Trump ICE Idiot Tom Homan: Bad Cop

(There is no good cop in this scenario.)

This week for our Sunday shows post, we are going to focus on Donald Trump’s “Border Czar” Tom Homan’s appearance on CNN’s “State Of The Union.” Homan is basically what you would get if you asked a good AI to make you a stereotypical bad cop image. Just look at the interview screengrab:

Things got off to a rocky start when host Dana Bash asked about and played a clip of a seemingly very public confirmation of a quid pro quo/threat the Trump administration has entered into with embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams, which we all learned about in dramatic fashion last week. It happened on “Fox & Friends.”

HOMAN (on Fox News): Now I got him on the couch in front of millions of people, he can't back away from this now, right? So I think you want to see things move in the right direction. If he doesn't come through, I will be back in New York City. […] And we won't be sitting on a couch. I will be in his office up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?

Bash pressed Tom Homan to explain Mayor Adams’s sudden willingness to give ICE agents access to Riker’s Island (which is against New York City law), only days after the Department of Justice ordered his federal indictment dismissed. Homan wasn’t happy at the implication, but Bash was not buying his pearl-clutching act.

HOMAN: No, I think that's ridiculous. […]

BASH: […] I mean, you absolutely have been honest about the fact that you met with Adams before, in December, I think it was. You came away from that meeting really unsatisfied. What changed between then and now, other than the Department of Justice dropping the case against Adams?

HOMAN: No, I didn't come out of that meeting unsatisfied. I was a little -- after several weeks, I was taken back to that we hadn't gotten the action that yet about getting to Rikers Island. […] I have been talking to the mayor for months about getting in Rikers Island. And that's what we talked about.

Sure.

Bash wasn’t buying it.

BASH: I totally understand you do not work in the Department of Justice, but you do work in the broader Trump administration. And just as somebody who is in law enforcement, you call yourself a cop, just looking at the series of events, sir, the fact that you didn't get what you wanted, you didn't — you came away not sure why he wasn't doing what you wanted him to do, particularly with opening Rikers, the Department of Justice gets rid of the charges against him, and then, poof, he agrees.

When Bash pressed harder, Homan’s explanation was both pathetic and inadvertently revealing.

BASH: I mean, that's a pretty direct message, sir, that Adams needs to play ball when it comes to immigration.

HOMAN: Well, in fairness to playing to that tape, there's more to that tape.
This is two cops talking. We're talking cop. I mean, once you're a cop, you never lose that language. This is two cops talking. We're talking cop. I mean, once you're a cop, you never lose that language. […]

So Homan’s explanation is not that it was an extortion threat, but rather that Homan appealing to Adams’s sense of “thin blue line” loyalty to fellow cops, rather than his constituents or their rights?

Huh.

Speaking of Homan reverting to his “once a cop, always a cop” mentality, Bash then moved on to his veiled threats at Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for having the audacity to inform people how not to get their rights trampled by Homan’s ICE. Bash played a clip of Homan on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show last Thursday where Homan tried to use the old “just asking questions” tactic to hide his intentions.

HOMAN (on Fox News): I sent an email to the deputy attorney general. At what level is that impediment? Is that impediment? I’m not an attorney, I’m not a prosecutor. Is that impediment? Is that impeding our law enforcement efforts. If so, what are we going to do about it? Is she crossing the line? So I'm working with the Department of Justice and finding out, where is that line that they crossed? So maybe AOC is going to be in trouble now.

Despite AOC answering his and Sean Hannity’s questions multiple times on Twitter, this didn’t stop Homan from publicly trying to intimidate a member of Congress, either on CNN or earlier Sunday on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox News show.

When Bash asked point blank about it, Homan hid behind “I’m just suggesting!” so as to have plausible deniability if confronted about rights violations/unlawful orders. Of course, one can hear the dogwhistle he’s sending to DOJ from a mile away.

BASH: Are you suggesting that she should be prosecuted?

HOMAN: I'm suggesting that I would ask the [DOJ], where's that line on impediment, right? That's a broad statute.

Homan continued griping about AOC with a soupçon of sexist condescension when Bash brought up AOC’s statement that Homan should be “vaguely aware of immigration law.”

HOMAN: “Vaguely aware of immigration law” … I have done this since 1984. I forgot more about the immigration law that AOC will ever know. Matter of fact, at a hearing couple years ago, I had explained to her the answer in the country legally was actually a crime.

Actually …

BASH: Right now being undocumented is a civil offense, and not a criminal one.

Have a week.

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