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Sandy Fire Forces Thousands to Evacuate in Ventura County, California; J.D. Vance Holds White House Briefing; Vance Says We're Locked and Loaded if Iran Negotiations Fail. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 19, 2026 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[13:31:08]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Crews battling an explosive brush fire in Southern California could get a break today, with calmer winds expected to roll in this evening. The Sandy Fire erupted Monday morning in Ventura County, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate. The fire has burned nearly 1,400 acres and is just five percent contained.

Officials say at least one home has been destroyed, a number of other structures have also burned. Let's go to Nick Watt, who's in Simi Valley, California, for us. Nick, what do you see where you are?

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, that is the one house destroyed so far. As so often, it's right on the edge of this subdivision, at the end of the cul-de-sac, right up against all that brush. And I just saw a video one of the firefighters showed us that was taken from this house over here.

The speed with which this place went up was incredible. Luckily, there were firefighters on scene to douse it and to save the rest of these houses. So the wind, wind is key in these fires. And just in the past hour, my thinning hair has begun to blow around in that breeze. And that is not a good sign. The wind is picking up.

But what was great is overnight, Boris, those winds dropped way down. The humidity went up. The temperatures went down. So firefighters, 750 of them on this fire, were able to use that time to drop water and retardant from the air, to try and doze (ph) and dig some lines, to try and keep the fire contained, should it explode again today as these winds pick up.

Now, 17,000 people right now under evacuation orders. That was over 30,000. That's been taken down. One of the things that they're dealing with is, though, which direction the wind is going. So right now, it's an offshore wind, a warm offshore wind that's taking the flames towards the Thousand Oaks area. This afternoon, that wind will switch around, but will also drop.

But the fear is, of course, that they don't necessarily know which way the flames are going to go. If you've got some gusty wind, that is the problem. But right now, it's looking pretty positive. As I say, they had a lot of time overnight to prepare, to preposition, to get ready for today. The wind is picking up, but fingers crossed, they will be OK and no more structures will be lost.

Lives and property, that's what they try and protect. So far, they've been doing a good job. But, you know, here in Southern California, Boris, they get a lot of practice. Back to you.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, unfortunate that they get so much practice, especially in recent years. Nick, you mentioned the wind shifting. What other challenges are firefighters still facing?

WATT: Well, really, terrain. So outside of these subdivisions, it is hilly, so it's often hard. You know, you can't get bulldozers in if the terrain is too steep. Also, it's hot. You know, it's over 80 degrees. You see these crews going out there, equipment. It is hot. It is dirty work. It is hard work, particularly in this terrain. So that's the challenge.

And also, the challenge is just trying to figure out, OK, which way are those flames going to go next? So it is a lot of meteorology. It's keeping an eye on those winds because the wind is always the thing that drives the flames here. Wind, wind, wind. That's the issue. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Nick Watt, live for us in Simi Valley. Thank you so much for that report. We're still awaiting Vice President, J.D. Vance, set to hit the podium there in the briefing room. It will start at any moment, and when it does, we'll bring it to you live. Stay with CNN.

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[13:36:21]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Let's head to the briefing room at the White House, where the vice president has begun his briefing.

J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm proud to announce that next week, I will be speaking at the Air Force Academy commencement ceremony. Last year, I spoke at the Naval Academy commencement ceremony, and it was one of the great honors and privileges of my life. So I'm excited to go out there to Colorado and participate in that ceremony.

The second thing is I want to highlight a little bit some of the work that we've been doing, the great work our team has been doing on the anti-fraud task force, where we have caught just in the last couple of months, billions upon billions of dollars of fraud in our hospice system, in our Medicaid system, in our Medicare system, in our immigration system.

We've seen hundreds of millions of dollars of fraudulent loans that were being handed out through the small business administration that we've identified and stopped. And we've also started investigating some of the fraudulent criminal activity and also prosecuting some of the fraudulent criminal activity. So the thing that I say to the American people, and I'll repeat here to all of you, is, you know, fraud is a crime that has two victims.

