Saagar Enjjeti was a liar at The Daily Caller

Saagar Enjeti is the conservative co-host of the Youtube show, Rising, whose central premise is that left- and right-populism share common ideals. Many progressives have questioned this premise, and whether right-populism is even legitimate. But these may be the wrong questions to consider about the show.

To the contrary, Enjeti’s record as a journalist should prevent anyone from taking him seriously. A single straight-news article that he wrote for The Daily Caller makes this clear enough.

In the article (published in January of 2018), Enjeti reported on a Harvard-Harris poll, and claimed that most Americans agree with President Trump on DACA (The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which began under President Obama). He also claimed that most Americans only support DACA under certain conditions. Both of these notions directly contradict the poll that Enjeti reported on.

Enjeti used this striking headline in his article: “Poll: Majority Of Americans Agree with Trump on DACA, immigration.”

Such a polling result would have been newsworthy if it were true. DACA has always been extremely popular. But Trump acted to end DACA mere months before Enjeti wrote the article. The headline thus suggested that most Americans opposed DACA.

Overwhelmingly, they do not. A full 77% indicated that they supported DACA. Here is the Harvard-Harris question about DACA:

“Do you think that children who were brought into this country illegally by their parents, many of whom are now in their 20s and 30s, should be given a path to U.S. citizenship or should not be entitled to a path to citizenship without first returning home?”*

Perhaps Enjeti acted carelessly, and simply did not read this polling question. If so, his notion that Americans agreed with Trump on DACA was still pure fantasy. Trump’s position has always been that DACA should either not exist, or only exist in exchange for other policies.

Only in Enjeti’s imagination did most Americans agree with Trump on DACA. Yet Enjeti explicitly claimed that they did. He wrote,

“The poll, weighted to be broadly representative of the U.S. population, found that 65% of voters overall agreed with Trump’s position that any bill codifying Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children should be accompanied by funding for a wall, ending chain migration, and ending the diversity visa lottery program” [my emphases in bold].

In fact, the poll merely indicated that most Americans would have agreed to a deal to extend DACA in exchange for implementing a merit-based citizenship program, ending a visa diversity lottery, and “funding barrier security” on the Mexican border. It read,

“Would you favor or oppose a congressional deal that gives undocumented immigrants brought here by their parents work permits and a path to citizenship in exchange for increasing merit preference over preference for relatives, eliminating the diversity visa lottery, and funding barrier security on the U.S.-Mexico border?” [my emphasis in bold].

The difference is stark and damning: An overwhelming 77% of Americans supported DACA outright, while only 65% of Americans supported Trump’s deal to extend DACA. DACA itself was far more popular than the deal. Yet Enjeti claimed that Americans would only support DACA under the deal.

Enjeti could hardly have been more wrong. And given that he lacked any warrant to deny that a no-strings-attached DACA was popular (which it has always been), his lying must have been intentional.

This is comical, given that he is viewed across the political spectrum as an intellectual leader of an important and burgeoning political movement (right-populism). Beyond Rising, he also co-hosts a high-brow-seeming podcast called The Realignment, has written for The National Review , and holds an MA degree — all despite being under 30. Some might view him as one of the U.S.’s leading conservative intellectuals — as long as they don’t read his work.

For its part, the office of the world’s most powerful human read Enjeti’s disastrous article, never fact-checked it, and published it on its website, where it continues to deceive people today.

It is not as if Enjeti regrets the work that he did at The Daily Caller. He remains friends with Tucker Carlson (who founded The Daily Caller), and has used his unearned position as a serious intellectual to bolster Carlson. In turn, progressives who should know better take Enjeti and Carlson seriously.

Yes, we all do things that we regret. But to lie about a poll, as Enjeti did, and never issue a correction after doing so (much less an apology), even after the Trump Administration amplifies the lie to the whole country, is inexcusable. It contradicts the risible, yet widely believed notion that Enjeti is an ideologue with integrity. Phony populist or not, he is a damned liar, and progressives should have nothing to do with him.

*This policy would actually go further than DACA, which would protect the childhood arrivals, but not guarantee a path to citizenship.