Left-wing ABC Democrat David Muir interviewed President Donald Trump on Wednesday in the White House.
Muir introduced the segment with narration, declaring that Trump had already made “controversial moves” since becoming president. He has never used that term to describe any of former President Barack Obama’s actions.
Trump’s promise to “make Mexico pay” for the construction of a “big, beautiful wall” along the southern border was Muir’s first focus. While implying that Trump had somehow violated a promise to shift the cost of border construction to Mexico, he asked no questions about broader harm to Americans wrought by porous southern border.
Muir ignored Cross border smuggling of drugs, firearms and persons, financial and human costs borne by Americans as a result of illegal immigration, and so-called “sanctuary cities” promoted by Democrats and operating as magnets for illegal aliens.
A partial transcript is below:
DAVID MUIR: Are you going to direct U.S. funds to pay for this wall? Will American taxpayers pay for the wall?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Ultimately it’ll come out of what’s happening with Mexico. We’re gonna be starting those negotiations relatively soon. And we will be in a form reimbursed by Mexico which I will say …
DAVID MUIR: So, they’ll pay us back?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah, absolutely, 100 percent.
DAVID MUIR: So, the American taxpayer will pay for the wall at first?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: All it is, is we’ll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico. Now, I could wait a year and I could hold off the wall. But I wanna build the wall. We have to build the wall. We have to stop drugs from pouring in. We have to stop people from just pouring into our country. We have no idea where they’re from. And I campaigned on the wall. And it’s very important. But that wall will cost us nothing.
DAVID MUIR: But you talked — often about Mexico paying for the wall. And you, again, say they’ll pay us back. Mexico’s president said in recent days that Mexico absolutely will not pay, adding that, “It goes against our dignity as a country and our dignity as Mexicans.” He says …
(OVERTALK)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: David, he has to say that. He has to say that. But I’m just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form. And you have to understand what I’m doing is good for the United States. It’s also going to be good for Mexico.
We wanna have a very stable, very solid Mexico. Even more solid than it is right now. And they need it also. Lots of things are coming across Mexico that they don’t want. I think it’s going to be a good thing for both countries. And I think the relationship will be better than ever before.
You know, when we had a prisoner in Mexico, as you know, two years ago, that we were trying to get out. And Mexico was not helping us, I will tell you, those days are over. I think we’re gonna end up with a much better relationship with Mexico. We will have the wall and in a very serious form Mexico will pay for the wall.
DAVID MUIR: What are you gonna say to some of your supporters who might say, “Wait a minute, I thought Mexico was going to pay for this right at the start.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I’d say very simply that they are going to pay for it. I never said they’re gonna pay from the start. I said Mexico will pay for the wall. But what I will tell my supporters is, “Would you like me to wait two years or three years before I make this deal?” Because we have to make a deal on NAFTA. We have to make a new trade deal with Mexico because we’re getting clobbered.
We have a $60-billion trade deficit. So, if you want, I can wait two years and then we can do it nice and easily. I wanna start the wall immediately. Every supporter I have — I have had so many people calling and tweeting and — and writing letters saying they’re so happy about it. I wanna start the wall. We will be reimbursed for the wall.
WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WITH DAVID MUIR – ABC News’ David Muir talks to President Donald J. Trump from the White House in Washington, DC in his first one-on-one television interview since being sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. The exclusive one-hour primetime special ‘President Trump: The First Interview’ with David Muir airs on Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 10 p.m. ET on the ABC Television Network. (Photo by Martin H. Simon/ABC via Getty Images)
Muir then focused on the interests of foreigners illegally residing in the country – who he described with the nonsense term “undocumented immigrants” – instead of the interests of Americans. No questions were asked about how immigration policy should be calibrated to serve America’s national interest.
A partial transcript is below:
DAVID MUIR: When people learn of the news of this wall today there are gonna be a lot of people listening to this. And I wanna ask about undocumented immigrants who are here — in this country. Right now they’re protected as so-called DREAMers — the children who were brought here, as you know, by their parents. Should they be worried — that they could be deported? And is there anything you can say to assure them right now that they’ll be allowed to stay?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: They shouldn’t be very worried. They are here illegally. They shouldn’t be very worried. I do have a big heart. We’re going to take care of everybody. We’re going to have a very strong border. We’re gonna have a very solid border. Where you have great people that are here that have done a good job, they should be far less worried. We’ll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks.