It has, first of all, the American taxpayer, people who pay their taxes, who out of their generosity, and because they have to, of course, they pay their taxes expecting that it's going to go to pay our troops and ensure that low-income children have access to food and ensure that people get medical benefits even if they're not able to afford a doctor.

I think it's a great thing about our country is that we have this generosity of spirit where we take care of one another, but fraud takes that away from us because it steals money from the taxpayer when they pay their taxes, and it also steals money from innocent people who are meant to benefit from these programs, but can't when the money runs dry because it's gone to fraudsters instead of the people who benefit from it or should benefit from it.

So we're going to keep that work up. The president of the United States has been very clear that he wants us to focus on fraud, he wants us to prosecute the fraudsters, and he wants us to save the American people as much money as we possibly can. So we're going to keep at it.

We're very proud of that work and, importantly, very proud of the team who have done an incredible job.

And then finally, just to give an update on the Iran negotiation, the Iran situation, I just talked to the president very briefly before I came out here. It's actually a very simple proposition here. There are two options, two pathways we can go down when it comes to the Iran situation. So step back for a little bit.

What the president of the United States has said is, number one, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and I think it's important for the American people and all of you to appreciate that when we say that it's not just that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it's what would happen if the Iranians did get a nuclear weapon.

We know that a lot of nations all across the Gulf would then want their own nuclear weapon, and then a lot of nations all across the world. And what has been a very effective bright spot of American foreign policy really for the last 20 or so years would disappear overnight.

If you have every country in the world scrambling to try to get a nuclear weapon, it would make us all much less safe. And Iran would really be the first domino, and what would set off a nuclear arms race all over the world. That's very, very bad for the safety of our country. As the father of three young kids, I don't want them to inherit a world where 20 additional regimes, half of them very dangerous and very sympathetic to terrorists, have nuclear weapons.

We want to keep the number of countries that have nuclear weapons small, and that's why Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, on top of all the other things that we might be worried about, that they themselves could use it, that they could use it in leverage and economic control or economic negotiations. We just don't want them to have a nuclear weapon.

Now, what we did here is that we effectively degraded their conventional military capability. That has been done. That has been successfully done. You could always do a little bit more, but where we are now is the president has asked us, has told us to aggressively negotiate with the Iranians.

[13:40:00]

Why did I go to Islamabad, Pakistan? Why did I spend, I think, probably 22 hours on a plane going there, 24 hours coming back, and then 21 hours on the ground negotiating with the Iranians is because we wanted to show a sign of good faith. The vice president of the United States is willing to cut a deal so long as the Iranians are willing to meet us again on that core issue of never having a nuclear weapon.

We think that we've made a lot of progress. We think the Iranians want to make a deal. The president of the United States has asked us to negotiate in good faith and that's exactly what we've done. So we're in a pretty good spot here, but there's an option B. And the option B is that we could restart the military campaign to continue to prosecute the case, to continue to try to achieve America's objectives, and we could talk a little bit about what that looks like, but that's not what the president wants and I don't think it's what the Iranians want either.

We have an opportunity here I think to reset the relationship that has existed between Iran and the United States for 47 years. That's what the president has asked us to do and that's what we're going to keep on working at. But it takes two to tango. We are not going to have a deal that allows the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon. So as the president just told me, we're locked and loaded.

We don't want to go down that pathway, but the president is willing and able to go down that pathway if we have to. So with that, I will say thank you all. It's cool to be here. I'm going to give a shout out, of course, to the person I am replacing today, Karoline Leavitt, who hopefully is at home enjoying some time with her beautiful kids.

I told Karoline I would stand in for her today for the White House press briefing on the condition that when Usha has our baby in July, that she would be vice president for a couple of weeks.

(LAUGH)

VANCE: So thank you, guys. And I actually want to start first with Nick from Breitbart. Nick, it's good to see you.

