Former President Donald Trump slammed President Joe Biden during an interview on Monday night, saying that Biden’s border crisis is so severe that it could “destroy our country.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Trump about “how dangerous” the situation on the border is and what the media would do if Trump were president and “cages” were “overflowing with kids in the middle of a pandemic.”
“They would not stand for it. And they’re playing it down as much as they can play it down. It’s a horrible situation, could destroy our country,” Trump said. “People are pouring in. But you’ll see something as the months go by like you’ve never seen before. Already it’s like you’ve never seen before. There’s never been anything like what’s happened at our border. And people are coming in by the tens of thousands.”
“They’re walking in … all they had to do was leave it alone,” Trump continued. “If he’d left it alone, we were setting record positive numbers. And people would have to come in legally. And, you know, the other thing that people don’t talk about you, human trafficking and drugs. That’s double, triple, then quadruples coming in because that’s pouring in right now. Drugs are pouring in.”
“We had it so tight, we were doing so well. All he had to do was leave it alone. Stay in Mexico was a big deal. You know, that wasn’t easy to get. We went through court systems. We went through everything,” Trump continued. “The wall, getting the wall built and the wall we — we’re up to almost 500 miles and completing it was very easy. That was going to be just routine. It would have been done routinely. The contracts were already there, the materials there, it was going to be done very quickly. And we got delayed for two-and-a-half years because we were sued by Nancy Pelosi and Congress not to build the wall. I wanted to see if we want all of this as we want everything. And then they don’t finish the wall.”
A couple of minutes later Trump hit Biden for ending the travel ban, which stopped people from entering the country who were coming from countries that were terrorism hotspots.
“They’re ending the ban,” Trump said. “They’ve already ended it, so that people can come in from dangerous countries. But if you take a look at what’s happening with the Middle East, many people from the Middle East are coming in through our southern border alongside of Mexico. What they’re doing is insane. They’re going to destroy our country.”
WATCH:
TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED VIA FOX NEWS:
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Let me go to one of your signature issues, from the first day, the day you came down the escalator. And that had to do with immigration. You instituted policies, stay in Mexico policy. It worked. You built I think by the end over 450 miles of new border wall.
DONALD TRUMP, 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yeah.
HANNITY: Obviously walls work.
TRUMP: Worked.
HANNITY: Then of course, you ended the practice with catch and release. Now we see the exact opposite. You’ve seen these images on TV. I say they’re Biden’s cages. I mean, the media went nuts about all Trump is putting children in cages. It turned out Joe Biden and Barack Obama built those cages. And the images were from 2014, not 2018.
My question is this, imagine — well, first of all, the — your overall take on how dangerous this is. And number two, imagine if you’re president and you have these are trump’s cages overflowing with kids in the middle of a pandemic that with a high positivity of COVID, what do you think the media — because there’s been virtual silence on a lot of the aspects. I would — I would argue if it was a daycare center, you’d be shut down and charged with child abuse.
TRUMP: They would not stand for it. And they’re playing it down as much as they can play it down. It’s a horrible situation, could destroy our country.
People are pouring in. But you’ll see something as the months go by like you’ve never seen before. Already it’s like you’ve never seen before. There’s never been anything like what’s happened at our border. And people are coming in by the tens of thousands.
They’re walking in. They — we had — all they had to do was leave it alone. If he’d left it alone, we were setting record positive numbers. And people would have to come in legally. And, you know, the other thing that people don’t talk about you, human trafficking and drugs. That’s double, triple, then quadruples coming in because that’s pouring in right now. Drugs are pouring in.
We had it so tight, we were doing so well. All he had to do was leave it alone. Stay in Mexico was a big deal. You know, that wasn’t easy to get. We went through court systems. We went through everything.
The wall, getting the wall built and the wall we — we’re up to almost 500 miles and completing it was very easy. That was going to be just routine. It would have been done routinely. The contracts were already there, the materials there, it was going to be done very quickly.
And we got delayed for two-and-a-half years because we were sued by Nancy Pelosi and congress not to build the wall. I wanted to see if we want all of this as we want everything. And then they don’t finish the wall.
The wall is imperative. All of the things that go with the wall, the technology that goes into the wall and with the wall is so imperative. We had it down to a number that nobody could believe. And then all of the sudden I hear this — now, here’s something else that – I stopped money going to three countries and then you have Mexico, where I have a great relationship with the president — he’s actually a great guy. Different philosophy but a great guy.
He put 28,000 — free of charge, 28,000 soldiers on our border to stop people from coming in. And if you look at Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, we were giving them $500 million a year. But they weren’t letting us take back these incredible — whether it’s MS-13, the — these horrible people, gangsters, drug lords, horrible. They wouldn’t let them come back.
So I stopped paying them and I said, how much are we paying them, $500 million. That was very early on. And as soon as I stopped payment, they called us, we would love to have MS-13 back in our country. They wouldn’t let us — if a plane was flying over, they’d block the runways. If buses came in, they wouldn’t let you into the country. So we couldn’t get anybody back. Now we just bring them back.
He ended that. Now what he’s doing is they want to give billions — not $500 million — they want to give billions and billions of dollars to these countries. I get along with all three of them — with the top people, all three of them. But they’re going to be taking in billions and billions of dollars. And what’s going to happen is that money’s going to go to people that they have to bring people into our country.
One other thing, they’re sending us not their best people. They are sending us people that, in many cases, not in all cases, are murders, drug dealers, human traffickers, and really bad — rapists, really bad people. They’re sending us people from their prisons. Those people are coming into our country.
And of course, that’s just common sense because all you have to do is take a look at what happened in the case of Cuba, take a look at what happened in the case of other countries. But the three countries, you have really some unbelievably dangerous people coming into our country.
They’re not vetted. You talk about COVID, you talk about all of — that’s one thing. But they’re not vetted from a criminal standpoint so we have murders and rapists coming into our country. And they’re just walking in.
And just to finalize it, we have people from Yemen and the middle east coming in. And they’re coming in at numbers — now, they can’t come in through the airports. They can’t get on a plane. And we had the policy, the ban — we had a ban which was a great thing, from very dangerous countries.
They’re ending the ban. They’ve already ended it, so that people can come in from dangerous countries. But if you take a look at what’s happening with the Middle East, many people from the Middle East are coming in through our southern border alongside of Mexico.
What they’re doing is insane. They’re going to destroy our country.