The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, has vowed to make good on his election promises of mass deportations and new tariffs in his first television interview since his re-election.
Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Trump reiterated his intention to deport every person who had entered the US without authorisation.
“I think you have to do it, and it’s a very tough thing to do, but you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally,” Trump said.
“You know, the people who have been treated unfairly are the people who have been waiting on line for 10 years to come into the country.”
Trump said he was willing to work with Democrats to keep so-called “Dreamers”– undocumented people who came to the US as children and have lived in the US most of their lives – in the country but also suggested that US citizens could be deported along with their undocumented family members.
“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” Trump said. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”
Trump also reiterated his intention to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
Amending the Constitution is a lengthy and difficult process involving Congress and all 50 states, but Trump said he was exploring options including an “executive action” to end what he called a “ridiculous” right.
“I’m looking to make our country great. I’m looking to bring down prices because I won on two things… I won on the border, and I won on groceries,” he said.
Trump said that while he “can’t guarantee” that his plan to impose tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico would not push up prices, tariffs would ultimately help the US economy.
“I’m a big believer in tariffs. Tariffs are beautiful. They’re going to make us rich,” he said.
“Why are we subsidising these countries? If we’re going to subsidise them, let them become a State.”
During the interview, Trump also discussed plans to pull back on US support for Ukraine and said Kyiv should “probably” prepare for less aid.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Washington has approved nearly $183bn in military, humanitarian and other assistance to Ukraine, according to US government data.
Outgoing President Joe Biden has pledged a further $988m in aid and an additional $925m before he leaves office on January 20.
The Republican said he was “actively” trying to end the war in Ukraine but would not confirm how recently he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has spoken about with admiration in the past.
“I don’t want to say anything that could impede the negotiation,” he said.
Trump said that the US would only remain in NATO if members “pay their bills” and if its majority European members “treat the US fairly” by expanding bilateral trade.
The president-elect also said that if he had remained in the White House after the 2020 election, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza would have never happened.
Trump and many of his supporters claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Biden and the Democrats.
Anger over the election results later led Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn the vote.
During his interview, Trump said he would consider pardoning the 944 people who received criminal sentences for their role in the uprising.
Among them, 562 had been sentenced to prison time as of August, according to the US Justice Department.
“I’m going to look at everything. We’ll look at individual cases, but I’m going to be acting very quickly… the first day,” Trump said.
“These people have been in prison three to four years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
Trump said that lawmakers who took part in a Congressional investigation into the events of January 6 should go to prison, although he stopped short of saying he would direct the FBI to investigate.
Trump also said he would not stop his chosen FBI director, Kash Patel, from investigating the so-called “deep state”.
“If they think that somebody was dishonest or crooked or a corrupt politician, I think he probably has an obligation to do so,” Trump said.
Trump sidestepped questions about whether he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, although he separately accused the outgoing president of weaponising the justice system against him.
“I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success,” Trump said.
The president-elect also said that if he had remained in the White House after the 2020 election, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza would have never happened.
Trump and many of his supporters claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Biden and the Democrats.
Anger over the election results later led Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn the vote.
During his interview, Trump said he would consider pardoning the 944 people who received criminal sentences for their role in the uprising.
Among them, 562 had been sentenced to prison time as of August, according to the US Justice Department.
“I’m going to look at everything. We’ll look at individual cases, but I’m going to be acting very quickly… the first day,” Trump said.
“These people have been in prison three to four years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
Trump said that lawmakers who took part in a Congressional investigation into the events of January 6 should go to prison, although he stopped short of saying he would direct the FBI to investigate.
Trump also said he would not stop his chosen FBI director, Kash Patel, from investigating the so-called “deep state”.
“If they think that somebody was dishonest or crooked or a corrupt politician, I think he probably has an obligation to do so,” Trump said.
Trump sidestepped questions about whether he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, although he separately accused the outgoing president of weaponising the justice system against him.
“I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success,” Trump said.
The Trump administration has been allowed to restart swift removals of migrants to countries other than their homelands very soon, following a divided Supreme Court order requiring that they get a chance to challenge the deportations.
All three liberal justices dissented from the order, and the high court majority did not detail its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket.
The ruling came after immigration officials put eight people on a plane to South Sudan in May, a decision which U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston found violated his court order giving people a chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent away from their home countries.
