Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) used a Thursday night television appearance to argue that the Trump administration’s hostility toward immigrants runs alongside a narrow exception — and that Elon Musk illustrates the contradiction.
Speaking on MS NOW’s “The Last Word,” Raskin said the administration “has denounced immigrants and reviles immigrants and so on,” then turned the focus to Musk, describing him as “an immigrant who came in, who never really inhaled the real values of our country,” according to a clip flagged by Breitbart News.
Raskin’s remarks, addressed to host Lawrence O’Donnell, moved quickly from the billionaire’s immigration status to the administration’s asylum policy. He said the asylum system has been redesigned around people like Musk, arguing the goal is to admit “white Afrikaners, who are basically unreconstructed racists” — a characterization he presented as the practical outcome of the current rules. He said those are “the only people getting in under asylum,” and that the arrangement is “obviously inspired by Elon Musk.”
A charge aimed at the administration, not just the billionaire
The Maryland Democrat’s central claim was less about Musk’s business dealings than about what he described as a mismatch between the president’s rhetoric and his allies. Raskin said Musk has “got no real interest in the values of our country, in equal protection and due process and the First Amendment and representative government,” and added that the Tesla and SpaceX chief “said that” himself.
He also tied the critique to Musk’s long-stated ambition to settle humans on Mars, suggesting the administration’s circle is more focused on founding a new society elsewhere than on the constitutional order at home. “These people, they want to go to Mars — I’m starting to think he was born on Mars — but they want to establish a new civilization somewhere else,” Raskin said.
The interview was broadcast on MS NOW, the network formerly known as MSNBC, during its 10 p.m. hour. Breitbart News published a transcript of the segment on its Clips page.
Immigration remains the fault line
Raskin’s comments land in the middle of a sustained fight over immigration policy, an issue that has driven much of the political combat since the start of the administration’s second term. The congressman, a frequent critic of the White House and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has repeatedly challenged administration officials over immigration enforcement and the treatment of migrant communities.
His argument Thursday folded two threads together: that the administration demonizes immigrants broadly, and that it maintains a selective exception for a group it views favorably. By naming Musk as the animating figure behind that exception, Raskin appeared to be trying to turn one of the president’s most prominent supporters into a symbol of what he sees as the policy’s underlying prejudice.
Whether that framing gains traction beyond a late-night cable audience is another matter. Musk, who was born in South Africa and became a U.S. citizen, has been a central figure in the administration’s orbit, and criticism of him has become a staple of Democratic messaging. Raskin’s remarks were notable for tying that criticism directly to asylum policy rather than to the tech industry or federal contracting.
The White House has not commented publicly on Raskin’s characterization of its asylum rules as described in the segment.
What was said, and what wasn’t
Raskin did not offer data or cite specific figures to support his assertion that Afrikaners are the only group being admitted through asylum, and the clip does not include any administration response. His language was emphatic — “basically unreconstructed racists” — and he framed the entire arrangement as a deliberate design choice rather than an unintended consequence.
The congressman’s broader point was that the values he associates with the American project — equal protection, due process, free speech, representative government — are being sidelined by people who, in his view, never absorbed them. He applied that critique to Musk personally and to the administration collectively, suggesting the two are inseparable.
The segment adds to a growing file of Democratic officials using television interviews to press the immigration argument ahead of what is expected to be a difficult midterm cycle. For Raskin, a lawyer by training and a leading voice on constitutional questions in his party, the appeal to founding principles is a familiar register — one he deployed here against both the administration and its most visible immigrant ally.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026/10/22/raskin-musk-an-immigrant-who-never-really-inhaled-the-real-values-of-u-s-trump-admin-reviles-immigrants/