A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
CNN
—
Donald Trump has made bold claims about his plans for when he takes office next month, from drastic action at the border to ending birthright citizenship and pardoning January 6 insurrectionists.
When he sat down for his first postelection interview with a mainstream journalist, Kristen Welker of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he promised he would not encourage his Justice Department to go after his political enemies but added that he thinks some of them belong in jail.
How those promises and desires will translate into action remains unclear, so it’s worth paying attention to what Trump said in that lengthy sit-down, which aired Sunday. Here are key lines from NBC’s interview, along with some context:
Well, we’re going to do something with the border, very strong, very powerful. That’ll be our first signal — first signal to America that we’re not playing games.
So expect something related to immigration to get everyone’s attention.
In the first week of his first administration in 2017, for instance, Trump used executive authority to act on his campaign promise to ban all Muslims from traveling to the US by imposing a ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries and also put a hold on all refugees entering the US for four months.
Those moves, which made a statement, sparked protests at airports and a standoff between Trump and lawyers at the Department of Justice.
Trump has talked previously about mobilizing the military to do more at the border and about effectively shutting the border with Mexico.
In the NBC interview, he also talked about extending tax cuts and working with Democratic mayors to address crime in cities in his first 100 days.
No. I think that everybody has something that they can stop. Some people can stop eating. I’m lucky I’m not a drinker, but I could stop eating. And we all want to stop doing something.
While there have been reports that Trump has considered alternatives to Hegseth, he has maintained public support for the former Fox News host.
There have been multiple reports about Hegseth’s drinking, including that it led him to be forced out of the leadership of veterans’ advocacy groups. He also has dealt with revelations about a settlement he reached with a woman who alleged Hegseth sexually assaulted her.
I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow.
Tariffs are taxes on foreign imports paid by importers in the US. Economists generally believe tariffs raise prices for consumers, but Trump doesn’t believe it. He has promised a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico, something he may be able to accomplish without Congress.
In the NBC interview, he pointed to tariffs he imposed, particularly on China, during his first term and kept in place by the Biden administration as evidence. Trump argued the US is “subsidizing” Canada to the tune of $100 billion per year and Mexico to the tune of $300 billion per year.
Why are we subsidizing these countries? If we’re going to subsidize them, let them become a state.
Trump recently made a joke about annexing Canada during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Presumably he was riffing on that joke here rather than offering a serious idea.
After a recent phone call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump said they had agreed to “effectively” close the border, although she later disputed that claim.
It’s not entirely clear what Trump meant by arguing in the NBC interview that the US is subsidizing Canada and Mexico. It could be a reference to trade deficits between the US and those trading partners. But the trade deficit with Canada was about $54 billion in 2022 and about $131 billion with Mexico that year.
They have many purposes, tariffs, if properly used. I don’t say you use them like a madman. I say properly used.
The “madman theory” of foreign policy is that other countries stay in check because they think a powerful world leader is crazy and unpredictable, something Trump has embraced. Before November’s election, for example, Trump told The Wall Street Journal he would never have to use the military to protect Taiwan from China because China’s president knows he’s “f**king crazy.”
Trump also argued in the NBC interview that tariffs during his first term saved “tens of thousands” of manufacturing jobs at Whirlpool in Ohio, a debatable claim since the US International Trade Commission found that the tariffs led to an uptick of about 1,800 US jobs, at a cost to consumers of about $815,000 per job. Trump said “the market” will keep companies from raising prices as a result of his tariffs.
Tariffs are going to make our country rich. Tariffs are going to help us pay off $35 trillion in debt. Tariffs are going to make our country safe because China, as an example, doesn’t want to play games with us if we’re going to do tariffs on them.
Trump argued both that tariffs will raise money and that they will be an effective diplomatic tool. The math is hard to envision, since by one estimate, Trump’s proposed tax cuts would far outstrip revenue raised by tariffs and his policies would add $7.75 trillion to the national debt over 10 years.
Welker asked Trump directly whether tariffs are something he’ll really do or whether they’re a negotiating tactic. His 416-word response did not answer the question directly, but he did argue that his election has already dried up border crossings to a “trickle.”
