President-elect Donald Trump vowed to end automatic citizenship for anyone who’s born in the United States, starting on his first day back in office next month. “It needs to end. It’s ridiculous,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press in his first broadcast network interview since he won the elections.
Attempts to do so would also face significant hurdles, especially since it is enshrined in the United States Constitution. In the latest wide-ranging interview recorded on Friday, Trump also stated he plans to pardon all those involved in the 2021 Capitol riot, and promised to issue “plenty” of executive orders on day one, including things related to the economy, energy, as well as immigration.
More so, the Republican reiterated his mass deportation plans for undocumented immigrants who are currently living in the United States, but still offered to work with Democrats to help those who arrived as children.
Even if he suggested he wouldn’t seek a justice department investigation into Joe Biden after he becomes the next president on 20 January, he also said that some of his political adversaries, including lawmakers who investigated the Capitol riot, should be definitely jailed.
Then, Trump was asked whether he would seek to pardon the hundreds of people convicted of involvement in that riot, especially when his supporters stormed the Congress three months after his defeat in the 2020 election. “We will carefully look at independent cases, but I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day.”
Then, he continued by saying that those people have been “in there” for years and that they live in a “disgusting and filthy place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
Then, the president-elect made other news in the NBC interview recently aired. He “spilled the tea” on whether or not he would keep the United States in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), explaining that if the countries involved in the treaty are willing to pay their bills and if he thinks they are treating America fairly, then he is willing to stay in NATO.
As far as the subject of abortion pills is concerned, he stated he doesn’t intend to impose restrictions on them. However, when asked if he is willing to guarantee that, he explained that sometimes things change.
As far as the war in Ukraine is concerned, the Republican stated that is more than fair for Ukraine to expect less aid as soon as he returns to the White House.
But then again, what really interests him is far from that. According to one of his recent statements, “somebody needs to find out” if there is any link between childhood vaccines and autism. Initially, the idea has been ruled out by multiple studies from all over the world.
Trump even suggested his nominee for health secretary, which is the one and only vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is responsible for looking into the matter.
The president-elect repeated plenty of times the promise he has made not to cut Social Security, nor to touch its eligibility age, even if he said he plans to make it “more efficient”, without offering any kind of details whatsoever.
Asked if he wants to impose hard tariffs on imports from major US trading partners that would raise consumer prices for Americans, he stated that “he can’t guarantee anything, he can’t even guarantee tomorrow.”
As far as immigration goes, Trump told NBC he would also seek through executive action to put an end to the so-called birthright citizenship, which basically entitles anyone who is born in the United States to an American passport, even if their parents were born in a different side of the world.
Birthright citizenship stems from the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which basically says that “all persons born” in the U.S. “are citizens of the United States.” Even if he vowed to end this practice, so far all the attempts to do so would have to go through significant legal hurdles, and any executive order attempting to do so would most likely be overturned in court.
Moreover, the bar to amend the Constitution is very high, and it requires the approval of two-thirds of Congress, in both the House and Senate. It also has to be ratified by three-fourths of states.
In one of his most recent interviews, Trump stated he would need to follow through on his campaign pledge to efficiently deport undocumented immigrants, which can also include those with family members who are US citizens. “I don’t wish to break up families, so the only way you don’t break up a family is if you keep them together and send them all back.”
Moreover, he stated that he wants to work with Congress and help the “Dreamers,” which are the undocumented immigrants who were once shielded under an Obama-era program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that Trump wants to terminate.
“I plan to work with the Democrats on a plan,” he stated, adding that some of these immigrants were able to find good jobs and start their businesses. Trump also seemed to offer mixed signals on whether he would follow through on his vows to seek revenge against political adversaries. Outgoing US President Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon to his criminally convicted son, Hunter. The Democrat is now reported to consider other blanket pardons for various political allies before he leaves office next month.
Trump seems not to seek any kind of special counsel investigation into Biden and his family, as he once promised. “I don’t want to look back into the past. I just want to make our country successful. Retribution will come through success.”
However, he did say that members of the now-defunct, Democratic-led House of Representatives committee that investigated him should definitely go to jail. Moreover, one member of the panel, former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, decided to hit back at Trump on Sunday.
She expressed that his comment on how certain members of the committee should be jailed was nothing but a “continuation of his assault on the rules of law and the foundation of this republic.”
In one of his NBC interviews, Trump said he wouldn’t direct the FBI to pursue investigations against any of his foes. However, he did tell the network that if they were to be crooked, and did something wrong, then things would change. “They went after me. And I did nothing wrong.”
Trump’s jab at Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime-Minister
US President-elect Donald Trump decided to take a light jab at his Canadian counterpart on Tuesday, referring to Justin Trudeau as the ‘governor’ of the “Great State of Canada.” He made reference to a dinner the pair had in late November at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
There, Prime Minister Trudeau traveled for a meeting with Trump, following the ladder’s threat to impose a blanket 25% tariff on Canadian goods when he takes office in January. Canada, a country of 40 million people, is by far one of America’s largest trading partners. It sends around 75% of its total exports to the United States. The two countries also share a series of deeply integrated supply chains.
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