President Donald Trump vowed there would be no deal for amnesty in the next two years, a day after he signaled an openness to working with Democrats on the issue.
“We have a very strong deportation policy. There is no amnesty,” Trump said at an impromptu White House press conference Monday. Accompanying Trump at the briefing was Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White.
Trump said his immigration policy continues to target the “worst of the worst” for deportation.
“We’re getting the murderers out. We’ve gotten most of them out. They allow people to come in from prisons, they empty their prisons into a country,” Trump said. “Many countries and they emptied our prisons into our country.”
The president added, “Joe Biden allowed 25 million people to come in, among that, 11,888 murderers.”
During the CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, Trump said that, in the first two years of his second term, his administration’s deportation policy “was too tough,” adding, “I think ultimately that hurt me” in the 2026 midterms. He said he would be open to a deal with Democrats to grant legal status to some aliens.
The comments prompted concerns among conservatives who favor strong immigration law enforcement.
A reporter asked White on Monday if he had said no to Trump’s offer to be press secretary. The president posted Saturday on Truth Social that he offered White the position, before telling reporters on Sunday that he was “only kidding.”
White said Monday, “I don’t tell the president no to anything.”
He continued, “Every media outlet was calling me, and I didn’t want to be disrespectful and say anything until he said something first.”
Trump described the process of floating White’s name for the position: “We were having a very bad press day, and I don’t know why, but I thought of his name. He’s been my friend a long time. I said, you know, I’m going to get Dana White to be my new press secretary. I said it to a group of the press, and that was it. I’m sort of kidding. And then they wrote the stories I wasn’t kidding. You were inundated. I was inundated. He was here anyway, and we thought we’d have a little fun.”
At the end of the briefing, Trump turned to White and said, “Will you be my press secretary?”
White smiled and thanked the president for the offer, saying, “I do not want to be in politics.”
Trump said, “I am devastated.”
The president also talked about Iran but said he didn’t see a need at this point for escalation.
“Should there be any change with respect to developments in the Middle East, the United States of America is fully locked and loaded with the best equipment ever made, and we don’t think there’s going to be any reason to use it,” Trump said.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