I called the border. See, unlike my opponent, I do call the border a lot. And I said, ‘How’s the border looking today?’ They said, ‘There’s nobody here.’ They couldn’t believe it.
Trump wanted credit for Mexican authorities breaking up several “caravans” of migrants. Border crossings had already dropped precipitously after executive action by the Biden administration.
It would be nice to have just a minimum wage for the whole country, but it wouldn’t work because you have places where it’s very inexpensive to live, where a minimum wage which is at $8 or $9 … might have very little effect because the cost of living in certain places is really low.
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009. Trump doesn’t sound likely to push for an across-the-board hike now.
Some states have minimum wages over $15, while others have stayed at the federal minimum. In Alaska and Missouri, two states that backed Trump, voters also acted in November to raise the minimum wage. Trump has focused his outreach to wage earners on policy proposals such as exempting tips from taxes.
You have no choice. First of all, they’re costing us a fortune. But we’re starting with the criminals, and we’ve got to do it. And then we’re starting with others, and we’re going to see how it goes.
How Trump might go about mass deportation and whether he would focus on people who have not violated criminal laws has been the subject of much reporting. Read more about his immigration plans.
The Dreamers are going to come later, and we have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age. And many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country. And yes, we’re going to do something about the Dreamers.
Trump ultimately said he wants Dreamers to be able to stay in the US and suggested “doing something” about Dreamers could involve a bipartisan deal with Democrats.
But in mixed-immigration-status families, where children are citizens and their parents are not, Trump would focus on deporting the whole family
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.
I’ll tell you what’s going to be horrible, when we take a wonderful young woman who’s with a criminal. And they show the woman, and she could stay by the law, but they show the woman being taken out. Or they want her out and your cameras are focused on her as she’s crying as she’s being taken out of our country. And then the public turns against us. But we have to do our job. And you have to have a series of standards and a series of laws.
Well, it depends on the family. The family may decide to say, ‘I’d rather have Dad go, and we’ll stay here.’ And in which case they have that option.
Trump said he would try to end birthright citizenship with executive action, but he acknowledged it could take more because, according to the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, every person born in the US is a citizen.
Well, we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it. We’re the only country that has it, you know.
Amending the Constitution is a long and complicated process. There hasn’t been an amendment enacted in more than three decades. It will be interesting to see how Trump justifies trying to end birthright citizenship with the stroke of a pen.
Also, the US is definitely not the only country with birthright citizenship. Read this fact check.
Well, I don’t know … that you’ll see it at all. I can only say that we have some of the best health care people. I’ve always tinkered with it. I think — it’s a little hard to explain. Obamacare, when I took it over, was a disaster. And I made it workable.
Sign-ups for Obamacare plans fell during Trump’s first term even as the law became more popular. Read more about what Trump did with the Affordable Care Act.
We have a lot of other things. I have tax cuts. You know, we’ll be submitting in either the first or second package to Congress the extension of the tax cuts. So that might very well be in there … or it’ll come sometime after that.
Trump said he does not expect his pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, to necessarily investigate his political enemies. He seemed surprised when Welker read back to him a 2023 Truth Social post in which he said he would appoint a special prosecutor to look into President Joe Biden. But does he want his political enemies investigated?
If they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably. They went after me. You know, they went after me and I did nothing wrong.
I’m really looking to make our country successful. I’m not looking to go back into the past. I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success.
I won on the border, and I won on groceries. Very simple word, ‘groceries.’ Like almost — you know, who uses the word? I started using the word — ‘the groceries.’ When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that. We’re going to bring those prices way down.
She’s a very smart person. She’s — she was a great attorney general in Florida. She’s very experienced. I want her to do what she wants to do. I’m not going to instruct her to do it, no.
A few moments later, however Trump undercut this message when he argued that former Rep. Liz Cheney and other people on the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection committed a “major crime.” More on that further below.
Well, I can’t say I’m thrilled with him. He invaded my home.
That was a reference to search warrants served on Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, and his club in New Jersey related to Trump’s refusal to turn over classified documents to the National Archives.
But since Trump has picked Patel for the job, he admitted that means Wray – whose name he would not say — would have to leave:
If Kash gets in, he’s going to be taking somebody’s place, right? Somebody is the man that you’re talking about.