NICK GILBERTSON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BREITBART: Good to see you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you. Today, we saw the president endorse Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in the Texas Senate race. Do you think that sends a message going forward for the next cycle to Senators considering running for reelection or any MAGA-aligned potential candidates that are considering challenging them? VANCE: Well, I'd say a couple of things, Nick. First of all, the president is very gratified by the response that he's heard from the base and from a lot of voters, I think, who are passionate about Ken Paxton. We think Ken Paxton is going to be a great Senator for the people of Texas, but most importantly, a great United States Senator who can work on solving the problems that all of us confront as a country together.

I've known John Cornyn for a long time, but unfortunately, you know, when it really counted, Ken Paxton was there for the country, was there for the president, and that's why he ultimately earned the president's endorsement. He thinks he's going to be a better Senator, thinks he's going to make a better candidate.

And so I do think it sends a message, but really not just the endorsement, but one of the things the president has done very effectively, going back 10 years in his leadership of the Republican Party and the country as president of the United States, is he said, you know, I want people who fight for the good. I want people who can't be bought by corporate lobbyists, who can't be bought by Wall Street, who can't be bought by special interests, who are going to go to Washington and fight for the people who actually elected them to those positions.

And I think one of the things we've seen in the Republican Party, while I can't say that all of our representatives are perfect or all of our Senators are perfect, we have seen a much better crop of talent come into Washington since Donald Trump has been the leader of the party and the leader of the movement. I do think we're going to continue to see that happening.

But I think the message that people should take from this is, fundamentally, you have got to serve the people who sent you. And if you don't do that, you're going to find yourself out of step with voters or out of step with the president of the United States, and that's not a good place to be politically.

GILBERTSON: Thank you.

VANCE: Yeah. Go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Vice President, thank you very much. Just following up on what you just said. You said that the White House is negotiating with Iran in good faith. I think Americans tend to believe that, but what is it about the Iranian side that you personally have seen where you believe that they are negotiating with us in good faith?

VANCE: Well, first of all, I'd say it's a very complicated country, and it's a country that I wouldn't pretend that I understand, even after as deep as I've been involved in this process from the very beginning. It's a great and proud civilization, amazing people. Obviously, I have a great Iranian-American community here in the United States of America, smart people, very hardworking. And you see some of that in the negotiating team on the other side.

You also see some very hard-line positions in the negotiating team on the other side. And so I think you see that conflict, the fact that maybe the Iranians aren't themselves quite clear in what direction they want to go to. They also are just a fractured country. So you have the leadership of the country, there's the supreme leader, and then there are a lot of officials below the supreme leader that has some influence in the negotiation.

It's not sometimes totally clear what the negotiating position of the team is, and I don't know if that's sometimes bad communication, if that's bad faith. I wouldn't pretend to venture a guess there, but I will say with confidence it's sometimes hard to figure out exactly what it is that the Iranians want to accomplish out of the negotiations.

[13:45:00]

So what we've done is tried to be as clear as possible, what are our red lines? What are the things that we're willing to be accommodating on? And what are the things that we absolutely must have? And as the president has said ad nauseam, and I think I've said it a lot too, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

We want to see not just the commitment to not have a nuclear weapon, but the commitment to work with us on a process to ensure that not just now, not just when Donald Trump is president, but years down the road that the Iranians are not rebuilding that nuclear capability. And that's what we're trying to accomplish in the negotiation.

Sorry, you had a follow-up?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, just for Americans at home, because this has been going on for several weeks now. I think what people just want to know is, do you personally believe that the Iranians will come to a deal? Because we keep seeing this over and over again, where they go back and forth.

VANCE: So do I personally believe it? The honest answer is how could I possibly know, right? And you negotiate with people, and sometimes you feel like you're making progress, and sometimes you feel like you're not making progress. What I think is that the Iranians want to make a deal.

What I think is that the Iranians recognize that a nuclear weapon is the red line for the United States of America, that they've internalized that. But we're not going to know until we're actually putting pen to paper on signing a deal. We've had a lot of drafts, a lot of pieces of paper going back and forth.

But I will not say with confidence that we're going to reach a deal until we're actually signing a negotiated settlement here. And I think that it's ultimately up to the Iranians, whether they're willing to meet us, because I think we're certainly doing a good job, and we're certainly negotiating in good faith. We're going to have to see what ultimately happens with them. I can't say with confidence, because I don't know what's in the mind of the other side.

