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>> what do you think the border needs, given what you see happening at the border now in terms of the humanitarian crisis and the reality of what's happening at the border? what would you suggest the border needs? >> you know, lawrence, 18 years ago when you had 1.5 million people crossing that border, there were definitely areas where you needed -- you know, individuals infiltrate the border and try to evade capture and get into the united states. you saw the central american families who come up, mothers with their children seeking asylum in the united states. we're not adequately resourced ...

Even better, all of this preoccupation and consternation and fear, so much of it founded in paranoia, and perhaps the purposeful anxiety that the president seeks to stoke and instill. i think all that would melt. >> yes. >> away. you just have to be here, see it, believe it. >> ron klain, the president talked about people having walls around their private homes. there's beto o'rourke in el paso with someone whose home is literally on the border and he doesn't need a wall. >> no, look, i kind of wonder where the real trump was tonight because i think that was, like, the anamatronic robot from d...

On jesus who used city on a hill. he talked about how the city, if it had to have walls, there had to be doors in those walls and had to always be open to all the pilgrims from all the lost places who had been hurdling through the darkness toward home. and that's the kind of rhetoric we tend to expect to hear from the epicenter of power. we didn't hear that tonight. >> let's listen to what another democrat said tonight after the president's speech. this is beto o'rourke in el paso, texas, where he's lived his whole life at the border. this is beto o'rourke's, in effect, video response to the p...

Joining our discussion now is john sandweg, former acting director of immigration and customs enforcement under president obama. john, i want to get your reaction to what the president said tonight, especially what he said about the criminal element at the southern border. >> well, obviously, a lot to cover here. i think the president, unfortunately, engaged in a number of real distortions about what's going on at our southern border. our border's never been more secure. you know, just 15 years ago, we had over a million people being arrested with only 5,000 border patrol agents there to stop ...

That has nothing to do with the southern border. >> well, that's exactly right. and congress on a bipartisan basis has passed some legislation to try to expand treatment for it, but we've also, and ironically, in the homeland security bill that the president is nowll holding up, there are additional funds to screen for drugs that are coming across the t border. as you say, a lot of the opioid addiction crisis is a totally homegrown crisis, but to the extent we have a problem with drugs coming across the border, they're coming across the ports of entry and we have provided additional funds in t...