It’s not often that hard facts get presented on ABC’s The View. And they when they do, there’s a good chance they’ll come from a guest. Much was the case on Monday when Dr. Phil McGraw stunned the cast and audience by talking about a conversation he had with Border Patrol in which the union leader admitted that the federal government had sent migrant kids to sex rings and sweatshops, following the names and phone numbers the kids were carrying. He also blew up their COVID hysteria by noting that kids shouldn’t have been kept out of schools.
Helping McGraw promote his new book We’ve Got Issues and his show Dr. Phil Primetime, staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) asked him about his recent trip to the U.S./Mexico border and what “facts” he brought back. “What did you take away from that experience and what kind of reporting are you going to be bringing back from that experience?” she wondered.
McGraw wasted no time in sharing the shocking conversation he said he had with the head of the Border Patrol union about what’s been allegedly happening to migrant kids in federal government custody (Click “expand”):
MCGRAW: I'll tell you a fact I took away. I talked to the head of all the border guards down there, the head of the union. I ask him straight up. Kids are coming over the border with numbers written on them, phone numbers and addresses. Do we check those out? He said, “Well, we call them.” Is it possible that we're sending them into known prostitution rings or sweatshops? He said, “It's not possible. It is absolute.” We are using American tax dollars to ship children into known prostitution and sweatshops.
HOSTIN: All children or some children?
MCGRAW: Well, who knows? We don't know. I said, are you --
ANA NAVARRO: So, what kind of checking do they do?
MCGRAW: They call the number and say, “Do you know about this child?” They say, “Yes.” “Will you receive them if they come?” “Yes.”
I said, “Is it possible that it is a prostitution ring?” He said, “We know enough to know that it -- in a number of cases, it has turned out to be absolute sex ring. It has turned out to be an absolute sweatshop.” I said, “How is this possible?” He said, “It's happening.”
“What do they do then if they know that that's happening? Where's the U.S. Attorney's office?” Hostin wanted to know. But before they could drill down, moderator Whoopi Goldberg said they had to go to a commercial. McGraw was able to follow up after the break.
He said the reason the Border Patrol wasn’t able to investigate those cases more thoroughly was because “It's a resource issue.” “They say that they’re so overwhelmed with processing that that's all they can do,” he explained. “They've become social workers and processors, and not investigators and border guards because they're just processing, processing, processing.”
Co-host Sara Haines pivoted to another issue harming children: social media. McGraw noted that with the proliferation of cell phones “we saw the biggest spike and the highest levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidality since records have ever been kept.”
He then condemned how “the same agencies that knew that are the same agencies that shut down the schools for two years” during the pandemic. “Who does that? Who takes away the support system for these children? Who takes it away and shuts it down?” he rhetorically asked. He also noted that government mandates left kids to be further victimized by abusive parents:
And by the way, when they shut it down, they stopped the mandated reporters from being able to see children that were being abused and sexually molested and, in fact, sent them home and abandoned them to their abusers with no way to watch. And referrals dropped 50 to 60 percent.
The truth triggered the liberal ladies; seeing as they swiftly jumped to defend the harmful policies:
HOSTIN: But there was also a pandemic going on and they were trying to save children’s lives.
GOLDBERG: They were trying to save kids' lives. Remember, we know a lot of folks who died during this. People weren’t lying around eating bonbons.
Faux-conservative co-host Ana Navarro tried to put words in McGraw’s mouth: “Are you saying no schoolchildren died of COVID?”
“I'm saying it was the safest group. They were the less vulnerable group, and they suffered and will suffer more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will from the exposure to COVID, and that's not an opinion that’s a fact,” he schooled her. Making the moment even sweeter was the fact that McGraw got applause from the liberal audience.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
February 26, 2024
11:40:24 a.m. Eastern(…)
SUNNY HOSTIN: My understanding is that you went to the southern border.
DR. PHIL MCGRAW: I did.
HOSTIN: Now, you're saying you're going to give people facts. What did you take away from that experience and what kind of reporting are you going to be bringing back from that experience?
MCGRAW: I'll tell you a fact I took away. I talked to the head of all the border guards down there, the head of the union. I ask him straight-up. Kids are coming over the border with numbers written on them, phone numbers and addresses. Do we check those out? He said, “Well, we call them.” Is it possible that we're sending them into known prostitution rings or sweatshops? He said, “It's not possible. It is absolute.” We are using American tax dollars to ship children into known prostitution and sweatshops.
HOSTIN: All children or some children?
MCGRAW: Well, who knows? We don't know. I said, are you --
ANA NAVARRO: So, what kind of checking do they do?
MCGRAW: They call the number and say, “do you know about this child?” They say, “yes.” “Will you receive them if they come?” “Yes.”
I said, “Is it possible that it is a prostitution ring?” He said, “We know enough to know that it -- in a number of cases, it has turned out to be absolute sex ring. It has turned out to be an absolute sweatshop.” I said, “How is this possible?” He said, “It's happening.”
HOSTIN: What do they do then if they know that that's happening? Where's the U.S. Attorney's office? Where’s the—
MCGRAW: Damn good question, isn't it.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Here’s the thing. You have to re-ask that question when we come back because we're coming back with more with Dr. Phil.
(…)
11:46:26 a.m. Eastern
HOSTIN: Yeah, and I don't mean to derail us, but you mentioned that there are children crossing the border with numbers and names. Many of them are -- those names belong to their family members, but you're saying -- and that's true, but some of them are sex trafficked. Some of them are sweatshop trafficked.
Why do you think the federal government is not involved? Why isn't the U.S. Attorney’s office involved? Is it a resource wish?
MCGRAW: It's a resource issue.
HOSTIN: And have they reached out to the Biden administration about that?
MCGRAW: Well, it's hard to know. They say that they’re so overwhelmed with processing that that's all they can do. They've become social workers and processors, and not investigators and border guards because they're just processing, processing, processing.
HOSTIN: Got it.
SARA HAINES: Well, Dr. Phil, I want to make sure we get to your new book which is We've Got Issues, and a lot you were referring to it in the last segment, how much has changed since you first got started in this. And one of the things is social media. So, you say, “you're not the only voice in your kids' ears so you have to be the best voice.” Explain that.
MCGRAW: Well, think about it. In, like, '08, '09, smartphones came on, and kids started -- they stopped living their lives and starting watching people live their lives. And so, we saw the biggest spike and the highest levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidality since records have ever been kept. And it's just continued on and on and on.
And then COVID hits ten years later, and the same agencies that knew that are the same agencies that shut down the schools for two years. Who does that? Who takes away the support system for these children? Who takes it away and shuts it down?
And by the way, when they shut it down, they stop the mandated reporters from being able to see children that were being abused and sexually molested and, in fact, sent them home and abandoned them to their abusers with no way to watch. And referrals dropped 50 to 60 percent. So.
HOSTIN: But there was also a pandemic going on and they were trying to save children’s lives.
GOLDBERG: They were trying to save kids' lives. Remember, we know a lot of folks who died during this. People weren’t laying around eating bonbons.
MCGRAW: Not school children.
GOLDBERG: Well, you know what, we're lucky. Maybe we're lucky they didn't, because they kept them out of the places that they could be safe because no one wanted to believe that we had an issue.
ANA NAVARRO: Are you saying no school children died of COVID?
MCGRAW: I'm saying it was the safest group. They were the less vulnerable group, and they suffered and will suffer more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will from the exposure to COVID, and that's not an opinion that’s a fact.
[Applause]
GOLDBERG: Well, Phil, we don't even have time to talk it out now, man, but thanks for coming.
