President-elect Donald Trump affirmed Thursday that border security will be his top concern when he assumes office in January, regardless of the cost.
“It’s not a question of a price tag,” the 78-year-old told NBC News in his first interview since media outlets projected him to be the 47th president early Wednesday. “It’s not — really, we have no choice.”
“When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries — and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here,” Trump added. “There is no price tag.”
Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to round up and remove millions of illegal immigrants residing within the US, teasing plans for “largest deportation effort in American history.”
In an interview with The Post last month, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) estimated that 4.5 million illegal aliens will be “first priority” for removal.
Johnson added that those “who’ve already committed crimes” would be singled out.
“They’re in the system now [for] shoplifting, or whatever it is … or [having] done things that are untoward or unlawful,” he explained. “We know where they are, we know what they’ve done, they’re here detained, they gotta go.”
“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful,” Trump told NBC News Thursday. “We have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country.
“And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”
The soon-to-be 47th president has long maintained that he wants to build a wall along the US-Mexico border but later revised that imagery to include a “big fat, open beautiful door.”
During the 2016 election cycle, Trump similarly vowed to deport between 2 and 3 million illegal immigrants, with criminals the priority.
However, the 45th president’s administration recorded fewer deportations than under President Biden, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump made significant gains with Latino voters this cycle, with an exit poll by Edison Research indicating that 45% of that demographic backed him over Vice President Kamala Harris, including 54% of Latino men.
“I started to see realignment could happen because the Democrats are not in line with the thinking of the country,” Trump said Thursday.
“You can’t have ‘Defund the Police,’ these kind of things … they don’t work, and the people understand that.”
Trump estimated that he has “probably” talked with 70 world leaders since he was projected to win the presidency early Wednesday.
The president-elect also spoke by phone with Biden and Harris, describing them as “very nice calls, very respectful both ways.
Trump added that he and Harris “talked about transition, and she said she’d like it to be smooth as can be, which I agree with, of course.”
The president-elect was coy about his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and confirmed that he has not yet spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but did say that “I think we’ll speak” at some point.
