Ponnuru: GOP Rep. Salazar Has No Grounds To Claim Betrayal By Trump; He Campaigned On Mass Deportations
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/09/19/ponnuru_gop_rep_salazar_has_no_grounds_to_claim_betrayal_by_trump_he_campaigned_on_mass_deportations.html

GEOFF BENNETT, PBS NEWSHOUR: I want to shift our focus to something we saw this past week from the Florida Republican Congresswoman Maria Salazar. She shot this ad that's up on the airwaves now in Florida just weeks ahead of the midterms breaking with the Trump administration over his immigration agenda. Take a look at this ad.

REP. MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR (R-FL): Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50 percent of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/09/17/gop_rep_salazar_to_trump_some_of_your_enforcement_efforts_have_gone_too_far.html)

BENNETT: She recorded that ad in front of the White House, a not-so-subtle message there. So, Jonathan, what does it mean that a Republican like Maria Salazar, a district that Trump won by 15 points, is up with an ad like this?

JONATHAN CAPEHART, MS NOW: It's the clearest signal, to me anyway, that Republicans are in trouble with their House majority, that Republicans are in trouble with Latino voters.

I mean, Congresswoman Salazar is right. I mean, President Trump won the biggest share of Latino voters since President Bush. I can't remember it was his first election or the second.

Yes, in the second election.

And so I remember at the convention, where she -- you and Amna tried to interview her over the din and talking to her about the president, the first assassination attempt, and she vowed right then and there, he's a changed person. He is going to be different from the way he was before.

And what we have seen since is that nothing's changed. He's the same, if not worse than the first Trump administration. The key word she used in that ad, and I'm glad you played it, was betrayed. And I had not seen the ad. I only read the stories when it focused on it earlier.

And I thought about David Brooks months ago when he talked about how Trump voters must feel betrayed by the president because he promised all these things and he has not fulfilled them.

And for her to use that word, and for her specifically in a district that she won her seat the last time by 20-something points, he won her district comfortably, for her to come out in this way direct to camera, to your point, from the White House, should be a signal to Republicans in general and to the president in particular that they are in trouble.

BENNETT: And, Ramesh, as Jonathan mentioned we interviewed her at the RNC, the convention. Amna interviewed her more recently and pressed her on the potential for mass deportations because it was known then that there weren't enough undocumented immigrants with criminal records to reach the deportation numbers that the administration was calling for.

So here's part of that interview.

SALAZAR: That deportation is going to be among those criminals who are the gang members, the got-aways, the Tren de Aragua. I am sure -- and I'm going to be the number one...

AMNA NAWAZ, PBS NEWSHOUR: Not all 200,000 undocumented in your community, is that what you're saying?

SALAZAR: I am sure that we're not, that the Trump administration is not going to be targeting those people who have been here for more than five years, that have American kids, that don't have criminal records, that have been working in the economy and paying taxes.

BENNETT: So do you make of what she's saying now?