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Trump does not rule out building detention camps for mass deportations
By Tim Reid and Ted Hesson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump does not rule out building detention camps on U.S. soil for migrants in the country illegally if he wins a second White House term, he told Time magazine in an interview published on Tuesday.
Trump was asked whether he would build new detention camps as part of his campaign pledge to carry out the biggest deportation of migrants in the country illegally.
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"I would not rule out anything," Trump said. "But there wouldn't be that much of a need for them" because, he said, the plan is to deport migrants in the U.S. illegally back to their home countries as quickly as possible.
"We're not leaving them in the country," Trump said. "We're bringing them out."
Trump has made illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border a centerpiece of his campaign against President Joe Biden, a Democrat who is running for a second four-year term. Immigration is a top issue for voters, according to national opinion polls.
Trump said he would use National Guard troops to assist in his planned deportation efforts, but also did not rule out deploying active military forces to help.
"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," he said.
Trump was asked about the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a post- Civil War law that prohibits the deployment of the military against civilians.
"Well, these aren’t civilians. These are people that aren't legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country," Trump said.
Trump has used dehumanizing terminology to describe immigrants in the U.S. illegally, calling them "animals" when talking about alleged criminal acts, and saying they are "poisoning the blood of our country," a phrase that has drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing Nazi rhetoric.
In his campaign speeches, Trump rails against the prosecutors who have brought the four criminal cases he currently faces, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Georgia's Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis.
Asked if he would instruct his attorney general in a future Trump administration to prosecute Bragg and Willis, he said, "What they've done is a terrible thing," but "no, I don't want to do that."
Trump was also asked about an interview he gave last year when he said he would want to be a dictator for a day to close the southern border and expand domestic energy production.
Trump told Time: "That was said sarcastically. That was meant as a joke."
On Ukraine, Trump said if elected in November "I’m going to try and help Ukraine, but Europe has to get there also and do their job."
Trump has been unclear whether he would continue sending military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia if he becomes president.
Trump said a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians - a bedrock of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East - was probably no longer feasible.
"I'm not sure a two-state solution anymore is gonna work," Trump said. The animosity between Israelis and the Palestinians, was now so intense it makes a two-state solution "very, very tough."
Trump also said he "wouldn't feel good" about hiring anybody in a new administration who believed Biden won the 2020 election. Trump has never stopped making the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him because of fraud.
He said if he wins in November, he would serve one more term, "and then I'm gonna leave."
(Reporting by Tim Reid; additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; editing by Ross Colvin and Jonathan Oatis)
Trump sets out stark vision for second term in Time interview
AFP
April 30, 2024
Former US president Donald Trump: — © POOL/AFP Spencer Platt
Danny KEMP
Donald Trump set out a stark vision for an authoritarian second term in an interview with Time magazine published Tuesday, ranging from possible mass deportations of migrants by the US military and detention camps to pregnancy monitoring to enforce abortion bans.
The Republican former president, who will face Democrat incumbent Joe Biden in November’s election, also warned of a crackdown on the “enemy from within” if he secures a White House comeback and failed to rule out political violence if he does not.
Trump, 77, was in court in New York Tuesday for his porn star hush money trial. The interview took place at his Florida home in early April and then by telephone, giving an unusually detailed view of the policies that he normally only paints in broad strokes during campaign rallies.
“I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” Trump said in the interview when asked if he would be willing to suspend parts of the US Constitution to deal with opponents.
Former US President Donald Trump looks on in the courtroom, during his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs, in New York City, on April 29, 2024. Trump, 77, is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels just days ahead of the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton. – Copyright POOL/AFP Seth Wenig
On immigration, a potentially decisive issue in the 2024 election amid record numbers of people illegally crossing the southern US border with Mexico, Trump said he would have “no choice” but to launch mass deportations.
This would primarily involve the US National Guard “but if I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military,” Trump said.
“These aren’t civilians. These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion,” Trump told Time magazine when the interviewer pointed out that US laws prevent the military from being used against civilians on US soil.
Trump said he “would not rule out anything” on setting up migrant detention camps but believed they would not be necessary because his deportation program would be successful.
