Trump Mentions ‘Jail’ For Liz Cheney And J6 Committee
In his first interview since winning the presidential election, Donald Trump told NBC News’ *Meet the Press* that he remains committed to pardoning individuals convicted for their roles in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Trump also expressed strong opinions about the House committee investigating the incident, stating, “Honestly, they should go to jail,” when asked about members like Liz Cheney. He clarified, however, that he would not direct the FBI or attorney general to take action, saying, “they’ll have to look at that, but I’m not going to — I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill. I’m going to look at everything. We’re going to look at individual cases.”
The president-elect also suggested he might attempt to end “birthright citizenship,” which grants automatic U.S. citizenship to children born to non-citizens on American soil. He acknowledged that such an action would likely face constitutional challenges.
Addressing questions about mass deportation, Trump said, “Well, I think you have to do it, and it’s a hard – it’s a very tough thing to do. But you have to have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally. You know the people that have been treated very unfairly are the people that have been on line for ten years to come into the country. And we’re going to make it very easy for people to come in in terms of they have to pass the test.”
Trump noted that he wanted to find a solution for “Dreamers,” referring to those who were brought to the U.S. as children without legal status.
When asked about pursuing action against President Joe Biden, Trump said he was focused on national success rather than retribution, stating, “I’m not looking to go back into the past. Retribution will be through success.” He added that if any action were to be taken against Biden, it would be decided by his attorney general nominee, Pam Bondi, and his FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, assuming their confirmation.
Trump defended his stance on mass tariffs, suggesting he had little trust in economists’ predictions that consumers would bear the additional costs. “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow. But I can say that if you looked at my – just pre-Covid, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. And I had a lot of tariffs on a lot of different countries, but in particular China. We took in hundreds of billions of dollars and we had no inflation,” he said.
He did not mention that tariffs have long been a part of U.S. trade policy under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Most recently, President Joe Biden approved significant tariff increases on Chinese goods, ranging from 25-50 percent.
