NBC Reporter SHUT DOWN by Karoline Leavitt During Heated Deportation Debate
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00:00Brian Glunsch.
00:01Yes.
00:02Welcome.
00:04You look great.
00:05You're doing a great job.
00:07You talked about transparency.
00:08And some of us in this room know how just transparent President Trump has been the last
00:11five or six years.
00:12I think you'll do the same.
00:14My question is, do you think this latest incident with the President of Colombia is indicative
00:19of the global, powerful respect they have for President Trump moving forward, not only
00:26to engage in economic diplomacy with these countries, but also world peace?
00:33Absolutely.
00:34I'll echo the answer that the President gave on Air Force One last night when he was asked
00:39a very similar question by one of your colleagues in the media.
00:42This signifies peace through strength is back.
00:45And this President will not tolerate illegal immigration into America's interior.
00:51And he expects every nation on this planet, again, to cooperate with the repatriation
00:57of their citizens who illegally entered into our country and broke America's laws.
01:02It won't be tolerated.
01:03And as you saw, the Colombian government quickly folded and agreed to all of President Trump's
01:07demands.
01:08Flights are underway once again.
01:09Caroline.
01:10Diana.
01:11Two questions on deportations, if I may.
01:12President Trump has said on the campaign trail that he would deport pro-Hamas students who
01:18are here on visas.
01:20And on his first day in office, he signed an executive order that said, quote, the U.S.
01:25must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the U.S. do not
01:30bear hostile attitudes towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding
01:35principles.
01:36So should we take this executive order as Trump's saying he would be open to deporting
01:40those students who are here on visas but, you know, hold pro-Hamas sympathies?
01:45The President is open to deporting individuals who have broken our nation's immigration laws.
01:51So if they are here illegally, then certainly he is open to deporting them.
01:55And that's what this administration is hard at work at doing.
01:57We receive data from DHS and from ICE every single day.
02:02From what we hear on the ground, ICE agents are feeling incredibly empowered right now
02:06because they actually have a leader in this building who is supporting them in doing their
02:11jobs that they were hired to do, which is to detain, arrest, and deport illegal criminals
02:17who have invaded our nation's borders over the past four years.
02:19That's what the President is committed to seeing.
02:21Peter.
02:22One more.
02:23Just very quickly, just following up on the question on immigration first.
02:25President Trump, during the course of the campaign in 2024, said the following about
02:29illegal immigration.
02:30He said, they're going back home where they belong, and we start with the criminals.
02:34There are many, many criminals.
02:35NBC News has learned that ICE arrested 1,179 undocumented immigrants on Sunday, but nearly
02:40half of them, 566 of the migrants, appear to have no prior criminal record besides entering
02:47the country illegally.
02:48Is the President still focused exclusively, which is a civil crime, it's not criminal.
02:53It's a federal crime.
02:56So I'm asking though, he said he was going to focus on those violent offenders first.
02:59So is violent offenders no longer the predicate for these people to be deported?
03:03The President has said countless times on the campaign trail, I've been with him at
03:07the rallies, I know you've been there covering them too, Peter, that he is focused on launching
03:11the largest mass deportation operation in American history of illegal criminals.
03:16And if you are an individual, a foreign national, who illegally enters the United States of
03:20America, you are, by definition, a criminal.
03:22And so therefore, you are subject to deportation.
03:24I apologize for interrupting.
03:25So to be clear, it's not, violent criminals do not receive precedence in terms of the
03:29deportations taking place.
03:30The President has also said, two things can be true at the same time.
03:33We want to deport illegal criminals, illegal immigrants from this country, but the President
03:37has said that, of course, the illegal criminal drug dealers, the rapists, the murderers,
03:44the individuals who have committed heinous acts on the interior of our country and who
03:49have terrorized law-abiding American citizens, absolutely, those should be the priority of
03:54ICE.
03:55But that doesn't mean that the other illegal criminals who entered our nation's borders
03:57are off the table.
03:58Understood.
03:59Then let me ask you a separate question about the confusion that still exists across the
04:02country right now as it relates to the freeze or the pause as it's described.
04:07President Trump, of course, ran one of the key policy items was that he was going to
04:09lower prices, lower the cost of everything from groceries, as he often said.
04:14But in many of the cases, it would seem that some of these moves could raise prices for
04:18real Americans on everything from low-income heating, that program, child care programs.
04:23Will nothing that the President's doing here in terms of the freeze in these programs raise
04:27prices on ordinary Americans?
04:29What particular actions are you referring to that would-
04:31I'm referring to LHEAP right now.
04:33That's the low-income heating program, for example.
04:35We can talk about- there's no clarity, so I could refer to a lot of them.
04:38We don't know what they are specifically.
04:39Can you tell us that LHEAP, that LIHEAP is not one of those affected?
04:43So you're asking a hypothetical based on programs that you can't even identify.
04:47What I can tell you-
04:48Well, just to be clear, since you guys haven't identified, let's do it together, just for
04:51Americans at home.
04:52Medicaid, is that affected?
04:55I gave you a list of examples, Social Security, Medicare, welfare benefits, food stamps that
05:02will not be impacted by this federal pause.
05:04I can get you the full list after this briefing from the Office of Management and Budget.
05:07But I do want to address the cost cutting, because that's certainly very important.
05:13And cutting the cost of living in this country.
05:16President Trump has taken historic action over the past week to do that.
05:19He actually signed a memorandum to deliver emergency price relief for American families,
05:24which took a number of actions.
05:26I can walk you through those.
05:27He also repealed many onerous Biden administration regulations.
05:32We know over the past four years, American households has been essentially taxed $55,000
05:38in regulations from the previous administration.
05:41President Trump, with the swipe of his pen, rescinded those, which will ultimately put
05:44more money back in the pockets of the American people.
05:47So deregulation is a big deal.
05:49And then when it comes to energy, I mean, the president signed an executive order to
05:52declare a national energy emergency here at home, which is going to make America energy
05:57dominant.
05:58We know that energy is one of the number one drivers of inflation.
06:02And so that's why the president wants to increase our energy supply, to bring down costs for
06:06Americans.
06:07The Trump energy boom is incoming, and Americans can expect that.