On the August 23 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, MSNBC political analyst and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan asserted that “the Mexican government is interested in basically the reconquista of the American Southwest.” Later, on the August 23 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, in a discussion of illegal immigration with host Bill O'Reilly, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin said that the idea of reconquista is “mainstream” among immigrants. O'Reilly disagreed, instead describing illegal immigration as “an economic scam” in which “Mexico's exporting its poverty and education problem here.”

This was Buchanan's third appearance on NBC or an NBC-owned cable channel in two days to promote his new book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America (Thomas Dunne Books), which, as Media Matters noted, asserts that “Mexican agents” are seeking “to take back through demography and culture what their ancestors lost through war.” Buchanan also appeared on the August 23 edition of CNBC's Kudlow & Company, as well as on the August 22 edition of NBC's Today.

As Media Matters for America has noted, reconquista is a term associated with El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the founding document of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, or MEChA), a group with affiliates at numerous college campuses and several high schools that claims to work toward “improving the social and political situation of the Chicano/Latino community.” Critics claim that El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán outlines a plan of recapturing the southwestern United States for Mexico. But Aztlan and reconquista are concepts promoted by “white supremacists and neo-Nazis” more than by Mexicans or Mexican-Americans, according to a March 30 column by Alex Koppelman, a columnist for Drexel University's biweekly online magazine, Dragonfire.

During his appearance on Tucker, Buchanan also declared that in the interests of “diversity and multiculturalism,” schools are “not allowed” to teach “English and American literature from the first grade or kindergarten on,” because that is now considered “cultural genocide.” After being challenged by host Tucker Carlson, Buchanan contradicted himself, saying that “we are allowed to do it.”

Malkin similarly accused the Mexican government of seeking to regain the American Southwest during her appearance on The O'Reilly Factor. Asked by host Bill O'Reilly whether “this massive immigration to the United States, 15 million strong, is a part of a plan to bring back territory to Mexico,” Malkin replied that “I take the Mexican government at its word when it says that is exactly its plan,” referring to Mexican “lobbyists” “blurring the lines between illegal and legal immigration.” Malkin disagreed with O'Reilly's claim that only “a fringe, nutty group” among all immigrants had an “undercurrent of militancy” and vowed to take back land lost by Mexico in the Mexican-American War through “illegal immigration.” Malkin asserted that “we saw in April and May of this year that supposed fringe come out into the mainstream.” O'Reilly argued instead that Mexico is “exporting its poverty and education problem here” as part of “an economic scam.”

Malkin previously discussed the reconquista, or the theory that “the American Southwest belongs to Mexico,” on the March 30 edition of the O'Reilly Factor, as Media Matters noted.

From the August 23 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

MALKIN: Well, I mean, there are distinctions that you have to make between Cuban-Americans and a lot of the Mexican-Americans and people who came to Los Angeles across the border illegally. I mean, one thing is that, you know, if you're in the Southwest, people go back and forth and pay no mind to the distinction between our countries. They see North America as a some sort of, you know, borderless region --

O'REILLY: But do you think most -- do you think most --

MALKIN: -- and they have no appreciation for this country. And I think that Cuban-Americans are very different in spirit and character.

O'REILLY: They are. Every ethnic group is going to be -- I don't think most Mexican-Americans want to go back to Mexico. And I'm not sure about the illegal aliens. I don't know what they want to do. But most legal Mexican-Americans, they don't want to go back to Mexico. Because they could if they could -- they could if they wanted. So I know that there's an undercurrent of militancy that says, “Hey, this is our territory. You stole it from us in the Mexican-American War. We're going to take it back now by illegal immigration.” But I think that's a fringe, nutty group, not the mass of millions that we have.

MALKIN: Well, I guess I disagree with you there, Bill, because I mean, we saw in April and May of this year that supposed fringe come out into the mainstream. And it wasn't just a dozen folks who are ensconced in the ivory tower who believe that the Southwest is Aztlan and it belongs to them. You had people from Wisconsin, to Phoenix, to California, to Seattle carrying those signs saying that by sheer demographic force, they have reclaimed Los Angeles. They reclaimed Phoenix.

O'REILLY: So you agree with Buchanan, then. You think that this massive immigration to the United States, 15 million strong, is a part of a plan to bring back territory to Mexico?

MALKIN: Well, I take the Mexican government at its word when it says that is exactly its plan. If you look at the Mexican consulates that are active, political lobbyists who have entrenched themselves in the American mainstream and who have succeeded in blurring the lines between illegal and legal immigration, yes, there's a plan. And look -- and here --

O'REILLY: Well, I think that's done for economic reasons. I think Mexico's exporting its poverty and education problem here --

MALKIN: Well --

O'REILLY: -- and benefiting from the dollars going back. I think it's an economic scam.

From the August 23 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:

BUCHANAN: America's going to be inundated -- we'll be the first country -- Western country to be predominantly third world in national origins. And the problem is, the newcomers are not assimilating as the Irish did, the Germans did, the Jewish folks did, the Polish folks did --

CARLSON: No, they're not. But why couldn't they? I mean, why -- look, it seems -- I mean, let's be totally real here. We're not going to stop this because vested interests have a stake in it, Democrats and Republicans. They want illegal immigration. So there's nothing we can do, apart from hope that these are people who can be assimilated. Why can't we start trying now to make these newcomers to our country Americans?

BUCHANAN: Because the same people that want the illegal immigration are opposed to assimilation. Right now, we live in the age of diversity and multiculturalism, where the idea of taking kids and dipping them into English and American literature from the first grade or kindergarten on, the way they used to do in America, that's cultural genocide, Tucker. You're not allowed to do that anymore. And the folks coming from Mexico, for example --

CARLSON: Well, you're not allowed to teach immigrants to our country our language and our literature? It's our country. I mean, on what grounds aren't you allowed to do that? That makes me red in the face just thinking about it.

BUCHANAN: Well, we are allowed -- we are allowed to do it, but take a look at the people who are educating the children in this country. Secondly, the folks who are coming, particularly Mexican folks who are coming simply to work, they're loyal Mexicans. They want to keep their language, they want to keep their culture, they want to keep their music, they want to keep their identity as Mexicans, they want to keep their loyalty to Mexico, and the Mexican government wants them to stay loyal to Mexico. They are moving people from another nation into the United States. This is not Ellis Island. These folks aren't coming here and kissing the ground and saying, “Thank God I'm an American” or “I'm going to be one, and my kids are certainly going to be Americans.”

These folks, they march under Mexican flags, they boo American teams at soccer games. They are militant, and they have no interest, many of them, in becoming American. And frankly, the Mexican government is interested in, basically, the reconquista of the American Southwest. Not militarily -- culturally, ethnically, linguistically. And it's happening, Tucker.