The migrants from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Cuba had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. and immigration officials have said that they were unable to return them quickly to their home countries.
After Murphy stepped in, authorities landed the plane at a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, where the migrants were housed in a converted shipping container and the officers guarding them faced rough conditions even as immigration attorneys waited for word from their clients.
The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.
Since some countries do not accept U.S. deportations, the administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house them. South Sudan, meanwhile, has endured repeated waves of violence since gaining independence in 2011.
Murphy’s order doesn’t prohibit deportations to third countries. But it says migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger of torture if sent to another country.
In a scathing 19-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court’s action exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death.”
“The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” she wrote in the dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The justices have confronted a similar issue in Trump’s effort to send Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador with little chance to challenge the deportations in court.
In that case, the court said migrants must get a “reasonable time” to file a court challenge before being removed, and the majority blocked the administration from resuming the deportations while lower courts worked out exactly how long they should get.
The conservative-majority court has sided with Trump in other immigration cases, however, clearing the way for his administration to end temporary legal protections affecting a total of nearly a million immigrants.
The third-country deportation case has been one of several legal flashpoints as the administration rails against judges whose rulings have slowed the president’s policies.
Another order from Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, resulted in the Trump administration returning a gay Guatemalan man who had been wrongly deported to Mexico, where he says he had been raped and extorted. The man, identified in court papers as O.C.G, was the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody after deportation since the start of Trump’s second term.
Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was diagnosed on Friday with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office said in a statement on Sunday.
The diagnosis came after Mr. Biden reported urinary symptoms, which led doctors to find a “small nodule” on his prostate. Mr. Biden’s cancer is “characterized by a Gleason score of 9” with “metastasis to the bone,” the statement said.
The Gleason score is used to describe how prostate cancers look under a microscope; 9 and 10 are the most aggressive. The cancer is Stage 4, which means it has spread.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” according to the statement from Mr. Biden’s office, which was unsigned. “The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
Mr. Biden, 82, left office in January as the oldest-serving president in American history. Throughout his presidency, Mr. Biden faced questions about his age and his health, ultimately leading him to abandon his re-election campaign under pressure from his own party.
Prostate cancer experts say that Mr. Biden’s diagnosis is serious, and that once the cancer has spread to the bones — where it tends to go — it cannot be cured. But Dr. Judd Moul, a prostate cancer expert at Duke University, said men whose prostate cancer has spread “can live five, seven, 10 or more years.”
The first line of attack is to cut off the testosterone that feeds prostate cancer. Dr. Moul said that when he started out as a urologist in the 1980s, this was done by removing a man’s testicles. Today, men have a choice of two drugs given by injection that block the testicles from making testosterone or a pill that does the same thing. In addition, men take drugs that block any testosterone that manages to be made despite the drugs that inhibit its production.
Dr. Moul said he sees men Mr. Biden’s age with similar prostate cancer diagnoses on a regular basis. “Survival rates have almost tripled in the last decade,” he said.
On Monday, Mr. Biden posted a picture on social media with his wife, Jill Biden, along with a statement saying: “Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”
President Trump, who has repeatedly bashed Mr. Biden and blames him for most of the country’s problems, was among those who issued supportive statements on Sunday evening.
Millions of people took part in protests against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk across all 50 states and globally on Saturday, organized by a pro-democracy movement over “hostile takeover” and attack on American rights and freedoms.
According to CNN, over 1,400 “Hands Off!” mass-action protests were held at state capitols, federal buildings, congressional offices, Social Security’s headquarters, parks and city halls throughout the entire country – anywhere “we can make sure they hear us,” organizers said.
“Hands Off!” demands “an end to this billionaire power grab.”
“Whether you are mobilized by the attacks on our democracy, the slashing of jobs, the invasion of privacy, or the assault on our services – this moment is for you,” the event flyers state. “We are setting out to build a massive, visible, national rejection of this crisis.”
Nearly 600,000 people had signed up to attend the events, some of which took place in major cities like London and Paris, according to Indivisible, one of the organizations leading the movement in collaboration with a nationwide coalition that includes civil rights organizations, veterans, women’s rights groups, labor unions and LGBTQ+ advocates.
Organizers say they have three demands: “an end to the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration; an end to slashing federal funds for Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on; and an end to the attacks on immigrants, trans people, and other communities.”