The 60 craziest lines from Donald Trump's Time interview
Whoa boy.
We all know who Donald Trump is. (If you don’t by this point, you are simply not paying attention.)
The question now, really, is what will he do. Polls suggest that he has no worse than a coin flip chance of being president again after the November election. And he is already making plans — lots of them — about what a 2nd Trump term would look like.
Trump sat for an extended interview with Time magazine earlier this month at Mar-a-Lago to lay out his vision. Time, thankfully, released the transcript. I went through it and pulled out the lines you need to see. They’re below.
This is a post for paid subscribers. If you aren’t one yet, you will be able to see a few lines of what Trump said before the pay wall. I believe this sort of work — excavating exactly what our politicians are saying — is critical to not just this election but our broader democracy.
If you are on the fence about becoming a paid subscriber, I hope this gets you off that fence. And, thank you.
“Twenty million people, many of them from jails, many of them from prisons, many of them from mental institutions.”
There is zero evidence that 20 million people have (or will) enter the U.S. illegally during Biden’s presidency. And, as I have said MANY times, the idea these people are coming from prisons and mental institutions is not born out by the facts either. And away we go!
“Because you see, Ike, but Dwight Eisenhower was very big on illegal immigration not coming into our country. And he did a massive deportation of people.”
Yes, it was called “Operation Wetback.” Not exactly a shining moment in our history.
“We will be using local law enforcement. And we will absolutely start with the criminals that are coming in. And they're coming in in numbers that we've never seen before.”
So Trump is going to use local law enforcement to round up criminals in the country illegally. How will he know they are criminals? Maybe by asking them??
“When we talk military, generally speaking, I talk National Guard. I've used the National Guard in Minneapolis. And if I didn't use it, I don't think you'd have Minneapolis standing right now, because it was really bad. But I think in terms of the National Guard.”
Trump confirms here that he will use the National Guard in his efforts to deport millions of people here illegally. Also, Trump didn’t call up the National Guard to deal with riots following the death of George Floyd. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz did that.
“You know, had Nancy Pelosi used the National Guard. You know, I offered them whatever they wanted.”
This is a very common Trump lie — that he ordered up the use of the National Guard on January 6 and Pelosi stopped it from happening. Just not true.
“I don't think I'd have to do that. I think the National Guard would be able to do that. If they weren't able to, then I’d use the military.”
In which Trump says he would use the military to deport people. Posse Comitatus Act anyone?
“I believe we have 15 million now. And I think you'll have 20 million by the time this ends. And that's bigger than almost every state.”
Again, per #1, there is no evidence this is true. Also, California has 39 million residents.
“Again, we have a major force that’s forming in our country, when you see that over the last three weeks, 29,000 people came in from China, and they're all fighting age, and they're mostly males.”
Trump is right that the number of Chinese citizens illegally entering the U.S. has soared of late. As for them being male and of fighting age, that’s much harder to say.
“No, I would not rule out anything. But there wouldn't be that much of a need for them, because of the fact that we're going to be moving them out.”
The question? Will you be building new migrant detention camps.
“Well, there's a possibility that some won't want to participate, and they won't partake in the riches, you know.”
Trump was asked what if local law enforcement doesn’t want to participate in the mass rounding-up of undocumented immigrants. Well then they miss out on the “riches,” whatever the heck that means!
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