If there was one dominant message of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, it was that his administration would engage in the largest mass-deportation program in recent U.S. history.
Now Trump’s party is hurting from bruising election losses earlier this month, and the air of invincibility his administration claimed in its first 10 months is getting rather drafty. Rather than mitigate the current cost of living crisis, his policies have exacerbated it. And his promises of a new industrial and manufacturing renaissance in the United States remain unfulfilled. Under increasing pressure on both fronts, Trump recently retreated — albeit minimally — from the maximalist, anti-immigrant posture that has been his stock in trade since his first campaign.
If this continues, and there’s no action to stop this abuse, you can expect people to lose their patience.”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham
But MAGA isn’t happy about Trump’s apostasy, and the ensuing backlash illustrates how he is increasingly unable to control his movement as tightly as he did during his second campaign and first months in office. For years, Trump has benefited from a symbiotic relationship with his hardcore supporters in right-wing media, allowing him to achieve narrative dominance that extends beyond conservative spaces. Now he’s showing signs of faltering; even Trump isn’t nativist enough for the top influencers on the right.
The current feud stems from Trump’s Tuesday interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, during which the president defended the H-1B visa program, which allows employers to sponsor foreign-born workers for some high-skilled jobs. To the MAGA faithful, Trump’s endorsement of some H-1Bs is akin to selling out all native-born workers to people they see as foreign-born replacements.
“If you want to raise wages for American workers, you can’t flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers,” Ingraham said, referring to H-1B visa holders.
“I agree, but you also have to bring this talent,” Trump responded.
“We have plenty of talented people,” Ingraham parried.
Trump replied, “No, you don’t.”
The reaction from MAGA was swift, and echoed previous attacks that right-wing media figures have leveled at the H-1B program.
“H-1Bs should be banned,” said podcaster Benny Johnson, who has enjoyed close access to the White House. “There should be no H-1Bs in America.”
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was similarly unequivocal. “This program is a scam,” Bannon said. “Total scam. It’s got to be gotten rid of.”
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh held the line as well. “I’d like to see the program abolished entirely,” he said.
The reaction on the right is particularly notable given that Trump already added a substantial hurdle to the H-1B program.
Ingraham and other figures on Fox News, regularly accused by MAGA die-hards of representing the corporatist wing of the Republican Party, also came out against H-1B visas — or at least acknowledged that Trump was out of step with his loudest supporters.
Fox News host Will Cain said that it’s “a little hard to stomach when we hear that we are not talented enough or that we’re not skilled enough for these jobs.” Trump’s openness to the H-1B program “does seem to run directly counter to what he, America First and everything he’s been standing for and everything his supporters believe he was elected to do,” said Fox contributor Gerry Baker.
Ingraham returned to the topic on Wednesday during an interview with the Center for Renewing America’s Ken Cuccinelli — an immigration restrictionist who has a history of criticizing Trump on the topic in general. Cuccinelli offered a limited defense of Trump, saying it is a “noble goal to bring in supertalented people” for highly specialized industries. But he claimed that historically H-1B visas “have been mass-scale, low-level, middle-class-displacing jobs, and it’s been very detrimental to America — that’s why the reaction, I think.” “If this continues, and there’s no action to stop this abuse, you can expect people to lose their patience,” Ingraham responded. As Huffington Post and The New Republic noted, the response on MAGA social media was similarly blistering. “Trump broke everyone’s heart with this line about the American workforce and H-1B’s,” wrote right-wing influencer Mike Cernovich. Steve Bannon ally Raheem Kassam reached for a more ethereal explanation. “Invasion of the body snatchers,” he posted in response to a clip of the interview. The New York Post’s Kevin Bass was more unsparing and overtly xenophobic. “Trump hates America and Americans,” Bass wrote, adding: “He wants to import the third world to take Americans’ jobs.” The reaction on the right is particularly notable given that Trump already added a substantial hurdle to the H-1B program, decreeing in September that employers would be forced to pay a $100,000 fee for new applicants entering the country. The pool of admitted applicants is also relatively small compared with the U.S. workforce writ large. The program caps the number of H-1B visas at 65,000 per year, with an additional 20,000 for professionals with graduate degrees (though some sectors receive exemptions). There are good-faith critiques of the H-1B program that take as a starting point that all workers, regardless of citizenship status, deserve dignity and safety on the job. But MAGA media sees foreign-born invaders taking American jobs — a position unsupported by the data, which suggests these workers stimulate economic activity and benefit native-born workers in the aggregate. The backlash to Trump suggests that on his signature issue — opposition to immigration — he has lost his grip on his base. The United States has a long history of nativism, and even Trump may not be able to control this latest spread.
John Knefel is a senior writer for rapid response at Media Matters for America, a progressive research center that monitors the U.S. media. 
