In a confusing apparent about-face, Donald Trump vowed at an Arizona town hall that he would reverse President Joe Biden's recent executive order cracking down on immigrant border crossings.
"On day one of my administration, I will be rescinding 'Crooked Joe's' outrageous executive order," he said in Phoenix Thursday at the event organized by the conservative Turning Point Action, which has backed Trump's baseless claim that the presidential election he lost was rigged.
Without explanation Trump characterized Biden's executive order as "pro-invasion, pro-child trafficking ... pro-drug dealers."
At the same time Trump promised to terminate Biden's closing-door policy, he also vowed to rescind all "open border" policies.
Biden on Tuesday announced that he was "securing the border" by signing an executive order capping asylum seekers to reduce illegal crossings.
A White House statement blamed Congress for failing to act to address the "broken immigration system." Trump supporters in the House earlier this year — at his urging — stonewalled bipartisan Senate immigration legislation to hurt Biden in an election year.
Trump on Thursday dismissed the president's executive order as a "concession" to Biden's "failed border policies."
When Trump was asked in Phoenix how he would address the immigration situation, at one point he said he would rely on "economic measures," imposing huge tariffs on nations that failed to keep their residents at home.
"We are going to be so tough and if a country is not going to behave, we're going to tariff the hell out of that country," he explained.
But he then insisted: "I want to send Joe Biden's illegal aliens back home where they belong. They have to go back home because quite simply Joe Biden wants an invasion. I want a deportation. I want a deportation. On day one, I will seal the border."
When ABC News host David Muir asked Biden in an interview later Thursday how he responded to Trump's attack on his order as "weak and pathetic," Biden shot back: "Is he describing himself?"
He again blamed House Republicans for refusing to support the bipartisan legislation to strengthen the border.
"Everybody knows what's happened," said Biden. "We had a deal, it was much broader than this [order], much better, much more accepted across the board, and he got on the phone and told the Republicans, don't support it. It will hurt me, it will help Biden."
David Muir: “Trump says your asylum executive order is “weak and pathetic.”
— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) June 7, 2024
Biden: “Is he describing himself?”
pic.twitter.com/xgWr2YSKY1
