The Conversation (0)
Trump
Liam O'Dell
21m
US president Donald Trump’s latest interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes aired on Sunday, in which the president made an admission about his administration’s policy on deportations which has been met with some considerable scepticism online.
After the Democrats secured control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in last week’s midterm elections, the 80-year-old told interviewer Ross Douthat that he would “love” to work with the rival party on immigration policy.
He said: “I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A+ for closing up the border.
“I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out, but I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation or breaking of the law, that was that they came into the country illegally.
“Now, there is a large part of the country that think that they should be put out, and there’s a large part of the country that think they should be allowed to stay, if they’re good people working in a landscaping company or working in a hotel or doing something, right? And, in some cases, paying taxes, and there’s a large group of people think [sic] that they should be allowed to stay.”
As Douthat began to ask a follow-up question, Trump added: “I think it was too tough. I think it might be too tough, yeah.”
However, X/Twitter users have cast doubt on the president’s admission, given it came in the same week that White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller was promoted to chief of staff.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tweeted: “Trump says his immigration crackdown went too far. Apparently, his solution was to put the man responsible for it in charge of the White House. That’s not a course correction. That’s a promotion”:
Journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote: “On the one hand, Trump actually sounds semi-reasonable and open-minded here and admits his policy on deportations has been ‘too tough.’ On the other hand, he just promoted the far-right architect of that policy Stephen Miller to be his chief of staff. Let’s see what happens”:
“He admits this even though he just promoted the architect of those depraved policies to be his Chief of Staff,” commented MeidasTouch:
Jessica Tarlov, co-host of The Five on Fox News, said: “But you’re making the architect of the ‘too tough’ immigration policies your Chief of Staff?”:
“Trump: ‘My deportation policy was too tough.’ Also Trump, right after the midterms: appoints Stephen Miller, the architect of his deportation agenda, who actually believes the administration didn’t go far enough, as White House chief of staff. Make this make sense,” wrote Republicans against Trump:
It’s not the only moment from the 60 Minutes interview to be met with criticism online, as his response to a question about whether he would be able to avoid insulting Democrats in order to get deals done sparked a backlash, too.
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