Trump reveals little about deportation, crime strategies on 'The O'Reilly Factor'
There were moments, it seems, during Donald Trump's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor when its host wasn't satisfied with the presidential candidate's answers.
That became distinctly clear when Bill O'Reilly asked Trump about his previous statements about community-police relations and crime in urban, predominantly black neighborhoods. O'Reilly played back a clip of Trump's speech referencing unrest in Milwaukee when he said that with a Trump presidency, the "chaos and violence" would end quickly.
"So, how?" O'Reilly said. He cited Chicago as the prime example of a city with a high rate of gun violence that public officials are struggling to reduce.
Trump's response? "I know police in Chicago. If they were given the authority to do it, they would get it done."
"How" was the question of the night for Trump. O'Reilly asked just that at least five more times on that subject alone and again when he pressed Trump for specific proposals or suggestions on issues such as deportation and police-community relations.
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O'Reilly: So, what is your deportation strategy?
The GOP presidential nominee has been accused of "flip-flopping" after saying on Monday that he is looking into the best way to address the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Trump's rhetoric was noticeably different than previous, bolder statements he has made about building a wall (or like when he simply said, "they have to go").
When O'Reilly asked if Trump was truly reassessing his mass deportation strategy, Trump said, "I just want to follow the law. What I'm doing is following the law."
O'Reilly asked Trump what he would do with undocumented immigrants. He asked about detention centers, to which Trump replied, "Bill, you’re the first one to mention detention centers."
O'Reilly asked for clarification, but Trump said. "I've never heard the term. I'm not going to put them in a detention center."
When pressed further, Trump said, "The existing laws are very strong. The existing laws, the first thing we’re gonna do, if and when I win, is we’re gonna get rid of all of the bad ones. We’ve got gang members, we have killers, we have a lot of bad people that have to get out of this country ... they're gonna be out of this country so fast your head will spin."
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What people don't know, Trump added, is that Obama and Bush had high numbers of deportations.
Between 2009 and 2014, more than 2.4 million immigrants have been deported, with the annual number of removals increasing during Obama's tenure as president, according to government data. That's more than the number of deportations under Bush's two terms in the White House. More than 2 million were removed from the country between 2001 and 2008.
This isn't the first time Trump has mentioned Obama's deportation numbers. In June, he told Bloomberg News that “President Obama has mass deported vast numbers of people — the most ever, and it’s never reported. I think people are going to find that I have not only the best policies, but I will have the biggest heart of anybody."
Two months later, pundits on the left and right still wonder what exactly those policies entail.
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Chicago has recorded more homicides than New York and Los Angeles combined so far this year. Homicides were up nearly 50% for the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year.
When asked how he would curb Chicago's crime rate, Trump's responses echoed his tough-on-crime rhetoric — one response was that under a Trump presidency police could be "very much tougher than they are right now" — yet he offered no specific proposal.
But Trump said he knows a guy. He said he met with "very top police" officials in Chicago and came across one who said he could bring down Chicago's crime rate in a week's time.
"How?" O'Reilly asked. "Did he tell you how he’d be able to stop it?"
"He just wants to use tough police tactics," Trump said.
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That's when O'Reilly interrupts him: "but you have to have a warrant to arrest people. You can't beat them up."
After more back and forth, O'Reilly asked again whether that officer said exactly how he could address Chicago's crime rate. Trump said, "No, and I didn’t ask him because I’m not the mayor of Chicago."
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Trump on police: 'Give them back their spirit'
O'Reilly pressed the GOP presidential nominee for more details during the interview, this time with what he described as a more narrow question: "So you are president. How are you going to stop attacks on police in the present climate?"
"Well, first of all," Trump said, "we need somebody who is going to be a cheerleader for the police to an extent."
Trump, who was speaking on video from Akron, Ohio, talked about how police there felt they were being "left behind" and how they lose morale over the blame they get. When O'Reilly asked him how he would address this, Trump said, "by giving them back your spirit and by allowing them to go and counter attack."
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O'Reilly expressed some skepticism, saying New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio "almost encourages bad behavior toward police." How, he asked Trump, could he expect to enact such changes in states with liberal public officials?
"They're going to have to change themselves," Trump replied. But, he added, he would make a "very, very strong" cheerleader for police.