CNN host Kasie Hunt was visibly stunned by incoming border czar Tom Homan’s recent statement that he'd jail one Democratic mayor who said he may not comply with the second Trump administration’s deportation plans.
After playing a clip Wednesday morning of Homan saying he’s "willing to put" Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston in jail for declaring he will not deport illegal immigrants living in his city — Johnston had said himself he was willing to be arrested for his defiant stance — Hunt looked visibly disturbed and described the rhetoric as "more extreme" than that on the Trump campaign trail.
"That has some significant and more extreme echoes than some of what we heard from the Trump campaign on the trail," Hunt said to a network panel, which included ex-Trump White House communications director Mike Dubke and Democratic operative Hyma Moore.
Johnston told 9News in a recent interview that he would be willing to go to jail to stand up against any "illegal or immoral" deportation strategy that the second Trump administration would deploy in order to reduce the illegal immigration population in Colorado’s capitol city.
"Yeah, I'm not afraid of that, and I'm also not seeking that," Johnston said in response to the jail question. "I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people how to solve hard problems," he added, elsewhere noting he does support limited deportations for those convicted of "serious crimes."
In a recent interview with Fox News Channel, Homan — who was nominated for border czar in early November — responded to the mayor’s comments, accusing him of potentially "breaking the law" and declaring he’d arrest Johnston if he persisted.
"You are absolutely breaking the law," Homan told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "All he has to do is look at Arizona v. U.S. and he would see he's breaking the law. But, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing. He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail."
Hunt played the clips of Johnston and Homan back-to-back, and grew wide-eyed after hearing the border czar nominee’s words. She then exhaled audibly, adding a concerned, "Oooooof."
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She asked Dubke to comment on Homan’s rhetoric, and the former Trump official argued it was an effective part of Trump’s first-term immigration strategy.
"There are several stages to kind of arresting — and I should choose a different word — but arresting immigration at the border, one of which that worked incredibly well in the early days of the first Trump Administration was the rhetoric… So Tom Homan’s very strong language is going to restrict and impede the number of people that are actually flooding the border," he said.
"You’re saying it‘s going to discourage people from trying to come?" Hunt asked.
"Totally discourage that," Dubke replied. "That is super important and that is something we saw — when the Biden administration came in, there was a flood for a reason. The rhetoric was toned down."
Fox News Digital's Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