I purposely didn’t even want to see it because when somebody like you asks me a question about Project 2025, I can honestly say I’ve never seen it, I have nothing to do with it, I didn’t read it.
While he is hiring many people connected to the blueprint for a Republican administration and he agrees with much of it, Trump doesn’t want to be associated with it.
While Trump said he thinks a president can pardon himself, he doesn’t think he needs one since the federal cases against him have been dropped. And on whether Biden should pardon him as a way to bring the country together, Trump doesn’t see it happening.
I’ve never even thought about it. I don’t think he’ll do it. Look, if he did, he’s the one that started this whole thing.
He thinks Cheney and members of the January 6 committee should be in jail
I think those people committed a major crime and Cheney was behind it. And so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee. For what they did, honestly they should go to jail.
But Trump said he won’t instruct either his attorney general or his FBI director to go after committee members.
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.
Trump wants to focus on opening up more land for oil exploration, but he clearly maintains serious animus toward the people who investigated the insurrection. Trump alleged they destroyed evidence related to the investigation, but committee members, who issued an 800-page report along with transcripts of their interviews, have said that is not correct.
In response to Trump’s argument that January 6 committee members should be jailed, Cheney said it would be inappropriate for the Department of Justice to investigate a congressional committee.
Those people have suffered long and hard. And there may be some exceptions to it. I have to look.
Because they had no choice.
Trump is open to eliminating some vaccines for children, and he’s open to the disproven idea that vaccines cause autism
When you look at some of the problems, when you look at what’s going on with disease and sickness in our country, something’s wrong.
Trump said he’s already held a long meeting with his pick for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and drug companies about a range of topics, including vaccines and pesticides.
He’s not going to upset any system. He’s not going to upset the system. He’s not looking to reinvent the wheel totally.
Welker pushed Trump by noting decades of studies have shown no link between autism and vaccines, and he brought up another disproven theory, that chlorine in the water causes autism.
I mean, something is going on. I don’t know if it’s vaccines. Maybe it’s chlorine in the water, right? You know, people are looking at a lot of different things.
Trump said he wants to see more evidence about vaccines.
Hey, look, I’m not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they’re going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are — certain vaccines — are incredible. But maybe some aren’t. And if they aren’t, we have to find out.
No, Jeff Bezos called me. We’re having dinner. As you know, Mark Zuckerberg came in. We had a really nice dinner. He asked to have dinner. I had dinner with him. I’m having dinner with everybody. People like me now, you know?
I said to people, we’re not touching Social Security, other than we make it more efficient. But the people are going to get what they’re getting. And we’re not raising ages or any of that stuff.
Ukraine should expect less help from the US and instead look to Europe, Trump said
We have a little thing called an ocean in between us.
Trump said he’s actively trying to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine
But he would not say whether he’s been talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
I don’t want to say that. I don’t want to say anything about that because I don’t want to do anything that could impede the negotiation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will work with Trump on ending the war.
Welker asked Trump whether, to unite the US and turn the page, he would admit he lost the 2020 election. He would not.
No. No, why would I do that? But let me just tell you — when you say the country is deeply divided, I’m not the president. Joe Biden is the president.
Trump was also asked why, if Democrats controlled the White House, he was able to win the election. He alleged many times that Democrats wanted to steal the election.
It was too big to rig.
I’ll tell you what, I’ll miss them, and they are really competent. But I say, ‘Just go have fun, do your business, do whatever you want to do. But don’t come in.’
Trump said both his wife and children are treated unfairly by the press. He did not have a ready answer when Welker asked what role his wife, Melania, would play in her second four years as first lady, but he quickly pivoted to an attack on the press.
The press has to straighten itself out, because honestly it’s lost all credibility. When that can happen — based on the press, I should’ve gotten no votes, none. And yet I got the highest number ever. And the reason is, because I’m able to go on a show even like yours, even though you’re very hostile, I’m able to go on a show like yours — no, you are.
Welker asked for his message to the people who didn’t vote for him.
I’m going to treat you every bit as well as I have treated the greatest MAGA supporters. There’s never been anything like MAGA in the history of this country. These people are so dedicated to making America great again. It’s very simple. And I’m going to treat them just the same as I treat MAGA.
