Trump Discusses His Plans With NBC

By Neenah Payne

President-elect Trump discussed the goals for his administration on NBC News’ Meet The Press with Kristen Welker on December 8, in his first post-election interview. The interview gave Trump an opportunity to explain his plans more fully to the nation and to respond to important questions.

Full interview: Donald Trump details his plans for Day 1 and beyond in the White House 12/8/24

President-elect Donald Trump sits down with Kristen Welker for an exclusive and wide-ranging interview on Meet the Press.

Trump focuses on tariffs, immigration in first network TV interview

President-elect Donald Trump doubled down on levying tariffs in his first days in office, minimizing his prior emphasis on retribution against his perceived enemies, in his first network interview since he won the election. But in an interview on NBC News’ Meet The Press with Kristen Welker, Trump also said he believed members of the Jan. 6 committee should go to jail, and said he’d work to end birthright citizenship of Day One of his presidency. He also vowed to implement his top campaign promises — deporting all those in the U.S. illegally, pardoning Jan. 6 rioters and extending major tax cuts.

Trump also promised he won’t restrict access to abortion pills and hopes to find a legislative solution that keeps “Dreamers” in the country legally. Dreamers are undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who have legal status under an executive action from former President Barack Obama.

When asked about going after President Joe Biden after inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump said he won’t focus on the “past.”

“Retribution will be through success,” Trump told Welker. “I’m looking to get — bring prices down. Because … I won on the border, and I won on groceries.” Trump had previously threatened to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including Biden.

But when asked about the Jan. 6 committee, he said, “honestly, they should go to jail.” When Welker asked him if he’d press his FBI director to prosecute them, Trump said: “No. Not at all. I think they’ll have to look at that.”

In the unedited transcript of the interview, Trump spent a lot of time repeating a false claim that the committee had destroyed evidence (It didn’t), and said he plans to follow through on his pledge to, on Day One, pardon people who have been convicted of crimes for their activities on Jan. 6 — though he said the pardons would be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The president-elect also maintained his plans to levy heavy tariffs on the nation’s top trading partners such as Mexico, Canada and China. When asked about whether this would increase prices for consumers, as many economists have warned, Trump said: “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow.”

When pressed further by Welker on the fact that tariffs from his first administration cost Americans $80 billion, the president-elect pushed back, saying tariffs “cost Americans nothing” and can even be a tool of diplomacy. “I have stopped wars with tariffs by saying, ‘You guys want to fight, it’s great. But both of you are going to pay tariffs to the United States at 100%’,” Trump said, without providing evidence of any wars he stopped.

Spending cuts, immigration

Trump has often pointed to tariffs as a source of revenue for the federal government to offset the losses due to his tax cuts in the first term. He has also promised to drastically cut federal spending through the Department of Government Efficiency — an outside group led by tech billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump said Social Security and Medicare are not on the chopping block. “I said to people we’re not touching Social Security, other than we make it more efficient,” Trump said. “But the people are going to get what they’re getting.”

On the topic of health care, Trump did not offer a clear path forward. During his first presidency, Trump spent his first months in office trying to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. When asked if he’d do the same this time around Trump said, “Obamacare stinks. If we come up with a better answer, I would present that answer to Democrats and to everybody else and I’d do something about it.”

Immigration remains a top priority for Trump. During the NBC interview, he stood by his plans to implement mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally. Trump said he’d start with convicted criminals, but he’d go beyond that group. “Well, I think you have to do it, and it’s a hard — it’s a very tough thing to do,” Trump said. “It’s — but you have to have, you know, you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally.”….

On abortion, Trump continued to acknowledge to political potency of the issue and said he would not get in the way of abortion pill distribution. “Will you restrict the availability of abortion pills when you’re in office?” Welker asked. “I’ll probably stay with exactly what I’ve been saying for the last two years,” Trump said. “And the answer is no.”

Trump’s First Press Conference

During his marathon press conference on 12/16 shown in the video below show, Trump explained that SoftBank Group had donated $50 billion during his first term as President. Trump first said SoftBank Group would now donate $100 billion to create 100,000 jobs in America now. However, Trump then asked SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son to raise that to $200 billion! The CEO said he would consider it and called Trump “a great negotiator!”. Trump took questions from the press for an hour and said, “The Golden Age of America has begun!”

