Astead Herndon

Right, it's not like an inherent collective, right?

So it's not some, like, shared sense of identity.

I think sometimes political discussion groups focus it.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

I mean, that brings us to, I guess, an important point because, you know, what you're talking about is pressure that was on President Biden to not necessarily embrace a stronger border enforcement message that maybe some folks think he should have.

But I guess it feels related to the question of what is Democrats' own affirmative position on immigration.

You know, part of the premise of this show is kind of to try to take Donald Trump out the center.

And if we do that and think about that specific to immigration, I wanted to ask you, like,

What do Democrats stand for when it comes to immigration reform, besides just Donald Trump is bad?

Half of all Americans wanted to abolish ICE, according to a recent poll I just saw.

You called that position ridiculous.

I wanted to know why.

I wanted to ask two questions that we got from reporters we talked to in advance of this interview.

We talked to Caitlin Dickerson, immigration reporter at The Atlantic, and she pointed out how some Senate Democrats, including yourself, supported the Lake and Riley Act in 2025, which gave ICE new powers to keep people in detention.

I guess that thinking about your kind of message of reforming ICE now, did some Democrats like yourself supporting Lake and Riley help empower the same out-of-control ICE we see right now?

We also talked to an Arizona reporter locally ahead of today.

And one of the things that came up in that conversation, she was talking about community pushback against data centers, that the construction of data centers has caused some organizing efforts and caused some resentment against some more establishment politicians who've supported them.

You've called data centers a, quote, necessary evil.

I guess my question is, why are they necessary?

And so we need to give- Particularly in a state with water shortages, things like that.