Trump vows end to birthright citizenship and pardons for US Capitol rioters
Getty ImagesPresident-elect Donald Trump says he will consider pardoning those involved in the 2021 U.S. Capitol riots on his first day in office next month.
“These people are living in hell,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in his first interview with a broadcast network since winning the November election.
The Republican also vowed to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in the country but offered to work with Democrats to help some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
During a wide-ranging sit-down recorded on Friday, Trump pledged to issue a “vast number” of executive orders after taking office on Jan. 20, including on immigration, energy and economic issues.
While he said he would not seek a Justice Department investigation into Joe Biden, he said some of his political opponents, including lawmakers investigating the Capitol riot, should be jailed.
Three months after Trump lost the 2020 election and his supporters attacked Congress, Trump was asked whether he would seek pardons for hundreds of people convicted of taking part in that riot.
“We will look at individual cases,” he said. “Yes, but I will act quickly.”
“Day one,” he added.
Trump continued: “By the way, you know, they’ve been there for years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
The president-elect revealed other news in an NBC interview that aired Sunday:
- He issued a warning about whether to keep the United States in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): “If they pay the bills and if I think they are treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely, I will stay in NATO”
- Trump says he won’t seek to impose restrictions abortion pillalthough when asked for assurances he added: “Well, I promise. I mean… things change”
- republicans say Ukraine Should “probably” expect less aid when he returns to White House
- Trump said he believed “somebody has to find out” whether there was a connection between the two. autism and childhood vaccines—an idea that has been ruled out by multiple studies around the world. Trump suggested his health secretary nominee, vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., would look into the matter
- President-elect reiterates promise he won’t seek spending cuts social Securityalso did not raise its eligibility age, although he said he would make it “more efficient” without providing further details
- Asked if he planned to impose tariff He said imports from major U.S. trading partners will raise consumer prices for Americans. “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow.”
On immigration, Trump told NBC he would seek to end so-called birthright citizenship through executive action, which gives anyone born in the United States the right to a U.S. passport, even if their parents were born in elsewhere.
Birthright citizenship stems from the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that “all persons born in the United States” are “citizens of the United States.”
“We have to change it,” Trump said. “We may have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.”
Trump also said he would fulfill his campaign promise to deport undocumented immigrants, including those whose family members are U.S. citizens.
“I don’t want to break up the family,” he said, “so the only way not to break the family up is to keep them together, and you have to send them all back.”
Trump also said he wants to work with Congress to help so-called “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants protected by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which he has tried to repeal.
“I’m going to work with Democrats on a plan,” he said, adding that some of these immigrants have found good jobs and started businesses.
Trump appeared to be sending mixed signals on whether he would follow through on his repeated vows to seek revenge against political opponents.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden granted a full pardon to his convicted son Hunter this week. The Democrat is reportedly considering other blanket pardons for political allies before leaving office next month.
Trump appeared to indicate he would not seek a special counsel investigation into Biden and his family, as he had vowed.
“I don’t want to go back to the past,” he said. “I want to make our country successful. Retribution through success.”
But he also said members of the now-defunct Democratic-led House committee that investigated him “should go to jail.”
One member of the panel, former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, fired back at Trump on Sunday.
She said his comments that committee members should be jailed were “a continuation of his attack on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”
Trump also said in the NBC interview that he would not direct the FBI to investigate his enemies.
But he also told the network: “If they were dishonest, if they did something wrong, if they broke the law, that’s very possible.
“They hunted me. You know, they hunted me, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”
