ABC "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" - Transcript:
Interview
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STEPHANOPOULOS: Even after, Joaquin Castro, the president, we just talked to Dan Pfeiffer, seems to be prepared to go forward on his executive orders to expand the number of undocumented immigrants who will not be deported. And (INAUDIBLE) you heard Dan Pfeiffer say the president hasn't made a decision.
But it is true that you and other -- you and others are pushing the president to expand this as fast as possible.
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D), TEXAS: Oh, absolutely. The fact is, George, somebody's got to be working in Washington. And the president is ready to act on immigration reform. The Congress has now had several years, but especially the last two, to do something. And Republicans have failed to move on it. So he will do everything within his power and within the law.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: It begs the question is it really within his power to explain this by 4 million or 5 million immigrants?
CASTRO: Absolutely. Remember, the way that he expanded -- he introduced DACA was deferred action on the students and others by not prosecuting them, and he can do the same thing for other folks as well.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Look, I don't know if he's probably going to do this, but the real promise we'll have an absence of leadership, you know, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should be back in Washington. The president should call him back. And the House should be back in Washington. They should resolve it.
So here they all go running to the cameras and say this is a humanitarian crisis and they -- whether they all (INAUDIBLE) get out of town. That's a big problem. I do my job when there's a humanitarian crisis. I don't know, where are they?
STEPHANOPOULOS: And there is a bit of an analogy, David Remnick, in the week after the House first fell before they'd been passed legislation, many of the House later said, well, the president should go after on his own even though there's some to do the same thing.
DAVID REMNICK, EDITOR, "THE NEW YORKER": Well, look, the fact of the matter is the Obama administration has been rather light on executive orders. This is not an administration that ranks very high in the history of the United States in executive orders.
The business about a lawsuit and talk of impeachment is pathetic. Yes, it's been taken advantage of in the political by the talk of impeachment by the Democratic Party.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're pushing it now.
REMNICK: But it's -- but it was initiated by the Republican Party, is a very, very sad spectacle. And history will look back on this Congress with a very, very critical eye and be --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- House Republicans passed the legislation Friday night. It is my view very good legislation. The days from the border crisis is actually is addressed on the border crisis, increases the National Guard, it makes it easier to deport people --
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VAN SUSTEREN: -- the Senate would say we did it a year ago.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Senate bill does not deal with the actual border crisis.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- immigration reform or not. The House passed legislation that deals with the border crisis and addresses the executive order --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- the president issued an executive order two years ago. That has backfired and has been disastrous --
VAN SUSTEREN: But there's no --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- those undocumented young people be coming here without the executive order?
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VAN SUSTEREN: There is a huge problem here and the people who are in charge of solving it are the president, the House and the Senate. And you know, they ought to all go back to Washington --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the House passed legislation --
VAN SUSTEREN: Fine. Great.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and it didn't --
VAN SUSTEREN: That's terrific. And you know what should happen? The Senate should be back in session. They should vote on it, send it to conference and let it be resolved. The president should be showing leadership and so just -- this is like a -- almost like a classroom where the teacher leaves the room and also knows the upheaval in the classroom. The president's not showing any leadership. Instead, he says I'll just go on my own. Well, that's not how a democracy is supposed to work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, and Greta, I agree with you that both the Senate and the House should be working right now to get this done. But the fact is they're not.
VAN SUSTEREN: And the president. He should be leading them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact is the president has been trying to work with the Congress for the last two years to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Now if the House had taken up the Senate bill, which would have passed, there are enough votes right now that if you put that on the floor, it will pass, that bill will pass, we would have been able to avoid some of the problems that we're seeing now with this border situation.
You would have more Border Patrol. You would have more judges to speed up the process. And a lot of that crisis that we're seeing now wouldn't be happening.
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KRISTOL: You would have more of a magnet for people to come north. Amnesty...
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KRISTOL: It turns out that amnesty is a magnet.
CASTRO: But these folks don't qualify for DACA. You know that under this executive order, these folks do not qualify for DACA.
KRISTOL: But they saw that the previous generation of people who came in were amnestied, and they think they're going to be amnestied.
CASTRO: Well, and that's why -- well...
KRISTOL: Amnesty is a magnet, I think, Joaquin.
CASTRO: The cartels and coyotes are trying to encourage them to make $7,000 or $6,000 to get them here. But, look, we're not going to set our policies based on what coyotes and cartels do.
We're going to go to Central America and dispel those myths. And that's what the president has been working on.
STEPHANOPOULOS: David Remnick, Greta says the president should show leadership here. But it does seem, if you look at the range of legislation over the last two, four years, no hope that anything is going to get done.
REMNICK: No, I think he's pretty stifled. It's frustrating at times to see his projection of frustration. You want him to suck it up and keep going at it and leading and leading.
But I think history is going to show that this presidency has been stifled at every angle.
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REMNICK: If I could get in one word. The immigration issue, first of all, I think a lot of people at this table are here because of America's openness to immigration. I think that's fair to say.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Probably all five of us.
KRISTOL: Yes, it was legal. There's something called legal immigration and illegal immigration.
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CASTRO: ... rules back then, Bill.
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KRISTOL: Well, fine, if you want to make a case for open borders as we had then, I'm open to that.
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KRISTOL: There are laws that should be enforced, in my humble opinion.
CASTRO: But, I mean, when we talk about the immigration issue, we have to talk about it historically and in context. And I think oftentimes, in the debate, a lot of that context is either willfully lost or just not known.
VAN SUSTEREN: But this is the discussion the president should be having with Speaker Boehner and with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. And it's not happening. They're all on vacation. I mean, this is their job.
CASTRO: I agree.
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CASTRO: And, you know, support for Israel is one of the few things right now that Congress does agree on in a bipartisan way. We just funded another $325 million for the Iron Dome system before we left. But, you know, we've got to keep pressing both sides to come to the bargaining table, come to an agreement, not only for a cease-fire, but for a longer-term arrangement that respects both sides.
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