Karoline Leavitt Fires Shot at Fox News’ Andy McCarthy Over Deportation Case: Trying to ‘Defend These Terrorists’
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fired a shot at Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy after being asked a question about McCarthy’s take on a high-profile case the administration is currently embroiled in during a briefing on Wednesday.
“Andy McCarthy said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt he certainly agrees with what the president is trying to do with the Alien Enemies Act, but he’s not sure that the law is completely on his side,” began McCarthy’s colleague, Jacqui Heinrich. “He [McCarthy] cites some previous Supreme Court rulings dealing with enemy combatants in wartime, says that even they have a challenge-, a right to challenge their detention in court. He raised concern also that while TDA has been designated as a terrorist organization, these individuals hadn’t been prosecuted for terrorism. So my question is: Will the president ask Congress potentially to declare war on these cartels for the invasion that he’s talked about so that he’s on stronger legal footing?”
“Well, we absolutely disagree with the legal opinion of the individual that you mentioned. We would not have moved forward with this if we didn’t believe the president-, this was within the president’s executive authority to continue with this mass deportation effort under the authority provided to him under the Alien Enemies Act,” replied Leavitt.
She continued:
And when you read the act, as I did last time at the podium, a predatory incursion is absolutely what has happened with Tren de Aragua. They have been sent here by the hostile Maduro regime in Venezuela, and the president immediately upon taking office, designated TDA as a foreign terrorist organization. And under this act, it is within the president’s authority to deport these terrorists. And anybody trying to defend these terrorists who have now been sent off of American soil should talk to the families of the individuals who these heinous monsters have killed and have raped. If you talk to those families, they are so heartened by the president’s decision to take tough action, and to use his executive authority. Something that no other president has been willing to do because President Trump does what he says he’s going to do, and he is deporting these foreign terrorists from American soil to secure our homeland, and he’s within his rights to do that .
McCarthy, a widely-respected conservative legal scholar, wrote a book making the case for impeaching former President Barack Obama and is often cited by President Donald Trump himself.
He has, however, been critical of the second Trump administration on a number of issues.
