Welcome to the Quillett Podcast. I'm your host Jonathan Kay, a senior editor at

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When Mexico sends its people they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're sending people

that have lots of problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're

rapists, and some I assume are good people but I speak to border guards and they tell us what we're getting

They're sending us not the right people. It's coming from more than Mexico.

As many of you will know, that was an infamous excerpt from Donald Trump's presidential

announcement speech of June 16, 2015.

A landmark event in the rise of his MAGA movement,

which of course stands for Make America Great Again.

It's a populist movement that swept up tens of millions of American voters who put Trump into the White House in 2016 and who may make him president once again later this year.

One of the most fervent MAGA supporters during the 2010s is my guest today,

New York State native Rich Lojus. During Trump's first presidential campaign and his presidency,

Rich worked tirelessly on behalf of Trump and wrote for numerous conservative outlets in support of the MAGA movement.

MAGA consumed his whole existence, he says, including his social life, as he walked away from friendships

with people whom he viewed as enemies of Maga ideals.

But then in 2021, he began to have second thoughts for at least two reasons.

Logis had become deeply concerned by the less a fair attitude of many Republicans

...