Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Transcript: Trump says Congress needs to get off their 'a--'
Interview
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BARTIROMO: Joining us right now on the telephone is the president of the United States, President Donald Trump joining me right now.
And, Mr. President, thank you so much for calling in this morning.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: Well, we're on the border here.
And while we were standing here, Mr. President, we saw at least three groups -- different groups -- that crossed the border illegally and were apprehended. Why are these numbers soaring so much today?
TRUMP: Well, people are pouring up because our economy is so good.
I mean, unfortunately, it's the only bad part about what we're doing, because everybody wants a piece of it, and they're willing to come up and take the risk and this tremendous danger.
And our laws are so bad, the combination of having a great economy and having the weakest immigration laws anywhere in the world by far, and we have catch and release. And we have chain migration and a visa lottery. We have things that nobody in their right mind would have.
We're trying to get rid of them. The Democrats won't do it. Now, we need some Democrat votes. We're unanimous with the Republicans, but we need some Democrat votes. And they go out of their way to allow these people to come in.
And when you get cute, when you get tough, when you do all of these things that we have to do, we -- they end up arresting Border Patrol people. It's a disgrace to our country, what's going on, the worst immigration laws ever, incompetent. They're there for a long time.
When -- when they used to separate children, which was done during the Obama administration, with Bush, with us, with everybody, far fewer people would come. And we've been -- on a humane basis, was pretty bad.
We -- we go out and we stop the separation. The problem is, you have 10 times more people coming up with their families. It's like Disneyland now. You know, before, you'd get separated, so people would say, let's not go up.
Now you don't get separated. And, you know, while that sounds nice and all, what happens is, you have -- literally, you have 10 times more families coming up because they're not going to be separated from their children, so it turned out to be a...
BARTIROMO: That's right, yes.
TRUMP: ... disincentive that is obviously a disaster. It's a disaster. You have...
BARTIROMO: And -- and -- and...
TRUMP ... people coming up with many children and...
BARTIROMO ... we've seen it firsthand.
TRUMP Now, we know -- we know where everybody is, and we're moving people out so fast. The problem is, we have to register them, we have to bring them to court.
Another country just says, sorry, you can't come into our country, and they walk them out. In our country, you have to bring them to court.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: You have to have Perry Mason involved.
I mean, you know, it's all legal. You have lawyers standing at the border, our people, lawyers, wise guys standing at the border, signing people up.
BARTIROMO: Yes. Yes.
TRUMP: Every time they catch a cold, they try and blame Border Patrol. It's a disgrace, what's going on.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: And it -- it could be solved in -- in 15 minutes if the Democrats would give us the votes. It would be over.
BARTIROMO: Yes. Well...
TRUMP: We're building a lot of wall. We're going to have 400 miles of wall up by the end of next year. So the wall is going to be -- it's going to be great.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: It's going to be the top of the line, too. I got it done, the top of the line.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BARTIROMO: We have got much more of my interview with President Trump coming up, as we continue on "Sunday Morning Futures."
But I want to point your attention to something happening right now live from the southern border. There is another apprehension going on right now. This is a group, as you can see, of just a few people.
As usual, there are kids here because they know that, if you have a child, you will probably be able to stay. But these people just crossed literally right now, while we're on the air. So we are covering this as it's happening.
They will now go to get processed. And, of course, then they will be told, since they are -- quote, unquote -- "a family," that they can come back. And it could be eight years, eight years. That's when they will have their hearing. And, of course, 90 percent of the people do not come back eight years later.
We will take a short break on "Sunday Morning Futures" live from the southern border with more of my interview with President Trump right now.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. This is "Sunday Morning Futures" live from the border which borders with Juarez, Mexico.
I spoke with President Trump exclusively on the phone a little while ago. And I asked how he's working to close these loopholes.
But before we get back to that, look at this live video that we're looking at. This is an apprehension that just happened. This is about six people with a child, crossed the border from Juarez into El Paso.
And, of course, the whole goal -- we are watching these migrants cross right now. This is actually happening live as we're sitting here, because this is a constant stream of people all day long coming here.
This is one of the most vulnerable parts of the border here, because there's a fence that went up. But the fence ends, and people know that. The word is out that if you go to this area, you will be able to get in.
And once you do get in, if you have a child, the U.S.' laws make it impossible to send you back. In fact, if you're here with a child, you are considered a family unit. So the U.S. law says that we have to, in this country, process you, take your name, try to track you, and then just let you back into the population.
And a lot of the Border Patrol people said to me, they do not stay in El Paso. They go to Boston, New York, Virginia, California, Oklahoma, Georgia. They go throughout the country, wherever they want to go.
They are hardly staying in El Paso, and they're not going to sanctuary cities either.
The president talked to me about this just a little while ago. Here is more of my interview, my exclusive, with President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: What we need is new laws that don't allow this, so when somebody comes in we say, sorry, you got to go out.
We don't need a court system. We have a court system that is -- has 900,000 cases behind it. In other words, they have a court which needs to hear 900,000 cases. How ridiculous is this?
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: This has been building up from years, for many years.
And it's just -- it's just a system that Congress can fix, Maria, and they don't get off their ass.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: And it's the Democrats.
BARTIROMO: Well...
