The former president didn’t rule out further political violence.
With November’s election fast approaching, former president Donald Trump has laid out what he would do if he won the White House again, and his plans are raising some eyebrows.
During a sprawling interview with TIME magazine published on Tuesday, Trump discussed his second-term agenda, which includes using the National Guard to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
The presumptive GOP nominee also argued he was too generous during his first term. “The advantage I have now is I know everybody. I know people,” he told the publication. “I know the good, the bad, the stupid, the smart. I know everybody.”
Here are some of the main takeaways from the interview, including what he would do on hot-button issues like abortion.
Trump’s planning mass deportations
The former president said the U.S. has “no choice” but to deport an estimated 11 million people who came to the country illegally. He also signaled using the National Guard to help with these efforts if he’s reelected. It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time Trump has proposed such a move — during his first term, the Department of Homeland Security weighed deploying National Guard troops to detain unauthorized immigrants but those plans ultimately fell through.
“If I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military,” he told TIME. “We have to have safety in our country. We have to have law and order in our country. And whichever gets us there, but I think the National Guard will do the job.”
Even though U.S. military forces have historically been used at the border to support immigration officials, using active duty soldiers like the National Guard to directly deport migrants across the country would mark a significant escalation of an already tense situation. In December alone, border patrol agents apprehended nearly 250,000 migrants.
There are also questions over the legality of using the military against civilians. Federal law prohibits using active duty federal military personnel for law enforcement inside the U.S. unless it’s approved by Congress. But when asked specifically about these restrictions, Trump said the people who would be targeted aren’t civilians. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country,” he said. “This is an invasion of our country.”
Trump isn’t ruling out political violence if he loses
While Trump remains confident in prevailing this fall without any violence, he didn’t completely dismiss the possibility of it happening around the November election.
“And if we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he said. “It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
Trump’s currently facing an indictment for trying to interfere with the 2020 election and knowingly spreading election lies that led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, which he denies.
To this day, Trump still hasn’t accepted his loss to President Biden, and in his interview, he said he would “absolutely” consider pardoning more than 800 of his supporters who pleaded guilty or have been convicted by a jury related to crimes committed that day.
He wants to leave abortion up to states
Trump appeared reluctant to share his plans for abortion, even though he has repeatedly taken credit for nominating three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the landmark decision, Roe v. Wade.
For starters, he declined to say whether he’d veto any additional federal restrictions if they were to come to his desk. Instead, he was skeptical that such measures would even come to fruition because he didn’t believe the thinly divided Senate would ever reach the required 60-vote threshold to pass such legislation.
More than 20 states now have either full or partial abortion bans, and Trump thinks those policies should continue, despite previously saying some states like Arizona have gone too far. And when asked if he’d be comfortable with states monitoring pregnancies or prosecuting women for having abortions, he said it was “irrelevant” because he doesn’t believe the federal government should have a role in these decisions.
“I don’t have to be comfortable or uncomfortable,” Trump said. “The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”
He also left the door open to banning abortion medication nationwide. “Well, I have an opinion on that, but I’m not going to explain,” Trump said. “I’m not gonna say it yet. But I have pretty strong views on that. And I’ll be releasing it probably over the next week.”
Trump’s critical of Israel, but vows to protect it
Trump didn’t hold back on his criticism of Israel and its handling of the war with Hamas.
He claimed the U.S. ally has demonstrated bad public relations by sending out too many images of the death and destruction in Gaza. “I don’t think that the Israel Defense Fund or any other group should be sending out pictures every night of buildings falling down and being bombed with possibly people in those buildings every single night, which is what they do,” he said.
The former president specifically called out Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said he had a “bad experience” with the Israeli leader and accused him of dropping out of the U.S. operation to kill Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.
As for the future of the country, Trump cast doubt on the possibility of a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, saying it was going “to be very, very tough.” Israel’s war with Hamas still rages on, and there are concerns for a wider war following its conflict with Iran.
Despite these uncertainties and criticisms, Trump touted his loyalty to Israel. “I’ve done more for Israel than any other president,” he said. “Yeah, I will protect Israel.”
