The Interview

Trump said a lot of things in 45 minutes during his first interview as president elect.

On Sunday, Donald Trump just gave his first interview as president-elect to NBC’s Kristen Welker. Unsurprisingly, he regurgitated a lot of things he has voiced before. But back then, he didn’t have the power of the Oval Office soon at his disposal.

The interview once again revealed an important truth about Trump: He’s an unserious man with seriously dangerous ideas. But nine years of Trump’s lies and gaslighting have taught us how to be resilient in the face of his threats and bluster. We know from experience that Trump says a lot of things but winds up accomplishing very little. The Border Wall. Infrastructure Week. Repealing the ACA. He’s a con artist whom fewer than half of the voters keep falling for, while the rest of us now know better.

Today I want to walk through some of his most brazen statements from Sunday’s interview and discuss why most of them are just more of the same empty threats and deceptive rhetoric. Included on this list are his boasts about ending birthright citizenship and deporting the U.S. born children of undocumented immigrants; his “plans” for healthcare and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA); and his targeting of high level political enemies such as Liz Cheney and the January 6th Committee. We need to put all these into the Trump recycle bin.

On the other hand, there are some areas where Trump really can inflict significant pain, and I’ll discuss two of them today: the economy and immigration enforcement against the undocumented. It remains to be seen how far Trump will go, but as I’ll explain below, he may find himself quickly out over his skis on these, if you can even picture Trump trying to ski. (A mogul attempting moguls?)

“We have to end it.”

Trump repeated a promise to end, on the first day of his second term, something called birthright citizenship. That long cherished right says that anyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen.

“We’re going to have to get it changed,” Trump said. “We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.”

To support his argument for abolishing birthright citizenship, Trump falsely claimed that we’re the only nation in the world that offers this, when in fact over thirty other nations also do so, including most nations in the Americas.

He also appears to have missed the deep irony that four of his own children, who were born of two different immigrant women who weren’t yet American citizens at the time of their children’s births, would potentially lose their citizenship under his policies.

But by also admitting that they’d “maybe have to go back to the people,” Trump grudgingly acknowledged a pesky thing called the 14th Amendment. That part of the U.S. Constitution states at its outset:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside….

In short, the president can’t eliminate by decree what the Constitution says plainly is the law.

The problem of course is that, in practice, and given the fiasco of child separation during his previous term, Trump now says he wants to deport whole families together rather than separate them.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together, and you have to send them all back,” he said to Welker.

If he tries this, that could create a showdown in the courts over the rights of U.S. citizens, whom Trump wants to deport along with their undocumented parents. That will be both a PR nightmare and a legal quagmire for the Trump administration, and it’s unclear whether they have really thought this through.

“Concepts of a plan.”

Welker, whom many have often wished would press Trump harder when he lies and dissembles, raised the question of Trump’s effort to replace Obamacare, known officially as the ACA. The exchange underscored that Trump is no closer to any actual plan for healthcare than he was in 2016.

Welker: Sir, you said during the campaign you had “concepts of a plan.” Do you have an actual plan at this point for healthcare?

Trump: Yes, we have concepts of a plan that would be better—

Welker: Still just concepts? Do you have a fully developed plan?

Trump: Let me explain. We have the biggest healthcare companies looking at it. We have doctors who are always looking. Because Obamacare stinks. It’s lousy. There are better answers. If we come up with a better answer, I would present that answer to Democrats and everybody else, and I’d do something about it.

Trump then pivoted, claiming falsely that he was the one who saved Obamacare, when in fact he tried and failed for years to kill it in both the courts and in Congress.

The fact is, Trump has never had a plan or really even concepts of a plan. His only idea during his first term was to destroy the ACA, and that flamed out in Congress thanks in part to the thumbs-down vote by his late nemesis, Sen. John McCain.

In the 119th Congress, Trump will have difficulty getting anything passed in the House, let alone a full-out repeal of the ACA, which now covers far more people than when he tried to kill it in 2017 and is wildly more popular. With the GOP House majority unable to afford any defections in the first few months (and only two thereafter), even assuming they win every special House election to fill vacancies, it’s hard to see how they can cobble together the votes to come up with a “better answer” than Obamacare.

Without a Congressional majority able to tie its own shoes let alone replace a popular program like the ACA, Trump’s words are again meaningless, his threats empty.

“They should go to jail.”

Trump’s most dangerous and anti-democratic rhetoric concerned his stated desire to go after his political opponents, including Liz Cheney and the January 6 Committee. “They should go to jail,” Trump told Welker, meaning “everybody on that committee.”

Welker: We’re going to—

Trump: For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.

Welker: So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail?

Trump: For what they did—

Welker: Everyone on the committee you think—

Trump: I think everybody—

Welker: —should go to jail?

Trump: —on the—anybody that voted in favor—

Welker: Are you going to direct your FBI director—

Trump: No.

Welker: —and your attorney general to send them to jail?

Trump: No, not at all. I think that they’ll have to look at that, but I’m not going to—I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill.

(That last part is a non-sequitur, and it also falsely implies that the U.S. is not currently drilling or producing sufficient oil, when in fact U.S. domestic crude oil production is at an all-time high.)

Trump has previously accused the Committee members of “treason” and emphasized that they “should be prosecuted” for their lies. With Welker on Sunday, he repeated a false claim that the Committee destroyed evidence. All of the evidence remains intact and has been meticulously archived.

Cheney responded to Trump in a statement,

“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power. He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.

This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history. Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”

Cheney further noted that Trump lied about the Committee and that there would be “no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis” to prosecute its members.

