Donald Trump is hoping to win big on Super Tuesday, and he kicked off the primary’s most vote-rich day with one of his favorite traditions from his time as president: calling in to Fox News to deliver an unhinged rant.
The former president called Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning, where he celebrated Monday’s Supreme Court decision barring states from removing him from the ballot, doubled down on his claims that migrants are “poisoning our country,” and declared that Israel has to “finish the problem” in Gaza.
Trump, whose administration was staunchly pro-Israel, affirmed that he was “firmly in Israel’s camp,” as host Brian Kilmeade put it, and said he supports Israel’s ongoing offensive on Gaza, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians. “You have to finish the problem,” the former president said.
Trump also repeatedly claimed that if he were president, there would be no war between Israel and Gaza. “It would have never happened if I was president,” he said of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel, in which more than 1,100 Israeli and foreign nationals were killed. “They wouldn’t have done it to me, I guarantee you that. They did this because they have no respect for Biden and frankly they got soft,” he added.
“If things went right in 2020, which they should have but they didn’t for some very bad and sinister reasons, all these people that are dead in Ukraine and Russia and Israel … people would be leading great lives right now,” Trump said.
It's garbled because Trump is generally incoherent but I think Trump is saying that the Hamas attack on Israel happened because the Israelis "got soft" here.
He goes on to say that dead people in Ukraine and Russia and Israel would be "leading great lives" if he was in office. pic.twitter.com/x6GpYk1BZ3 — Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 5, 2024
Turning to domestic policy, Trump rehashed many of his long-standing claims on immigration, including that migrants are “poisoning” America. “People are coming from jails and prisons, and mental institutions and insane asylums, and there are terrorists,” he said of undocumented migrants crossing the southern border into the United States. “What they are doing to our country is incredible; they are poisoning our country. And we’re going to close the border and deport the people; we’re going to get them out.” Editor’s picks
In December, the former president drew widespread condemnation when he accused migrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.” Trump — who has long maligned and scapegoated immigrants — has upped the intensity of his attacks on migrant populations in his quest to retake the White House. In a Monday interview with Newsmax, Trump reiterated his promise for mass deportations on “day one” of his presidency and even promised to grant immunity to local law enforcement officers in order to complete the task.
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Trump has basked in criticism of his rhetoric on immigration and privately vowed to take things even further. “The [former] president said he’s going to keep doing it, he’s going to keep saying they’re poisoning the blood of the nation and destroying and killing the country … He says it’s a ‘great line,’” one source said in December.
Behind the scenes, Trump and his closest allies have been hard at work identifying legal loopholes that would allow them to carry out a hardline crackdown on undocumented immigration without needing to consult Congress. As Rolling Stone reported in January, one such proposal includes the revival of the Alien Enemies Act, a zombie law that allows presidents to unilaterally authorize the deportation of foreign individuals.
Despite his insistence that border security is one of the most pressing issues facing the country, Trump has personally intervened to prevent the passage of legislation aimed at restricting the flow of undocumented crossings at the border. Last month, as congressional leaders attempted to pass a bipartisan, Biden-backed border bill, Trump publicly and privately lobbied against it, privately calling its Republican supporters “stupid” and complaining that the legislation would be spun as a win for President Biden.
The bill was ultimately killed by Republicans, and while Trump’s minions in Congress are taking a beating over their infighting and lack of tangible policy victories, the former president continues to wield immigration as an electoral cudgel, unburdened by concerns that Republican lawmakers will actually do something about it.