New York [US], December 9: President-elect Trump made the statement in an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker on December 8. This is Trump's first major interview since winning the 2024 US presidential election.
Plan to deport illegal immigrants
Accordingly, Mr. Trump said he would deport illegal immigrants, with the first group being those with criminal records, then other groups and subsequent assessments.
With the Dreamer group - children brought to the US illegally at a young age, Mr. Trump showed a more open policy when he said that many of them had grown up and succeeded in the US. He said he would work with the Democratic Party more on related plans.
Regarding the group of families with both illegal immigrants and legal children, Mr. Trump was asked about his plan to separate them.
"I don't want to separate families. So the only way you don't separate families is you have to keep them together and you have to bring them all back together," Mr. Trump emphasized in the interview.
Ms. Welker also asked about Mr. Trump's zero-tolerance policy during his first term, which separated families at the border as a deterrent to those who chose to enter illegally . Mr. Trump eventually ended the policy.
"We don't have to separate families. We're sending entire families back to the countries they came from in a very humane way," Trump replied.
"So no more family separation? Aren't you going to reinstate that zero tolerance policy?" Ms. Welker asked.
"It depends on the family. If they came here illegally but their family is here legally, then the family has a choice. The illegal immigrants can leave, or they can all leave together," Mr. Trump replied.
President-elect Trump also said he would act to end birthright citizenship , which has long been enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Mr Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship is likely to face legal challenges.
Mr. Trump said that birthright citizenship is a unique right of the United States. Meanwhile, NBC cited an assessment by the US Library of Congress that said there are more than 30 countries that offer birthright citizenship, including Canada and Brazil.
Inaugural speech revealed
Also in the interview, President-elect Trump said his inaugural speech next month will focus on unity and reveal his message to Americans who did not support him on the November 5 election.
"I'm going to treat you as well as I treated the greatest MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters... We're going to treat everybody well. We want the country to succeed, we want the country to be safe," President-elect Trump emphasized.
Mr Trump stressed reducing crime and said the US was "under threat". Mr Trump also stressed that he wanted to improve the country's reputation. "I want to treat everybody the same. I want to treat them well," Mr Trump added.
"I think tariff is the nicest word"
Additionally, when asked by Ms. Welker: "Can you guarantee that American families will not have to pay more?", Mr. Trump replied: "I can't guarantee anything. I can't guarantee tomorrow."
"But I can say that if you look at - right before Covid-19, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. And I put a lot of tariffs on a lot of different countries, but especially China. We took in hundreds of billions of dollars and there was no inflation," Trump continued.
"I think tariffs is the best word... It's going to make us rich. We're subsidizing Canada to the tune of over $100 billion a year. We're subsidizing Mexico to the tune of almost $300 billion. We shouldn't be - why are we subsidizing these countries? If we're going to subsidize them, let them become a state. We're subsidizing Mexico and we're subsidizing Canada and we're subsidizing many countries around the world . And all I want to do is I want a level playing field, fast but fair," Trump stressed.
There is currently no information on the reaction of China, Canada and Mexico to Mr. Trump's statement.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
