Original air date: June 2nd, 2024
Obviously, presidential politics factored into our coverage this season, and when the field was very crowded, we heard from a number of the candidates.
The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.” Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.
Sharyl: On the border, millions of people have come in since you left office, illegally.
Trump: Yeah. It’s very sad.
Sharyl: I did a report in 2018 based on general accountability office and FBI figures that said the illegal immigrant population was about one in 30 Americans or people in the United States at the time, but accounted for at least one in five prison inmates at great expense. I understand, moving forward, you had planned to reinstall some of the border controls that you had if you were elected again.
Trump: All of them.
Sharyl: But how do we deal with, or do we deal with, the millions that have come in since? Do we just let that go? Or is there a practical way to deal with it?
Trump: No country can sustain what we’re sustaining right now. No country’s rich enough.
Sharyl: So how do you deal with those? Or do you deal with those who are already here?
Trump: You have to deport.
Sharyl: How?
Trump: You have to deport.
Sharyl: How do you identify — do you have a mass program to identify —
Trump: You have to have a mass deportation program.
Sharyl (to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.): A Rasmussen Reports poll just found that one in three Democrats say they might vote for you if you were to leave the Democrat party and run as a third-party candidate. What thoughts do you have about that?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: If the Democratic Party does not allow me to actually have a fair election, in other words, if they, you know, continue doing what they’re doing, which is to rig the outcome of the election, then I would look at all options.
Sharyl (on-camera): By the way, we’ve been asking Joe Biden for an interview since 2019 and we’ll keep asking.
Scott Thuman, Lisa Fletcher here now. We had another fantastic year of great contributions from both of you, so thank you very much again for that. When we started Full Measure this season, we didn’t know, obviously, that there was going to be this big story in Israel, but right on the start when that happened, Scott Thuman helped us figure out how to cover the story in a very clear and accurate and fair way.
Scott: Well in the days and weeks after Oct. 7, the growing concern was — and it still is — an expanding war across the world. And Lebanon was a key part of that worry. We were familiar with that because we had covered that very threat just two years prior.
Since Hamas’ devastating surprise attack on Israel Oct. 7, this northern border area has become much more dangerous. Israeli army patrols run from house to house. Civilians have been evacuated.
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner is a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces.
Peter Lerner: What we understand at this time is that Hezbollah is actually operating in order to increase and expand and perhaps even broaden the scope under the direction of Iran. And that is a cause of concern.
Concerns over a larger war — a big part of the reason President Biden made a visit to Israel, showing support but also reminding Iran that America is watching.
Scott (on-camera): And that concern expanded to another Iran-backed terrorist group, the Houthis, who, as you know, started attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea.
Sharyl: And so, sadly, the very first thing we talked about might happen with the expansion of the war and the violence, in fact, did.
And Lisa also brought us some interesting angles on the Iranian connection to the Israel story.
Lisa: Right. Well there have been sanctions against Iran since the 1970s and the Carter administration. But we wanted to see what was in place today.
Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer: We had some nice sanctions that actually worked with the Trump administration, with regards to the oil that they could sell, and it was hurting Iran from the standpoint that it made it very difficult for them to sell oil, and as a result, their economy was drying up.
Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer heads a House Committee that oversees U.S. sanctions, or punishment, against Iran.
Rep. Luetkemeyer: The Biden administration comes in, takes those sanctions off, and suddenly now, in the last three years, they’ve actually raised about $80 billion from oil sales that are now, as you say, funding the three different terrorist groups.
Lisa: So what sanctions are in place?
Rep. Luetkemeyer: I’m not sure we have a whole lot of them left anymore.
Lisa (on-camera): And Luetkemeyer says Iran may be backing 25-30 terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. right now. He says they’re probably brewing some similar to 9/11. Now he says the only antidote to this is strong economic and strong border policies. That is the only thing that they understand.
Watch video here.
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