Last night, as is his custom, Cockburn was ingesting his daily dose of news in the most palatable way possible — by washing it down with a stiff drink. The television behind the bar was tuned to Fox News, and Cockburn was happy to cease sipping for a moment as the attractive visage of Florida representative Maria Salazar appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
The respite was short-lived, as the interview dragged on for a full eighteen minutes, and when Tucker derailed the debate toward the end of the segment with an outlandish analogy, Cockburn nearly spat out his gimlet. (Remembering his manners and the ever-inflating cost of Beefeater these days, he restrained himself.)
Tucker asked Salazar why she favors a no-fly zone over Ukraine and sending US munitions to protect the Ukrainian border but doesn’t support doing the same thing in America.
“Should we send the US military to the Mexican border?” Tucker asked Salazar repeatedly. “Since you have admitted that tens of millions of people have come here illegally, that our borders are porous, they’re not defended, they’re open. Should we send the US military to the Mexican border? All of us are appalled by the violation of Ukraine’s borders. You don’t seem as appalled by the violation of our borders by tens of millions of people.”
Salazar seemed taken off-guard by Tucker equating the invasion of the US by migrants to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military and sputtered about technology and “dignity.”
Both scenarios constitute a crisis — there is no doubt. And while the Mexican border is rife with criminals deserving of military force, it is also rife with children and families. Distinguishing between the two would take more than asking, “Hey, do you plan to smuggle drugs or rape or murder anyone while you’re here in the States?” Tucker’s point, that the US government has turned a blind eye to our own border crisis, choosing instead to direct its focus towards action in a foreign land that could very well lead us to war with Russia, is legitimate. But is he suggesting we divert the MiG fighter jets and S-300 missile systems Salazar has marked for shipment to Ukraine to be used at the Mexican border instead? And if so, how?
Tucker doesn’t drink anymore. Otherwise, Cockburn would ask him himself.
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