President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with ABC News anchor Terry Moran to mark his first 100 days back in the White House and set the record straight on two hot topics: tariffs and mass deportations..
During a heated back-and-forth conversation with Moran, Trump promised “everything’s going to be just fine” when speaking about the controversial duties.
Moran claimed the 145% tariffs were “basically an embargo” and were bound to “raise prices on everything.”
To which Trump responded, “that’s good they deserve it.”
It’s a topic the president has continuously spoken about.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know whether or not China’s going to eat it,” Trump said.
“That’s mathematics,” Moran argued.
“China probably will eat those tariffs,” Trump responded. “But at 145%, they basically can’t do much business with the United States. And they were making from us a trillion dollars a year, they were ripping us off like nobody’s ever ripped us off.
The president continued, “everything’s going to be just fine. It wouldn’t have been if I didn’t do this.”
Moran continued to poke, saying “your answer to the concern about the tariffs is everything’s gonna be hunky-dory,” but the president reiterated, “It wouldn’t have been if I didn’t do this. I had a choice. I could leave it, have a nice easy time, but I think ultimately you would have had an implosion.”
“Our country had inflation that was worse than they’ve ever had it before. You don’t mention that. Why don’t you mention that? We had the worst inflation probably in the history of our country,” Trump continued. “People say 48 years, probably in history of the country we had the worst inflation, and people were… Dying over the inflation, you know that. Now the grocery prices are coming down, the energy prices are going down, gasoline’s coming down. It’s all heading in the right direction.”
Another hot topic the president defended during the fiery discussion was his handling of the illegal immigration crisis he inherited from former President Joe Biden.
When speaking about whether illegal immigrants should receive court hearings instead of being immediately removed from the country, Trump stated, “if people come into our country illegally there’s a different standard.”
Trump described his administration’s handling of tracking down and deporting illegal immigrants as his most “significant” accomplishment so far.
Moran argued that “under our law, every single person who gets deported gets a hearing first.”
Trump retorted, “when Biden allowed 21 million people to flow into a country … did we give them a hearing when they came in?”
When the anchor insisted that it was the legal process and should be followed, Trump responded, “They get whatever my lawyers say” – referring to the legal rights his administration is affording deportees.
The two men continued to butt heads as Moran spoke about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant and alleged MS-13 gang member going through a court battle related to Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which grants the president wartime authority to deport noncitizens.
Trump stated that the lawyer said it was a mistake and that he “was not appointed by us — should not have said that,” referring to a former Justice Department official’s claim that Abrego Garcia was wrongfully removed back to El Salvador.
He said “this is an MS-13 gang member, a tough cookie, been in lots of skirmishes, beat the hell out of his wife, OK? This is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from Maryland.”
Moran responded that he was “not saying [Garcia] is a good guy.”
“It’s about the rule of law,” Moran said. He even went as far as to state that Trump “could get [Abrego Garcia] back.”
“There’s a phone on this desk. You could pick it up and call up the president of El Salvador and say, ‘Send him back now,’” Moran said.
Trump then said he would bring Abrego Garcia back “if he were the gentleman that you say he is.”
Other topics discussed during the interview included Trump’s decision to revoke security clearances for certain people and going after law firms with executive orders, something that has been perceived as a punishment by some.
The president pointed out that if anyone was treated badly or punished, it was him.
“When you say I’m treating people rough, I’m not treating people rough,” Trump said. “I was treated worse than any president in the history of our country. And you know, people figured, well, maybe that’s it… he’s leaving town, there goes the helicopter, and then I came back, and I have tremendous support.”
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