‘No One Is Saying That!’ Fox News’ Juan Williams and Trace Gallagher Throw Down in Contentious Border Crisis Segment

Fox News’s Trace Gallagher anchored a contentious segment about the southern border on Wednesday with political analyst Juan Williams and former Trump official Mercedes Schlapp.

The segment kicked with an introduction from Gallagher in which he played a clip of Arizona’s Governor-Elect, Katie Hobbs (D), saying that more resources and attention need be committed to the southern border and the migrants crossing into the U.S.

Gallagher asked Williams for his thoughts to begin.

“Well, I think that Senator Mark Kelly said yesterday, you know, Democrats need to do more and Katie Hobbs is repeating that theme. He also said Republicans need to stop beating up on this issue and resolve it, do something,” Williams replied.

“And that’s what you heard in the statement that you read Trace from Secretary Mayorkas, his office and the Department of Homeland Security. It’s not that anyone’s saying there’s not a problem. There’s a tremendous…” Williams added as Gallagher jumped in.

“Everybody’s saying that’s not a problem. That’s not a fair assessment. People are saying there’s not,” Gallagher interjected as Williams shot back, “That’s not true.”

“You have the DHS secretary going before Congress time and time and time again saying the border is secure. If that’s not saying there’s not a problem, I don’t know what is. And I just want to say one thing. Let me just say one thing,” Gallagher replied as Williams began to jump in.

“Wait, wait, wait. You are misinterpreting this Trace because the secretary is saying we have a record number of apprehensions right now. So obviously there’s border police, this customs force, they are doing their job. They are arresting people in record numbers Trace. The argument here has…” Williams continued as the two began talking over each other.

“I have been covering the border for 35 years. It was my first job in television and I know exactly the problem. It’s been going on for a long time,” Gallagher said.

“There you go!” interjected Williams as they cross talk continued.

“And Mercedes, I’ll let you jump in here, you know. But to say to say that people are not getting in this country in record numbers and they are and walking across the border and being stuffed into trucks that’s disingenuous,” Gallagher added as Williams jumped back in.

“That’s not what anyone is saying, oh my gosh, trace no one saying that. You know, that. What we’re saying is there’s a new there’s a new stream of people coming from Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela. There’s all new…” Williams replied as Gallagher cut him off.

“It doesn’t matter where they’re coming from on it’s the border itself which is unsecure. Go ahead, Mercedes,” Gallagher said.

“No, it’s fine. Trace, I think I’m going to become the moderator now. You’re doing such a great job,” Schlapp said, finally joining the conversation.

“But look, it’s not just a problem. It is a humanitarian crisis. We’re talking about human lives. And the mere fact is, is that we know that President Biden and the Democrats have done nothing to stop this border crisis,” Schlapp continued, adding:

Instead, it’s created a magnet. The policies that the Biden administration has put in place, the policies that they’ve taken away like ‘Remain in Mexico,’ for example, where they, in essence, are calling folks to come into the country. That has created record number of individuals coming into the country where there is catch and release and people are being able to go into the interior of this nation without any sort of control.

Stopped by the Democrats. This border security issue should be a bipartisan issue. And sadly, the Democrats have failed to protect our borders.

“I just want to put these numbers up,” Gallagher jumped in as the cross-talk between the three continued.

“Exactly to your point there. Look at these numbers. This is the encounters. You look at that 2 million plus encounters that got away. These are not even included in that. And then you look at the fentanyl drug seizures, roll over to the next one and you’ve got 14,000, 14.7 thousand pounds of fentanyl,” said Gallagher showing a graphic on the screen, he continued:

That’s enough to kill everyone in the country. That’s 30, 40% higher than last year. It is a major problem. And I’ll give you 10 seconds to wrap it up on and I hate to be be, you know, jumping your thing there, but the Republicans have said over and over again, we need to secure the border. We need to keep building the border wall.

We need to reinforce the number of Border Patrol agents down there. There had been solutions coming and Joe Biden has never been to the border and Kamala Harris has done zero down at the border. Your final thoughts?

“Well, I mean, what’s McCarthy doing down there? He’s really running to be speaker. He doesn’t have the votes. So he’s putting on performance, political art. He’s not solving anything. He’s not saying, ‘Yes, I have an idea.’ There were proposals and under Bush, under Trump, under Obama. And who blocked it? It was Republicans, you know, never…” Williams continued as Gallagher jumped in.

“Go ahead, Mercedes. 5 seconds,” Gallagher said as time was running out.

“I’m just going to say one thing. I was there during the Trump administration. We tried to work on various deals with the Democrats. They refused to come to the table. They don’t want to solve this border crisis,” Schlapp continued as Williams voiced his disagreement.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News