Astead Herndon

He's a Democrat from Arizona, but he's been thinking about running for higher office, and he's been pitching himself as someone who has a new message for Latino voters that can bring them back to the Democratic Party.

But Gallego's run into some hot water recently because of his connection to Congressman Eric Swalwell.

This week on America Actually, we ask Iago about predatory behavior in Washington, his plans for immigration reform, and more.

Let's dig in.

Senator Gallego, thank you for joining America Actually.

Thanks for having me.

I appreciate your time.

I know that there's been some news this week.

I want to get to it later, but I want to start with the premise of why we asked you to come on the show.

We've been thinking a lot about topics that you've been talking about, things like immigration, affordability, even the Democrats' outreach to Latino voters.

I kind of wanted to start there.

Okay.

You know, out of the groups that we've seen over the last year, Latinos maybe have the biggest polling shift in terms of backlash against Donald Trump.

You represent the swing state with the highest percentage of Latino voters.

I wanted to know what you think is driving this backlash to the administration, at least that we see in the numbers.

Yeah, I mean, I think you're isolating a couple important points.

I've heard you make this kind of case before, particularly that people were more affected to their communities around them than they may have expected from Trump.

But, you know, if I think back to how explicit he's been about his targeting of immigrant communities, particularly black and Latino immigrants.

I mean, if I think back to the mass deportation now signs at the RNC, how could you not see this coming?

It did seem like the explicit promise.