Trump announces $100 billion investment from SoftBank Group in U.S. projects

President-elect Donald Trump and SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son announced on Monday a $100 billion investment from SoftBank into U.S. projects over the next four years.

“The Five” Discusses Trump’s Press Conference

“The Five” point out in the video below that Trump’s deal with Softbank was genius because SoftBank, which invests in tech, is the largest venture capital firm in the world. So, when SoftBank invests in anything, everybody gets on board because they know it’s only going to go up! They point out that a lot of business people are rushing to support Trump now.

‘The Five’ unpacks Trump’s post-election ‘momentum’ 12/16/24

Big Tech CEOs Flock To Mar-A-Lago

Doocy: Trump is in a honeymoon period like we’ve never seen before

The ‘Fox & Friends’ co-hosts discuss President-elect Donald Trump’s favorability as tech CEOs flock to Mar-a-Lago ahead of his January inauguration.

Big Tech Rushes To Support Trump Now

Earlier this year, Trump described Facebook as “a true Enemy of the People,” claiming that Mark Zuckerberg’s company “cheated in the last election.” Big Tech censored Trump during his first term as president. Now, they are rushing to support him. Mark Zuckerberg says Donald Trump’s reaction to being shot was ‘badass’: ‘That’s why a lot of people like the guy’.

Tech moguls Altman, Bezos and Zuckerberg donate to Trump’s inauguration fund shows that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (owner of The Washington Post), and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta (parent company of Instagram and Facebook) are each contributing $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has a meeting scheduled with Trump. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said of Trump, “We are turning the page, his publication Time declared Trump “Person of Year.”

Mark Zuckerberg dines with Trump at Mar-a-Lago after pushing for meeting to discuss new administration: ‘Grateful for the invitation’

From big tech to the media, the rush to kiss Trump’s ring is on 12/16/24

“The first term, everybody was fighting me …This one is much less hostile.”

Tech titans are pouring millions of dollars into his inauguration and parading through West Palm Beach for meetings with the president-elect. Foreign leaders are seeking to curry his favor through phone calls and photo-ops. Liberal newscasters are rushing to Mar-a-Lago to mend fences with the man who painted them as “enemies of the people.”

Time Magazine just named him “Person of the Year” — and dozens of business executives came out to watch him ring the New York Stock Exchange bell to celebrate. “They realize Donald Trump is the Colossus at Rhodes right now. He’s the game,” said former Trump campaign adviser David Urban “He’s going to get a lot accomplished and they don’t want to miss the boat.”

Meanwhile, Trump just hit his highest net favorability rating since April 2017 in a new Morning Consult survey. Polling also shows a majority of Americans approve of how he is handling his transition and believe he’ll do a good job when he returns to the White House next month. And surveys show Americans are broadly feeling warmer about Trump now than they did after the last two elections.

“When you look at how Donald Trump, whether it was when he was at Notre Dame in France — you saw how he was embraced by all the world leaders — or at the Army-Navy football game,” said Jim McLaughlin, a Trump campaign pollster. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and I think the American people like what they’re seeing.”

The fulsome embrace of Trump in recent weeks is a scene that would’ve seemed unimaginable four years ago. But it’s been clear for some time that the past isn’t a prologue for Trump’s second coming — a difference in approach across the political spectrum driven by his popular-vote win and battleground-state sweep. And it’s one that’s already playing out on Capitol Hill, as Republican lawmakers rush to nail down a strategy for passing Trump’s sweeping policy agenda and ramming through his Cabinet picks.

“This is the difference between a shocking victory in 2016 and a commanding victory in 2024,” said Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and appointee under Trump’s first administration.

It’s a dynamic Trump himself has noticed, telling reporters during his Palm Beach press conference today that “this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” “The first term, everybody was fighting me,” Trump said, adding later: “This one is much less hostile, it’s really the opposite of hostile.”

He plans to meet with more world leaders this week. And of business and tech leaders, he said the “rest are coming.” He mentioned his meetings with the CEOs of Apple, Meta and Google and said Amazon’s Jeff Bezos will be coming to Mar-a-Lago this week.