Jon?

JONATHAN KARL, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, ABC NEWS: Mr. Vice President, thank you. I want to ask you about that $1.8 billion fund set up, Weaponization Fund as it's being called. Why should taxpayers be paying to settle a $10 billion lawsuit that was brought by the President of the United States? And should people that attacked the Capitol building and assaulted police officers, should they be eligible, should they receive money from this fund?

VANCE: Well, let me say a couple of things about that. First, Jon, I think in some ways the media has misrepresented what this is actually about. This is about compensating Americans for the lawfare that we saw under the last administration. And by the way, anybody can apply for it. Republicans can apply for it. Democrats can apply for it.

As you know, the president of the United States has pardoned a number of Democrats who he felt were actually subject to this lawfare. I mean, if Hunter Biden wants to apply for this particular fund, he is welcome to. It's going to go through a normal process where we vet everything, where we try to identify whether people's claims are actually legitimate.

But here's the question. You say, why should taxpayers fund this? Whenever the United States government incurs legal expenses, it pays out those legal expenses. When it's settling a lawsuit, it pays out money to settle that lawsuit. And the question is, is a dollar of this money going to the Trump administration? No. Is a dollar of this money going to Donald Trump personally? No.

Is a dollar of this money going to Donald Trump's family? No. The people that would get the money are people, some of whom have been prosecuted completely disproportionate to any crime they've ever committed. Like, let's just take a couple of examples.

Tina Peters is this woman who is about to get out of prison, thanks in large part to the president's good work in Colorado. This is a woman who, at worst, if you believe everything that the prosecutors said about her, committed misdemeanor trespassing, and somebody threw the book at her, this innocent grandmother was going to spend 10 years in prison, completely disproportionate to any misdemeanor trespassing that I've ever seen. Was that fair? No.

Is it reasonable for her to get some compensation for the fact that she was treated unfairly? I think the answer is yes, and I think that what we're going to see, hopefully, is the entire country, led by this Department of Justice, turning the page on the lawfare.

What I would like to propose, and I think the Democrats, you know, hopefully they're willing to meet us halfway here, I won't hold my breath, but what I would propose is something very simple, that if you are willing to turn the page on Joe Biden's lawfare, why don't we prosecute people, very simple principle, why don't we prosecute people who violate the law? Let's not prosecute people because they said the wrong thing, or because they had the wrong political candidate, or because they had the wrong viewpoint.

And I think part of that, part of turning the page on that is to actually ensure the real victims of that lawfare receive some compensation. That's what this fund is going to be targeted at. And again, there's going to be a process to ensure that that money is only given to people who have actually, I hate to say earned it, but the people who actually were really mistreated by the previous administration and Department of Justice.

Go ahead, go ahead.

KARL: I understand that everybody is eligible to apply for this one. I mean, you're eligible, but I assume you're not going to apply and you don't think you should get money out of this fund.

[13:50:00]

VANCE: Of course.

KARL: So isn't it just as easy to say that people that attacked police officers should not get taxpayer money from this fund?

VANCE: Well, look, Jon, we're not trying to give money to anybody who attacked a police officer. We're trying to give money, not give money, we're trying to compensate people where the book was thrown at them, they were mistreated by the legal system. Sometimes, you know, we do have, Jon, in this country, innocent until proven guilty.

We do have people who were accused of attacking law enforcement officers.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: That doesn't mean that we're going to completely ignore some of the claims that they're going to make. We're going to evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis, and if we think that somebody, whatever they were accused of, if we think that somebody was unfairly prosecuted and deserves just compensation, then that's what this fund is going to exist to provide.

It's just going to correct a wrong, and I think that's a good thing, and I'd encourage everybody, Democrat, Republican, Independent, let's turn the page on this thing that we did under the last administration, where we tried to throw people in prison because they had the wrong politics. Let's throw people in prison who broke the law. I think this fund is a good part of getting justice for the people who were wrongly treated.

