John J. Mearsheimer

I think immigration is what made the United States great.

If you go back and read about what happened in this country,

You know, after we got our independence in 1783, and certainly in the 19th and early 20th century, all the immigration is what turned us into the superpower that we are today.

Yeah, I don't doubt it.

Immigration's a good thing, but it has to be done in a very careful way.

Well, sex is a good thing.

I think that illegal immigration is an absolutely terrible thing, and I think it's damaged many Americans' views towards immigration in general.

Number one.

And number two, although I'm in favor of immigration, I do think if you come to the United States, you become an American, and only an American.

You give up your German citizenship or your Russian citizenship or whatever.

I'm sorry, I can't help bring that up.

Here's a guy who is fully in favor of using the American military to fight wars on Israel's behalf.

But when it came time for him to serve in the military, he served in the Israeli military, not the American military.

Something deeply wrong about this.

It's sick.

and of course he is the editor of one of the most influential magazines in the united states where he's in a position where he can control the content of that magazine in ways that support israel and you can rest assured that anybody who criticizes israel in a meaningful way is uh not going to appear on the pages of the atlantic how have you been treated in the atlantic

Well, there is the period before Jeffrey Goldberg and since Jeffrey Goldberg.

I certainly have not appeared in the pages of The Atlantic since Jeffrey Goldberg.

But beforehand, you want to remember, as I think you do, that...

Our lobby piece, the piece that Steve Walton and I wrote on the Israel lobby, which appeared in 2006 in the London Review of Books, was originally supposed to appear in the Atlantic Monthly, but it did not because the Atlantic got cold feet and refused to publish it.