– Abortion bans –
On abortion, another hot-button election topic, Trump repeated his stance that he would leave the issue for the individual US states to decide whether to prosecute those who violate bans on the procedure.
Trump has claimed credit after the conservative-leaning US Supreme Court featuring three Trump-appointed judges overturned the federal right to abortion in 2022, prompting several Republican-led states to introduce full or partial bans.
Asked if states should monitor women’s pregnancies to see if they have had abortions in defiance of a ban, Trump replied: “I think they might do that.”
He would not commit to vetoing any attempt to introduce a nationwide US abortion ban.
Trump meanwhile refused to rule out the possibility of unrest if he loses in November. His supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn his election loss to Biden.
Trump said that “I think we’re going have a big victory and I think there will be no violence” — but when pushed, added that “if we don’t win, you know, it depends.”
The Republican, who was impeached over the January 6 unrest, also failed to rule out prosecuting Biden if he wins the election.
“Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes,” he added, without specifying them.
Matthew Chapman
April 30, 2024
Former U.S. President Donald Trump (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump came as close as he ever has to outright saying he would try to get President Joe Biden thrown in prison if he wins another term in office, in an interview released on Tuesday by TIME Magazine.
During the interview, Trump gave seemingly contradictory answers when asked about jailing Biden, although he did say he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate him.
"I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden," Trump said initially. "I have too much respect for the office."
The former president then shifted gears and vowed Biden would face charges if the Supreme Court didn't grant his demands for total immunity to break the law as president.
"If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity, then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes," Trump explained.
The Supreme Court ruling in question is set to come down after oral arguments in which the justices broadly appeared skeptical of the idea presidents enjoy universal immunity for anything done in office, but at least some appeared open to excluding some "official acts" from prosecution.
Biden has not been charged with any criminal offense. For months now, House Republicans have been running an impeachment investigation, looking for evidence that Biden took international bribes when he was serving as vice president, but have failed to unearth any compelling evidence of this and are quietly acknowledging the investigation is going nowhere.
Trump, however, is no stranger to casually demanding his opponents' imprisonment, going all the way back to when he whipped his supporters into chants of "Lock Her Up" against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, over her use of a personal server for government business which may have inadvertently retained some classified information. She was never found to have broken any law, although ironically, Trump himself is now being prosecuted for the unlawful retention of boxes of highly classified national defense information concealed at Mar-a-Lago.
More recently, in 2019, Trump found himself impeached over a scheme in which he tried to extort the president of Ukraine into announcing a criminal investigation into the Biden family, although he was not convicted in the Senate.
Brad Reed
April 30, 2024
Trump supporters rioting at the US Capitol. (Shutterstock.com)
In an interview with Time Magazine, former President Donald Trump wouldn't dismiss the prospect of violence by his supporters in the 2024 presidential election.
“If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” Trump said when asked about the prospect of political violence. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.”
Related to this, Trump also gave the magazine a menacing statement about the purported "fascists" that he blames for his criminal prosecutions.
"I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others," he stated.
After losing the 2020 election, Trump infamously refused to concede even after losing dozens of court cases challenging the results.
He then called on his supporters to come to Washington D.C. for what he promised would be a "wild" protest of the certification of the election, and then asked them to march to the United States Capitol building, where they violently clashed with police officers, broke into the Capitol, and sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives.
Trump remained silent on the riot for three hours despite pleas from his own family members before eventually calling on the rioters to go home.
The Capitol riot was far from the only instance of Trump-inspired violence during his political career.
In 2018, a Trump supporter named Cesar Sayoc send multiple pipe bombs to many of Trump's critics including former President Barack Obama and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
In 2022, Trump supporter Ricky Shiffer fired a nail gun at an FBI field office and tried to infiltrate the building before he was fatally shot by law-enforcement officials.
Instead of condemning violent actions by his supporters during the January 6th riots, Trump in recent months has lauded them as "patriots" who are being held as "hostages" by the federal government despite the fact that many of them were convicted of assaulting police officers.
Trump: 'There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country' that 'can't be allowed'
Brad Reed
April 30, 2024
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump thinks that white Americans are facing discrimination that he says "can't be allowed."
