Some of MAGA’s loudest voices are starting to turn on Donald Trump over his mass deportation efforts. Podcaster Joe Rogan and Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia have publicly condemned the administration over its immigration crackdown.
According to Nicolle Wallace, that criticism is evidence that Trump’s grip over his base may be slipping. “If Donald Trump’s political power lies in being able to convince his supporters of anything and everything, then loud public dissent from inside his coalition from prominent MAGA influencers might be the thing that will melt his carefully crafted alternative, fact-based reality faster than the Wicked Witch in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” Wallace said on Monday’s “Deadline: White House.”
In recent weeks, social media has been flooded with images and videos of what Wallace described as the administration’s “brutal and ugly and clunky and wildly unpopular mass deportation scheme.”
“The sight and the sound and the smells of heavily armed federal agents sweeping up people with no criminal records — everyone from grandmas to kids — with arrests everywhere, from outside of schools to outside of bakeries, even to a Marine base. The sights and sounds are proving to be too much for arguably the most influential podcaster in the MAGA-adjacent universe,” she added.
Wallace then played a clip from Thursday’s “Joe Rogan Experience,” where the popular podcaster called Trump’s deportations “horrific.” He went on to say, “When you’re just arresting people in front of their kids and just normal, regular people that have been here for 20 years — everybody who has a heart can’t get along with that.”
While the “Deadline: White House” host acknowledged that Rogan has spoken out against Trump and his immigration policies in the past, she said it was important to note that he was “not alone.”
During an appearance on “The Tim Dillon Show,” Greene, who is usually among the president’s fiercest defenders in Congress, said she’s seen the damage of Trump’s immigration crackdown firsthand. “We have a labor force in America, across many industries, that has been built on illegal labor,” Greene said. “That’s a fact that also cannot be ignored, and as a conservative and as a business owner in the construction industry and as a realist, I can say we have to do something about labor, and that needs to be a smarter plan than just rounding up every single person and deporting them just like that, right?”
Greene stated she knew she would get “pushback” for her comments, but said she was just “living in reality from here on out.”
Wallace said that while there was “plenty to not like about Marjorie Taylor Greene and Joe Rogan,” those who oppose Trump’s crackdown should welcome their newfound criticism, noting that “if we could have done this on our own, we wouldn’t be here.”
“The reality of Trump’s mass deportation campaign and how it is impacting everyone of us, everyone is going to be touched by it, regardless of who you vote for — it’s starting to sink in,” Wallace said.
You can watch Wallace’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
