Watch: The Most Anger Inducing Comments for POC and Women From Trump's '60 Minutes' Interview
In his first extensive sit-down interview since being elected president, Donald Trump spoke with Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes to discuss his future policies.
Although the interview should have been a moment for the president-elect to address many of the fears and concerns of the people, it proved that he is still not yet a representative for all Americans. The interview covered his future policy plans — including immigration, health care and overturning Roe v. Wade — and he half-heartedly addressed the violent attacks against Blacks, Muslims, Latinx and LGBTQ members.
When asked about his immigration plans, Trump affirmed that he plans to immediately deport 2-3 million undocumented immigrants — starting with criminals.
“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records,” Trump told Stahl. “Gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.”
However, when the topic of the wall was broached, Trump stated that some parts of the border wall would actually be a fence.
Additionally, Trump appeared to have backtracked on his public disdain for President Obama — who he spent the last several years attempting to delegitimize. Trump previously ran a campaign on the promise that he would repeal and replace Obamacare on day one. However, in speaking with Stahl, Trump admitted that there were some parts of the Affordable Care Act that were too beneficial to completely nix.
Two of the most potent parts of the interview came when Trump addressed appointing a pro-life Supreme Court Justice and when he dismissed the genuine fear that people of color have expressed post-election.
As it stands, Trump has at least one Supreme Court seat to fill, and as previously stated, he plans to appoint a pro-life justice who may work to overturn Roe v. Wade. He then said that if the judgment was overturned, the decision to allow or ban abortions would go back to the states, which would eliminate the in-state option for many women.
“Yeah, well, they’ll perhaps have to go, they’ll have to go to another state,” Trump said about the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
“And that’s OK?” Stahl asked.
“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “It’s got a long way to go, just so you understand. That has a long, long way to go.”
Eventually, Stahl brought up the rise of hate crimes against POC in the name of Donald Trump. When he addressed these concerns, he told anyone carrying out acts of violence to “stop it,” but not without first blaming the media for inflating these claims.
“I think it’s horrible if that’s happening,” Trump said. “I think it’s built up by the press because, frankly, they’ll take every single little incident that they can find in this country, which could’ve been there before, if I weren’t even around doing this, and they’ll make into an event because that’s the way the press is.”
The truth is, these claims are not being built up by the press and many fear that Trump’s administration will represent hate groups such as the Alt-Right and KKK (especially since he just appointed Steve Bannon of Breitbart News to be his chief strategist).
His interview with 60 Minutes made two things very clear: Trump still has no idea exactly how he plans to govern our country and we must be vigilant in keeping our eyes on him and his administration. They must be held accountable for any actions that will further disenfranchise specific communities because he promised to be a president to all. When Americans come forward and say they fear for their safety because of his victory, he needs to address them with an open mind and, more importantly, and open heart.