For certain areas a wall is more appropriate
In a “60 Minutes” interview scheduled to air Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to immediately deport two to three million undocumented immigrants after his inauguration next January.
“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump told 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, according to a preview of the interview released by CBS. “But we’re getting them out of our country. They’re here illegally.”
Stahl had pressed Trump about his campaign pledge to deport “millions and millions of undocumented immigrants.” Trump told her that after securing the border, his administration would make a “determination” on the remaining undocumented immigrants in the country.
“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about — who are terrific people. They’re terrific people, but we are gonna make a determination at that,” Trump said. “But before we make that determination…it’s very important, we are going to secure our border.”
“Normalized.” As if anything about Trump were “normal.” Widespread, yes, but normal, no.
He’s scaring the other Republicans though.
Republican leaders who made the Sunday political-show circuit seemed to approach the issue of mass deportations more cautiously.
“I think it’s difficult to do,” Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday earlier Sunday morning. “First thing you have to do is secure the border and then we’ll have discussions.”
McCarthy also hedged on the border wall, saying Republicans were focused on “securing the southern border” but with the aid of technology rather than necessarily a full-length brick-and-mortar wall.
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Regarding his border wall plans, Trump told Stahl on 60 Minutes that he would accept fencing along some of the border, as Republicans in Congress have proposed.
“For certain areas, I would. But for certain areas a wall is more appropriate,” Trump said. “I’m very good at this. It’s called construction.”
Ah yes. He has experience at speculative building, therefore he is correct about where a wall is more appropriate. He knows about what kind of wall keeps out wind and dust and flies, and what kind keeps out foreigners.
He also said polite things about Clinton, which are not credible given all the things he said about her during the campaign. You can’t just cancel vicious name-calling by saying something polite later.
Trump’s tone in the interview was in sharp contrast to his bitter attacks on the campaign trail, in which he nicknamed Clinton “Crooked Hillary” and encouraged chants of “Lock her up!” at his rallies. Among other insults, Trump also referred to his competitor as “the devil,” “a bigot” and — at the tail end of the final presidential debate — “such a nasty woman.”
Then they talked about policy.
When Stahl questioned whether there would be a gap between the repeal of Obamacare and the implementation of a new plan that could leave millions of people uninsured, Trump interrupted her.
“Nope. We’re going to do it simultaneously. It’ll be just fine. It’s what I do. I do a good job. You know, I mean, I know how to do this stuff,” Trump said. “We’re going to repeal and replace it. And we’re not going to have, like, a two-day period and we’re not going to have a two-year period where there’s nothing. It will be repealed and replaced. I mean, you’ll know. And it will be great health care for much less money.”
No, he does not know how to do “this stuff.” Of course he doesn’t. He doesn’t know much of anything except how to extract money and/or labor and services from people. That is of course a big thing to know, and it’s made him rich and famous and president, but it’s still not at all the same as knowing how to make a new healthcare plan that will be “for much less money” while still actually being a healthcare plan. The only way to do it for much less money, of course, is to exclude millions of people from coverage.
To be fair Hillary is a nasty women. For proof you only need look at all the things she said about Donald – drawing attention to things he’s on audio/video/twitter/print as saying. Oh, wait…
I have my doubts that he even knows how to do this. I think there are people who surround him, who have attached themselves to him, that do these things for him. And they let him think he is doing it himself. They stroke his ego, tell him how smart he is, tell him he is doing these things, and keep him in the dark about how little he really knows.
I think part of the problem stems from the fact that no one has ever actually sat him down and said, “Donald, you know, whenever you do things, you really screw them up. We’ve taken charge of you, we’re keeping you out of trouble, now sit down and shut up because you have no clue what you’re doing.” Or something like that.
That’s because he says anything convenient to him at the time. It suited him to be an arsehole to her while she was the opponent, especially while she appeared to be winning, but now that thought has flown from his head because it was only ever said out of convenience in the first place. The overriding rule with what he says is clear: he has no actual values other than self-promotion, so he has no desire to be consistent with what he says. Everything is a matter of whim.
And so he says anything at all to get a crowd roaring his name, and then walks it back when it suits him to appear non-horrible. He brags about being the best! at [____] and needs no help with it when he wants to appear strong on a subject, he consults with people that are the best! at [____] when he wants to appear to be a team builder on that subject. Though even then, he brags about being the best! team builder and at knowing the best! poeple and building the best! teams, so I guess he has two constants: saying anything that is temporarily convenient, in a manner that involves bragging in some fashion.
Oh and he has a fucking useless vocabulary.
Actually, ‘the only way to do it for much less money’ is to adopt a similar health system to those of other developed nations. Most Western countries with ‘socialised’ medicine spend a lower proportion of their GDPs and with generally better outcomes than the US.
Yes, I forgot that part. A lot of the extra cost of course comes from the requirement to generate a profit.
Ophelia,
It’s one of those self-serving neoliberal fallacies that private enterprise is intrinsically superior or more efficient than public enterprise. Another factor that some social democrats fail to understand is that the neoliberal ideologues don’t really care about outcomes, health isn’t the government’s business as far as they’re concerned.
I don’t care if capitalists produce cars, ice cream or hamburgers, however health, education and prison administration are far too important to be animated by the profit motive.
RJW: I’d add military functions to that list. Starting under the Shrub, we had a lot of private contractors doing the military’s job. Much like privately run prisons, that leads to a handful of wealthy people with a direct financial incentive to encourage the worst possible policies.
Freemage,
Yes, indeed good pont. Nearly sixty years President Eisenhower warned Americans about the sinister influence of the ‘Military-Industrial Complex” on US foreign policy. He probably would have been appalled at the current situation.
[…] certain areas, I would. But for certain areas a wall is more appropriate,” Trump said. “I’m very good at this. It’s called […]