New York Times
By Patrick Healy
August 23, 2015
Donald
J. Trump repeatedly side-stepped questions on Sunday about how he would
pay for his new plan to deport undocumented immigrants, and he also
faced criticism from
several rivals for the Republican presidential nomination about his
call to end so-called birthright citizenship for children of those
immigrants.
Mr.
Trump, the billionaire businessman whose blunt talk and outsider appeal
has helped him build a lead in Republican polls, refused to provide
specifics about his immigration
plans during phone interviews on two Sunday news programs, ABC’s “This
Week” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.” He disputed estimates that he would
need hundreds of billions of dollars to deport the roughly 11 million
people who are living in the United States illegally,
but he declined to cite his own figures or explain where the money
would come from. He promised instead that good “management,” as he put
it on ABC, would fix the nation’s immigration system.
“My
specifics are very simple,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m going to get great
people that know what they’re doing, not a bunch of political hacks that
have no idea what they’re
doing, appointed by President Obama, that doesn’t have a clue. I mean,
that man doesn’t have a clue. People are walking across the border right
now, right in front of these great people that we have. We have
wonderful border patrol people. They can do their
job, but they’re not allowed to do the job.”
Mr.
Trump also said he would “expedite” the return of “good people”
deported from the United States but then seek to come back – though he
acknowledged that this could
be seen as rewarding people who entered the United States illegally in
the first place.
“Well,
you could say that,” Mr. Trump said on “Face the Nation” in response to
a question from the host, John Dickerson. “But we have lot of good
people that have been
here. They have done a good job. It’s a tough situation, but they have
lived here sometimes for 10, 15, 20 years.”
Mr.
Trump, who has been lambasted by some of his rivals for offering
simplistic ideas and being loose with his words, also suggested that
there were far more illegal immigrants
in the nation than widely assumed.
“I’ve
been hearing 11 million for five years, then the other day I heard 30.
Nobody has any idea,” Mr. Trump said on “This Week.”
The
host, George Stephanopoulos, pressed him multiple times to be more
specific, asking at one point if Mr. Trump expected neighbors to start
turning in neighbors to immigration
authorities.
“I
don’t know what’s going to happen,” Mr. Trump replied, before pivoting
to attack other candidates like Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, whom he
accused of heeding the
advice of pollsters by turning against birthright citizenship to match
Mr. Trump’s position.
Mr.
Walker, who has fallen behind Mr. Trump in some recent polls, and who
appeared on “This Week” after him, was vague at first about his position
on birthright citizenship.
He twice refused to say if he supported the Constitution’s 14th
Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
When asked if he would try to repeal or alter it, however, he said,
“No.”
“My
point is any discussion that goes beyond securing the border and
enforcing the laws are things that should be a red flag to voters out
there, who for years have heard
lip service from politicians and are understandably angry because those
politicians haven’t been committed to following through on those
promises,” Mr. Walker said.
Other
Republican candidates also said they would not try to change the 14th
Amendment. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said ending birthright citizenship was “an applause
line” for Mr. Trump.
“It’s
in the Constitution, and I don’t think that we should be looking to
change it,” Mr. Christie said on “Face the Nation.” “Now, what I said
was, if we wanted to have
comprehensive immigration reform, I would be willing to listen to
anything. But the truth of the matter is that that is not something we
should be being focused on.”
Carly
Fiorina, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” also said she would leave
the Constitution alone – and suggested that Mr. Trump was playing
politics with the citizenship issue rather than tackling immigration in pragmatic, specific ways.
“Donald Trump may not be a politician, but he’s sure acting like a politician in this regard,” she said.
On another issue, taxes paid by hedge fund managers, Mr. Trump took another tough stand but did not delve into details.
“A
lot of them, it’s like they’re paper pushers – they make a fortune,
they pay no tax, it’s ridiculous, OK?” Mr. Trump said on CBS. “The hedge
fund guys are getting away
with murder. They’re making a tremendous amount of money. They have to
pay taxes. I want to lower the rates for the middle class. The middle
class is the one, they’re getting absolutely destroyed.”
The
anti-politician ethos of Mr. Trump’s candidacy has proved so popular so
far, however, that Mr. Walker, for one, tried to tap into it on Sunday
by criticizing Republican
leaders in Congress for not replacing the Affordable Care Act.
“Heck,
I’m angry at Washington, I’m angry at my own – my own party leadership,
who told us they were going to repeal Obamacare and we still don’t see a
bill on the desk
of the president,” said Mr. Walker, who laid out his own health care
proposals last week.
The
benefits of being an outsider also accrued to another Republican
candidate, Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, whose strong poll numbers
prompted this question on
CNN’s “State of the Union”: Would he serve as Mr. Trump’s vice
presidential candidate, or perhaps choose Mr. Trump as his running mate?
“All things are possible, but it is much too early to begin such conversations,” Mr. Carson said.
The
Sunday shows also tried to divine meaning from Vice President Joseph
Biden’s private meeting on Saturday with Senator Elizabeth Warren as he
considers whether to enter
the race for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Speculation
centered on the possibility of a Biden-Warren ticket, although one
supporter of a Biden candidate, Josh Alcorn, appearing on “Fox News
Sunday,” emphasized that Mr. Biden was still simply
considering the race.
Another
Democratic candidate, former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, said he
would welcome Mr. Biden as a presidential candidate.
“It
would be nice to have at least one more lifelong Democrat in the race,”
Mr. O’Malley said on ABC. Asked if he was taking a shot at Senator
Bernie Sanders of Vermont,
a popular independent who is seeking the Democratic nomination, Mr.
O’Malley said, “No, it’s a compliment to Vice President Biden for also
being a lifelong Democrat.” Then he broke into a grin.
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