Back there, yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir. Just to follow up on that quickly, does that mean that people that were violent, that were convicted were mistreated? Are you saying that? VANCE: Well, you're asking me to comment on hypotheticals and on any number of dozens of cases. Here's the thing. We're going to look at everything case-by-case. As you know, every single case has its own details. Every single case has -- there are things about it that maybe don't meet the eye.

We're just going to look at every case, case-by-case. That's all I'm saying. I'm not committing to giving anybody money or committing to giving no one money. What I'm committing to is a legal process to review these claims and to make sure that people who are mistreated by their government get a little bit of compensation because of it.

Go ahead. Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: I realize that the pointer finger is not as precise as I thought it was. The guy in -- sorry. I have this cheat sheet, but the problem with being 41-years-old is you are -- I'm blinder than I was a few years ago, so we'll say blue blazer, blue tie. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, great. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I'd like to ask a quick follow-up on Iran, but first, I'd like to ask you about fentanyl. Fentanyl sourced largely from China killed about 403,000 Americans over the past seven years according to CDC data. That's one in every 850 Americans who died.

White House Counterterrorism Director, Sebastian Gorka said last week that China's exports amounted to the targeted killing of Americans and war by other means. Do you agree with that assessment? And what is the Trump administration doing to punish and deter China, especially since the Supreme Court struck down the fentanyl tariffs?

VANCE: So go ahead and ask the second question, because I'll try to take each question, and then I'll try to answer them, and then we'll go on. If you ask two questions, I can only guarantee that I'll answer one. In fact, I'm a politician. Maybe I won't even answer the one that you asked --

(LAUGH)

VANCE: But I will try at least to answer one question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Well, I'd love to hear the fentanyl response too, if not today, sometime.

VANCE: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On Iran, is Russia taking possession of the enriched uranium in Iran a plausible end to the war? And if not, why not? VANCE: So first, no, Russia taking possession of the enriched uranium, look, these things are being discussed through negotiation. That is not currently our plan. That has never been our plan. I've seen some reporting on that. I don't know where it comes from, but the president is going to continue to negotiate a deal.

So that is not currently the plan of the United States government. The Iranians have not raised it. My sense is that's not something the Iranians would be particularly excited about. And I know the president isn't particularly excited about it either, but who knows? I'm not going to make pre-commitments in a negotiation on any particular topic.

On the question of fentanyl, a lot of people have died from fentanyl, absolutely. A lot of it has come from mainland China. We're certainly aware of that. But here's what I'll say. First of all, we've made incredible strides under Donald Trump's leadership to cut down on fentanyl deaths.

If you look at the number of people who died in 2026, it's going to be lower than the number who died in 2025, which is way lower than the number who died in 2024. This is one of the things that I think all Americans, we should be celebrating. And I'm certainly proud of the president's leadership for making this possible.

We ran, if you remember, in November of 2024 on a very simple idea, that a lot of fentanyl came from East Asia. It was smuggled into Central and South America. And then the cartels would bring it into our country, and a lot of our people would get poisoned and killed because of it.

We said, if you got control of the southern border, we would see a substantial reduction in the number of people who died from fentanyl overdoses in the United States of America. And that is exactly what's happened. Now, yes, the president has raised this with President Xi any number of times.

I know it came up during the meeting that they had in China just last week. But it's come up in any number of phone calls, and our sense is that President Xi has been willing to work with us on this.

[13:55:00]

And obviously, we want to continue to ensure that the Chinese work with us as much as possible, because we don't want our people to be poisoned. So we'll keep working on that issue with the Chinese. There's been, I think, a big amount of progress that's been made, but of course, we can make a lot more progress, and we're certainly going to be committed to doing exactly that.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: Yeah. White jacket, sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, yeah. Natalie with Washington Post (ph).

VANCE: Natalie (ph), thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, thank you, Mr. Vice President. Does the government need to create a new mandatory review process for new A.I. models, given the concerns about Mythos?

And secondly, in a few days, Pope Leo is going to release his encyclical on artificial intelligence. What influence, if any, do you see the Pope's guidance on A.I. having to broader society?

