Obama and Immigration
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2014
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
“If the Democrats are going to win in 2016, they’re going to have to put back together the Obama coalition. This gives the coalition something to fight on,” John Cassidy says about President Obama’s executive action on immigration reform. Cassidy joins Hendrik Hertzberg and host Dorothy Wickenden on this week’s Political Scene podcast to talk about the new measures and how they will impact the Presidential race. They discuss its likely effects on the lives of undocumented immigrants, the recent history of executive orders, and Obama’s decision to fight for the issues he cares about rather than appease the Republicans.
“With any luck, we are seeing a new, unleashed Obama,” Hertzberg says. “I don’t understand why, for so many years, he labored under the spell of the bipartisan, let’s-all-sing-kumbaya-together approach to governance.”
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| 0:49.1 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. |
| 0:54.6 | It's Friday, November 21st. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 0:59.3 | Our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it. |
| 1:03.3 | Last night, President Obama announced that he was going out on his own to grant limited |
| 1:07.5 | protections to five million illegal immigrants. |
| 1:10.1 | Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit |
| 1:14.7 | and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law? |
| 1:20.0 | Or are we a nation that gives them a chance to make amends, take responsibility, and give their kids a better future? |
| 1:26.7 | Hendrick Hertzberg and John Cassidy join me today to talk about Obama's immigration reforms |
| 1:31.6 | and how they will change the political dynamic of the next presidential race. |
| 1:35.8 | John, one of the things I've been wondering is how different Obama's plan is from the immigration |
| 1:40.3 | reform bill that passed the Senate last year and then was voted down by the House. |
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