TRUMP: They could solve it so quickly, because we're going to have all the infrastructure soon.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: I will have the wall up. I mean, by the end of the next year, most of the wall is going to be up.
Where you are, where the wall ends, that's part of the wall that we're building. In other words, where the wall ends, that's the weak spot.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: It's like water. They come through the weak spots.
BARTIROMO: That's exactly right.
TRUMP: But a lot of those are being taken care of.
BARTIROMO: So, Senator Lindsey Graham...
TRUMP: They'll all be taken care of fairly quickly, I mean, despite the fact that it's like pulling teeth dealing with the Democrats.
I have to go different routes to get money. It's lucky I'm good at doing that, as being a developer. I used to build buildings. Good times, bad times, you build buildings.
BARTIROMO: That's right.
TRUMP: And getting money in bad times, well, this is -- this is great times, but getting money for a wall -- they give me money for anything I want, but as long as it has the word wall, they don't want to do it.
BARTIROMO: So, when do they expect that?
TRUMP: But I have the money. I'm building the wall.
BARTIROMO: Yes, exactly, exactly.
TRUMP: And, frankly, if they would change the laws, it would be a whole different scene down there. It could happen so quickly.
(CROSSTALK)
BARTIROMO: So, realistically, Mr. President, when would you expect that?
Because Senator Lindsey Graham came on this show two weeks ago and said, look, I'm going to come back from recess, I'm going to put together a package, I'm going to work with the president to change these loopholes and change the immigration law.
Do you see that happening in 2019?
TRUMP: Yes. Yes, Lindsey's been great. We have a package of things that we're asking for, and we're actually going for a much bigger package than - - rather than those little things, which are not little at all in terms of their importance, but we're making a plan where we really talk about immigration laws on a much larger scale.
And we also have a plan for people coming in, because, you know, we have so many companies coming into the United States because of my plan and because of our tax cuts and the tax plan. It's called really tax cut and jobs plan.
We have so many companies. You know it better than anybody. You cover it better than anybody. You saw the numbers yesterday, 3.2 percent GDP.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: Nobody believed them. Even you were surprised. I'm so disappointed in you. You were surprised.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: You just don't know me well enough yet, I guess, but one of those - - but we have such great numbers, and we have companies pouring in.
BARTIROMO: No, it's -- yes.
TRUMP: The problem is, we need workers.
And we're doing a plan based on merit, where people come in, Maria, based on merit, so they can help us. They have skills. They have talent. We have people coming in under these crazy laws that -- I mean, if they need welfare or if they need handouts for the next 50 years, they -- they're almost incentivized.
Those are the people that we're supposed to be taking. And we take as few as possible of them, I will tell you.
BARTIROMO: Well, that's exactly right. Yes.
TRUMP: But the way the laws are, it's brutal.
And they start arresting Border Patrol people, and these incredible people that are doing such a good job, if they want to do anything and if they want to be a little bit cute. It is really a disaster.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: Whoever approved this stuff...
BARTIROMO: I...
TRUMP: ... had no common sense or they hated our country, one or the other.
BARTIROMO: Mr. President, I know you have to run.
But, you know, all of the 2020 contenders who want to run against you in 2020, you haven't heard a peep out of them about this. Beto O'Rourke is actually from El Paso. I don't know what he's done about this problem. And then, of course, you've got Bernie, and now you've got Joe Biden. They're not characterizing this as a crisis, sir.
TRUMP: So, Beto O'Rourke wants to take down the wall, so that means he's finished. I mean, he was finished two weeks ago, when he started saying certain very stupid things. Beto O'Rourke has been exposed.
I think Biden has been exposed. I don't know what the hell happened to Biden. I never saw that before. I -- I don't know. It just doesn't look like the same Biden. I said, is that really Joe Biden? He doesn't look the same to me.
I've known him for a long time. I've seen him for a long time. I said, what happened to him? So he's -- he's been exposed because he's very weak. He doesn't want to talk about this.
No, but they don't want to talk about this.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: It's -- I don't -- I don't get what their plan is. Do they want to let people in that shouldn't be here? Because we have people that are trying to get in that shouldn't be here.
And think of the word apprehend. The border security is apprehending 100,000 people a month. Do you know how many people that is? It's incredible, the job they do.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: The problem is with these laws. We should be able to take them right out. We can't. We have to bring them into a court. Whoever heard of that?
BARTIROMO: I know. Yes.
TRUMP: We're the only country in the world that I know of that has a courts system. And it's a -- it's a mobile court system.
I mean, it is on the border. And with all of these cases, 900,000 cases, you need to do 900,000 -- you'd need 100,000 lawyers. I mean, it's the craziest thing you've ever seen.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BARTIROMO: My thanks to President Trump for weighing in on this important issue.
As we're sitting here, more apprehensions are taking place.
A young -- a little boy ran across the border first. And he told agents that he was held at -- with -- by knife by we don't know who. We're guessing it's drug lords or cartels in Mexico. He said that he was being held by knifepoint.
He ran across first and then all of these people followed. This is another apprehension taking place right now.
We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to get Congress' reaction.
Congressman Will Hurd will react to what the president said, how he's reaching across the aisle to fight illegal immigration.
All of that and more, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures" live this morning from the southern border.
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