As an initial hurdle, any attempted prosecution of the Committee members would run smack into the protections afforded congressional members in the Speech or Debate clause of the Constitution. That clause states that Senators and Representatives of Congress “for any Speech or Debate in either House… shall not be questioned in any other Place.”

That has been interpreted by the courts to provide strong immunity against prosecution for anything a member of Congress says or does while acting within their official capacity. It’s a vital check against efforts by the Executive or Judicial branches to infringe upon the domain of the Legislative branch, and it’s hard to imagine a more compelling case than one where a committee of Congressmembers was actively and legally investigating the very executive who now wants to put them in jail.

Cheney knows that Trump can’t succeed in this endeavor and that the courts would shut it down quickly. His new attorney general pick, Pam Bondi, who served as state AG for Florida, no doubt understands the limits of her powers here, and it would be surprising if she wasted credibility and political capital attempting to lay charges. Such a move could see her laughed out of court or even subjected to Rule 11 sanctions for bringing meritless or frivolous claims.

Trump’s rhetoric here is intended to intimidate Cheney and others, but Cheney’s quick and courageous response shows it will have the opposite effect. She demonstrated how to stand up to Trump and call his bluff, and her resolve will help others find their backbones.

“I can’t guarantee anything.”

Welker pressed Trump on the question of his proposed tariffs on the U.S.’s three biggest trading partners, Canada, Mexico and China. For a president who has boasted that he won the election because grocery prices were too high for U.S. consumers, Trump was quite cavalier about the notion that his actions could raise prices for American families.

Welker: Economists of all stripes say that ultimately, consumers pay the price of tariffs.

Trump: I don't believe that.

Welker: Can you guarantee American families won't pay more?

Trump: I can't guarantee anything.

Trump next claimed that the U.S. is “subsidizing” Canada and Mexico, adding rather bizarrely that if “we’re going to subsidize them, let them become a state.”

When Welker noted that the tariffs that Trump imposed during his first term cost Americans billions of dollars, Trump insisted falsely that the tariffs “cost Americans nothing.”

These kinds of economic blinders are not going to serve Trump well, especially before a public that apparently punished the Democrats out of anger over persistently high prices.

The Washington Post noted that “Companies across the United States that rely on foreign suppliers have started preparing to raise prices,” adding that “they will pass along the cost of the tariffs to their American customers.” It continued, “Economists have also told The Post that tariffs would probably spur a swift run-up in prices on necessities like meat, fruits and vegetables, along with cars, clothing and crude oil—all of which play an outsize role in family budgets.”

Imposing high tariffs is one catastrophe no one can really stop Trump from causing. Unfortunately, unlike his promises of ending birthright citizenship, replacing Obamacare, and prosecuting the January 6 Committee members, Trump has a great deal of power and authority on the question of tariffs, even though those that violate the USMCA trade deal (which Trump negotiated and signed) could and likely will face legal challenges.

That means through the stroke of a pen, Trump very much could bring about sudden spikes in the prices of virtually everything, including food and gasoline. If this happens and U.S. consumers finally realize they have been had, Trump will give Democrats a much needed opening and will have planted the seeds of his own party’s political collapse in the 2026 midterms.

“You have to send them all back.”

A second power that Trump will have upon taking his oath of office next year concerns immigration. Over this he will have wide latitude, and on Sunday Trump repeated his promise to deport all undocumented migrants, numbering above 10 million.

But he gave no real details on how this was going to proceed, other than to send very mixed messages. While he threatened to deport whole families including children who are U.S. citizens by birthright, he also claimed he wanted the “Dreamers”—those who came to the U.S. as young children without documentation—to remain.

But what Trump wants isn’t as important as what his underlings, including white nationalist Stephen Miller, are planning. In order to carry out mass deportations, they will need to order sweeps of neighborhoods, checkpoints for papers, raids upon schools and businesses, and all manner of brutal enforcement and processing, including militarized detention camps.

NBC News reported that many of the targeted repatriations won’t succeed because the countries of origin for these millions of migrants may simply refuse to accept them back. The Trump administration plans to turn to other countries to accept the migrants, creating a humanitarian nightmare where hundreds of thousands could be permanently displaced in countries where they know no one, don’t speak the language, and have no connection to the culture.

The cruelty here may be the point, but it also could prove its undoing. The American public may be lured by the idea of mass deportations in principle, but when confronted with the dystopian reality of what it actually entails, they may, and likely will, quickly turn against it.

Here again, Trump and his allies are already overreaching and may soon alienate the very voters, specifically Latinos, whom they were able to win over on economic grounds. If the plans succeed in even rounding up a fraction of its goal numbers, the disruptive effect upon Latino families, neighborhoods and communities will be widespread and devastating.

The enforcement actions may also wind up gutting whole industries such as agriculture, food processing and construction that rely disproportionately on undocumented workers to function. The result will again be higher prices due to increased production costs and a constricting of supply. Together with tariffs, the mass deportations could produce a one-two punch on the economy, driving up prices for food and housing as workers are in short supply.

Opponents of MAGA Trumpism should lay the record out clearly and well in advance of such economic shocks. If and when things start to unravel due to these ill-advised moves, a top priority will be around messaging, because Trump will seek to blame everyone and anyone else for the mess. The left should demand that the same media that ran endless stories about inflation during the Biden era, even long after it had come down to normal levels, must hold Trump to account for failures in economic stewardship.

In sum, while Democrats can block many of Trump’s worst threats from being realized, in areas where they are powerless to prevent his wrecking ball, such as the economy and immigration policy, they must be ruthless in ascribing blame. They must pin the tail of responsibility where it squarely belongs: right on the orange ass himself.