On Sunday's Meet the Press, news anchor emeritus Tom Brokaw shared some surprising thoughts about immigration. First, he stated that “the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation." Then he talked about intermarriage and "brown grandbabies" and I am literally not even sure what else there is to say except, watch the clip.
HUGH HEWITT: "Sad, no compromise," again, it's in the word cloud. The next three weeks allow the opportunity to go big and solve this. Jared Kushner's leading it. And it is far more important to shut down the Maduro government than our government. And I think Donald Trump is leading there. And he is winning there, because of Bolton and Pompeo going down to see Bolsonaro and Duque. That's going to happen. That's going to bring us together.
CHUCK TODD: That is going to bring us together, getting involved in Latin American politics that -- has it ever gone well for the United States in years past?
HUGH HEWITT: Absolutely. Because you know, Russia is against that.
CHUCK TODD: I understand that.
HUGH HEWITT: And Trump is for that. And that will help. That will help a lot.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: I think that, because there's this, there’s going to be this committee of bipartisan leaders on the Republican side, there aren’t people that are from border states, but on the Democratic side, there are, what you're going to see is people trying to actually talk about facts and, maybe, try to get on the same page. Because part of what that speech was about was this was a, quote unquote, "rinky-dink wall," is what he calls it. I interviewed the mayor of McAllen, Texas, where the president went to have his example, to say, "This is where we need the wall." The mayor said, "We don't need a wall. We have issues here. But Yamiche, I'm here to tell you that a wall is not going to solve them." So I think there's an issue here with people not understanding that facts aren't being agreed upon.
CHUCK TODD: The problem is in Wyoming and in South Dakota, they think they need a wall. And in Texas and in Arizona, they don't.
TOM BROKAW: I know.
CHUCK TODD: Right? Like it’s --
TOM BROKAW: And a lot of this, we don't want to talk about. But the fact is, on the Republican side, a lot of people see the rise of an extraordinary, important, new constituent in American politics, Hispanics, who will come here and all be Democrats. Also, I hear, when I push people a little harder, "Well, I don't know whether I want brown grandbabies." I mean, that's also a part of it. It's the intermarriage that is going on and the cultures that are conflicting with each other. I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. That's one of the things I've been saying for a long time. You know, they ought not to be just codified in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English, and that they feel comfortable in the communities. And that's going to take outreach on both sides, frankly.
KRISTEN WELKER: And Congressman Peter King, in a conversation that I had with him, spoke to sort of this remarkable moment in which we find ourselves. And he said, "What has to happen right now, both sides need to ignore the fringes." Because you have the far right and the far left screaming, yelling the loudest, and to some extent, preventing compromise.
HUGH HEWITT: There will be no compromise, unless there is a long, strong, double-layered fence about 700 miles long. That is the minimum that is necessary. And in exchange for that, regularization for 10 million people, not just DACA, not just TPS. There is a big deal to be had. Because the extremists should be condemned. The fringe should be ignored. And the base can get together.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: I would just say that we also need to adjust what we think of as America. You're talking about assimilation. I grew up in Miami, where people speak Spanish, but their kids speak English. And the idea that we think Americans can only speak English, as if Spanish and other languages wasn’t always part of America, is, in some ways, troubling.
Speechless. How is someone so openly racist still able to be considered a respected member of NBC News?