VANCE: Well, I mean, I think when the Pope issues an encyclical on artificial intelligence, it's going to have some influence. I, of course, don't know how much influence, I don't know exactly what it's going to say. But I think when the leader of the world's largest Christian denomination speaks on an issue like that, it's certainly going to have some influence, and I'm sure it'll contain a lot of insights, some of which I'll probably agree with, some of which I may not, but I think that it's going to be a very, very important document.

And I think that one of the things I always found fascinating about Pope Leo is that he chose the name Leo XIV, which of course is recollecting Leo XIII. Leo XIII was the Pope during a period of incredible industrial transformation in the entire world. Of course, that industrial transformation, according to a lot of people, led to the rise of fascism and communism in Europe.

I think it was interesting that Leo XIV chose that name to maybe apply Christian social teaching in a new era with a new technological innovation in the same way that the Industrial Revolution was the technological innovation of its time. So I think it'll be fascinating. I'm looking forward to reading it. My guess is it's going to have a lot of influence.

On the question of what our policy is going to be, look, what we're trying to do in the Trump administration is very simple. The president wants us to be pro-innovation. He wants us to win the A.I. race against all other countries in the world. He recognizes that A.I. is going to be an important tool, not just for our economy, but for our military. And so he wants to ensure that we are winning that particular race.

We also want to make sure that we're protecting people. We're protecting people's data. We're protecting people's privacy. I think with this Mythos release, one of the things that we're very focused on, of course, is whether -- not necessarily the developers of Mythos, but whether some other bad actor could use mythos to target various cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

So it's something that right now, we're working in a collaborative way with the technology companies, and we're just trying to make sure that the American people are as safe as possible. I'm not going to get ahead of the executive order or any other actions that are going to come out, but we're trying to balance those two things.

We want to be pro-innovation. We recognize, I mean, artificial intelligence could be great. It could help us find cures to diseases that currently people are dying from or suffering from. It also does have some downsides, and we're trying to balance that safety against innovation. And we think that we've got the right balance here in the Trump administration, but it's something we're going to have to keep on working on because that's just the nature of these technologies is they certainly change.

Let's go. Is that Reagan all the way in the back? Daily Caller? There we go.

REAGAN REESE, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, DAILY CALLER: Yes.

VANCE: OK.

REESE: Awesome.

VANCE: I figured out finally how this seating chart works.

REESE: I want to ask you about the anti-fraud task force. You previously mentioned that Ilhan Omar seemed to have committed immigration fraud. Do you anticipate an indictment against her, an indictment related to that situation?

VANCE: Yeah. So Reagan, I don't want to prejudge an investigation. I mean, you read the things about Ilhan Omar and about who she married and whether she didn't marry this person or that person. It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody's entitled to equal justice under the laws.

So we're going to investigate it. We're going to take a look at it. If we think that there's a crime, we're going to prosecute that crime. And that's something the Department of Justice is looking at right now.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: Yes. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Based on what you've seen during your work on this anti-fraud task force, do you believe anything should change about our immigration or refugee policies to stop fraud in the United States?

VANCE: Well, yeah. I mean, look, one thing I'd say is that the biggest immigration fraud that existed under the Biden administration, it's not just that they let a flood of people across the southern border. That was obviously a very major problem and something I'm proud of the president for stopping. But it's also that they allowed the asylum and refugee claimant process to become totally fraudulent.

And so here's what would happen, right? You would take a person who in normal cases would just be a traditional economic immigrant, whether you let them into the country or not, they're trying to come because they want a better job. OK? They would come into the country and say that they were fleeing persecution, and they would say that they were an asylum claimant. And then effectively, what the Biden administration would do is say, OK, you're an asylee. Go into the interior of the country. Here's a work permit. Maybe come back in 10 or 12 years for your hearing on whether you actually have a legitimate asylum claim.

So what did that mean? That meant that person was just completely given amnesty and released into the interior of the country. Well, what if that person was a criminal? What if that person actually had a violent history? --