DAVID MUIR: But Mr. President, will they be allowed to stay?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’m gonna tell you over the next four weeks. But I will tell you, we’re looking at this, the whole immigration situation, we’re looking at it with great heart. Now we have criminals that are here. We have really bad people that are here. Those people have to be worried ’cause they’re getting out. We’re gonna get them out. We’re gonna get ’em out fast. General Kelly is — I’ve given that as his number one priority.
DAVID MUIR: Senator Jeff Sessions, your pick for attorney general, as you know during his confirmation hearing said that ending [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals/DACA], this is President Obama’s policy protecting the DREAMers — that, “Ending it certainly would be constitutional.” That you could end the protection of these dreamers. Is that a possibility?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’re gonna be talking with — attorney general. He will soon be the attorney general. He’s done fantastically well. We’re all very proud of him. I thought he was treated very, very unfairly. He’s a brilliant man and he’s a very good man. He’ll do a fantastic job. I’ll be speaking to him as soon as he’s affirmed.
DAVID MUIR: So, it’s a possibility.
Muir then spent minutes pressing Trump for evidence regarding the president’s repeated claims that “millions” of votes had been cast “illegally” (presumably for Hillary Clinton from non-citizens at the direction of left-wing and Democrat-aligned political organizations).
“Do you think that that talking about millions of illegal votes is dangerous to this country without presenting the evidence?” asked Muir. He has never asked if it is “dangerous” for Democrats, leftists, and news media personalities to push the narrative of “Russian election-hacking” without evidence.
On the subject of Islamic terrorism, Muir worried that Trump was “[causing] more anger among Muslims.” Democrats and their political and media allies have parroted this narrative for years, claiming that Islamic terrorism is at least partially driven by honest analysis of its overlaps with Muslims and Islam. No questions were asked about how to defeat Islamic terrorists.
A partial transcript is below:
DAVID MUIR: Mr. President, I wanna ask you about refugees. You’re about to sign a sweeping executive action to suspend immigration to this country.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right.
DAVID MUIR: Who are we talking about? Is this the Muslim ban?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’re talking about — no it’s not the Muslim ban. But it’s countries that have tremendous terror. It’s countries that we’re going to be spelling out in a little while in the same speech. And it’s countries that people are going to come in and cause us tremendous problems. Our country has enough problems without allowing people to come in who, in many cases or in some cases, are looking to do tremendous destruction.
DAVID MUIR: Are you at all …
(OVERTALK)
DAVID MUIR: … concerned — are you at all concerned it’s going to cause more anger among Muslims …
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Anger?
DAVID MUIR: … the world?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: There’s plenty of anger right now. How can you have more?
DAVID MUIR: You don’t think it’ll …
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Look, David …
DAVID MUIR: … exacerbate the problem?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: … David, I mean, I know you’re a sophisticated guy. The world is a mess. The world is as angry as it gets. What? You think this is gonna cause a little more anger? The world is an angry place. All of this has happened. We went into Iraq. We shouldn’t have gone into Iraq. We shouldn’t have gotten out the way we got out.
The world is a total mess. Take a look at what’s happening with Aleppo. Take a look what’s happening in Mosul. Take a look what’s going on in the Middle East. And people are fleeing and they’re going into Europe and all over the place. The world is a mess, David.
Muir then referred to unspecified “critics” who claimed that “taking the oil” in Iraq – something Trump has repeatedly said should have been done to recuperate costs for both Iraq wars – “would break all international all.”
Also of importance to Muir was Trump’s attitude towards waterboarding (which he implied was necessarily an act of “torture”), followed by worries about “the millions of Americans would could lose their health care if Obamacare is overturned.” No questions were asked about the negative impacts of the Affordable Care Act on the health insurance coverage of millions of Americans.
At no point did Muir ask Trump for his views on the dynamic tensions between globalization and national sovereignty, growing public debt at all levels of government, cultural tensions wrought by mass migration and “multiculturalism,” power struggles between the three branches of the federal government, threats to constitutional rights from increasing government power and control, declining rates of marriage and increasing rates of divorce, dropping birth rates, the role of Judeo-Christian values to America and declining religiosity across the nation, the role of the federal government in setting education policy, or a myriad of other pressing issues.
Given an opportunity to do otherwise, Muir instead chose to toe the line of superficial politics set by his fellow colleagues in the broader left-wing and Democrat-aligned “mainstream” news media. He presents himself as an objective, unbiased, and non-partisan reporter.
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