In an interview with Time Magazine, the former president was asked about polls showing that his supporters believe that "antiwhite racism" is now a greater problem than prejudice leveled against other minorities.
"There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country,” Trump replied in response. “And that can’t be allowed either.”
It's not clear what actions Trump would take to block this "antiwhite feeling in the country" although Time notes that Trump advisers say he will rescind all Biden administration executive orders related to boosting diversity and inclusion.
Trump has a long history of deploying racist dog whistles, starting with his failed quest to prove that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and was thus not eligible to be president.
In reality, Obama was born in Hawaii, as Trump himself finally acknowledged in 2016.
This continued throughout his first presidential campaign, when he argued that a judge could not fairly oversee the Trump University fraud case because of his "Mexican" heritage, and during his presidency, when he told four Democratic congresswomen of color to "go back" to their home countries even though all of them are American citizens.
In sweeping interview with Time, ex-president says he would prosecute Bidens and fire any US attorney who disobeyed him
Ed Pilkington
Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.
In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to how he would surveil pregnant women to enforce abortion laws.
Trump made the threat against the Biden family in an interview with Eric Cortellessa of Time, in which he shared the outlines of what the magazine called “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world”.
Trump made a direct connection between his threat to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens should he win re-election in November with the case currently before the supreme court over his own presidential immunity.
Asked whether he intends to “go after” the Bidens should he gain a second term in the White House, Trump replied: “It depends what happens with the supreme court.”
If the nine justices on the top court – three of whom were appointed by Trump – fail to award him immunity from prosecution, Trump said, “then Biden I am sure will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes”.
Trump and his Republican backers have long attempted to link Biden to criminal wrongdoing relating to the business affairs of his son Hunter Biden, without unearthing any substantial evidence. Last June, in remarks made at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump threatened to appoint a special prosecutor were he re-elected “to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family”.
Trump is currently in the thick of four active prosecutions himself, one of which is currently at trial in New York. He is accused of election interference in 2016 tied to hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
Last week, the supreme court heard oral arguments in Trump v US in which the former president made a case for broad immunity from prosecution for former presidents including himself. The justices appeared unlikely to grant his request in full, though they sounded willing to consider some degree of immunity for acts carried out as part of official presidential duties.
Several of Trump’s comments in the Time interview will ring alarm bells among those concerned with the former president’s increasingly totalitarian bent.
Trump’s remarks raise the specter that, were he granted a second presidential term, he would weaponize the justice department to seek revenge against the Democratic rival who defeated him in 2020.
Despite the violence that erupted on 6 January 2021 at the US Capitol after he refused to accept defeat in the 2020 election, which is the subject of one of two federal prosecutions he is fighting, Trump also declined to promise a peaceful transfer of power should he lose again in November.
Asked by Cortellessa whether there would be political violence should Trump fail to win, he replied: “If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
Pouring yet more gasoline onto the fire, Trump not only repeated his falsehood that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, but said he would be unlikely to appoint anyone to a second Trump administration who believed Biden had legitimately prevailed four years ago. “I wouldn’t feel good about it, because I think anybody that doesn’t see that that election was stolen – you look at the proof,” he said.
Overall, the interview conveys a picture of a second Trump presidency in which the occupant of the Oval Office would be determined to wield executive power unconstrained by any historical norms or respect for long-accepted boundaries.
His plans to dominate the Department of Justice would see him pardon most of the more than 800 people who have been convicted of rioting on January 6 and summarily fire any US attorney who disobeyed his instructions.
On abortion, he said that all decision-making power over reproductive rights had been handed to the states following the supreme court’s overturning of the right to a termination in Roe v Wade. He said he might contemplate Republican states putting pregnant women under surveillance to monitor whether they had abortions beyond the state’s designated ban.
“I think they might do that,” Trump said.
Some of his most fearsome policies for a possible Trump 47 presidency concern immigration. He told Time that one of his first priorities would be to initiative a mass deportation of millions of undocumented people.
To achieve that historically unprecedented goal, he would be prepared to deploy the US military and national guard to secure the border and to carry out massive sweeps of potential deportees. He said he would not rule out building new migrant detention camps to house those earmarked for removal, though most of the deportations would happen instantly.
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