pushed back.
The two hosts bickered back and forth over the Trump-era policy, escalating when O’Reilly told Cuomo that he was “living in fairyland” over Cuomo’s interpretation of events. (RELATED: Biden Says ‘Only Reason’ Border Isn’t Secure Is Because Donald Trump Helped Kill Immigration Bill)
“McAleenan, who was the secretary at the time of DHS, worked with the staffs, and they put together a patchwork of home country deals in Central America and South America,” Cuomo stated.
“Oh that’s so much BS! I can’t even believe it. You are living in a fairy land,” O’Reilly said.
“It’s what slowed the flow. Wow, you know, you have a real intolerance for anything that doesn’t come out of your head by the way,” Cuomo pushed back.
“No, I have an intolerance for people who live in the Land of Oz. Give Toto a dog biscuit when you go home. This is why it stopped: because Trump said to [Mexican President] Obrador, ‘You don’t stop it, we’re going to stop it with the military.’ Boom! The Mexican military mobilized on the Guatemalan border and the northern border, and that immediately stopped it. That’s what happened,” O’Reilly stated.
“You have hundreds of thousands still come up here in other ways. I’m telling you that wasn’t the major fix,” Cuomo stated.
President Biden and his administration fought legal battles for nearly a year before officially ending the “Remain in Mexico” policy in June 2022. Republicans warned the end of the Trump-era strategy would have negative consequences for the southern border, and states such as Utah soon began to see a surge in migrants less than a year later.
A record-high 302,034 illegal border crossings were recorded in Dec. 2023, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).