The wall that Donald Trump has promised to build on the US-Mexico border may in part “be some fencing”, the president-elect said in an interview released yesterday, as the top Republican already in Washington hinted at disagreements and uncertainties for how they intend to govern together.
In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, Trump said “there could be some fencing” in his proposed wall, which would span nearly 3,500km and cost billions.
On the campaign trail he promised that the barrier would be exclusively built of “hardened concrete”, “rebar” and “steel”.
“I’m very good at this,” he told CBS. “It’s called construction.”
Also yesterday Paul Ryan, speaker of the House and the lawmaker poised to write sweeping new legislation for the Republican-controlled government, said he believed his party had “a mandate” to reshape healthcare, taxes, regulations and border security for the Trump administration.
Discrepancies between Trump’s promises and Ryan’s plans, however, suggested that the president-elect and his future Congress do not yet know how they will make such changes.
Ryan insisted, for instance, that Trump’s “priority” would not be the mass deportation of millions of undocumented migrants.
“That is not what our focus is, we are focused on securing the border before we get on any immigration,” Ryan told CNN’s State of the Union. “We are not planning on erecting a deportation force, Donald Trump’s not planning on that.”
Trump has repeatedly promised a “deportation force” and in August said: “Day one, my first hour in office, those people are gone!” In his CBS interview, he said he would deport as many as 3mn people.
“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2mn, it could be even 3mn, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump said.
“But we’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally.”
In June, Ryan broke with Trump over a proposed ban on Muslims entering the US.
Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani, one of the president-elect’s advisers, said the ban would now be imposed on a country-by-country basis.
“The ban would be restricted to particular countries,” the former New York mayor told CNN, naming Syria and Yemen. “All the rest from countries that contain dangerous populations, they would be subject to ‘extreme vetting’.”
Giuliani suggested the US could work with regimes in Egypt and Pakistan for “pretty good vetting”, but not a complete ban.
Speaker Ryan also said the Republican party, which until last year largely supported Barack Obama’s free trade agenda with Asia, was not entirely behind Trump’s promises to impose high tariffs on countries such as China and Mexico.
“Not tariffs, not trade wars,” Ryan said, instead saying he wanted to “fix our taxes on border adjustments”. He maintained that the party would find common ground with the new president, saying: “He’s trying to make America more competitive.”
Ryan echoed Trump in suggesting that the party intended to keep some parts of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, while repealing the healthcare law itself.
A full repeal could mean as many as 20mn people losing health insurance.
Ryan told CNN that people 26 and younger could, according to his proposals, stay on their parents’ plan, and that Congress would “need to have a solution for pre-existing conditions”. He also said the party would propose “refundable tax credits” that “would lower the cost” of coverage.
“We would have a healthcare system in America where everyone, regardless of income and position,” he said, would “get to buy what you want to buy, not what the government is making you buy”. But Ryan refused to answer questions about whether women would still be able to have birth control covered.
“I’m not going to get into all the nitty gritty details about these things,” he said, adding, “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about legislation that hasn’t even been written yet.”
Giuliani also insisted that Trump would have no conflicts of interest in office, even if he hands control of his sprawling, international business to three of his children, who have acted as his closest advisers.
“Once he gets into government they will not be – they will not be advising,” Giuliani said. “There will have to be a wall between them with regard to government matters.”
Ryan also expressed confidence in Trump and his entourage, which includes Steve Bannon, a former investor and far-right media chief executive whose website, Breitbart, has trafficked in openly racist, sexist, homophobic and antisemitic writing. “I’ve never met the guy. I’ve never met Steve Bannon,” Ryan said. “So I have no concerns. I trust Donald Trump.
“I believe that Donald is going to have a great set of choices to make for staffing [the White House],” Ryan continued. “He’s a successful person, he surrounds himself with successful people. So I’m confident he’s going to do the same here.”
He denounced the perpetrators of hate crimes and racist graffiti that have been reported since Trump’s victory, saying: “They are not Republicans and we don’t want them.
“We are pluralistic, we are inclusive, and will continue to be. I really think people should put their minds at ease.”
Tens of thousands of protesters, however, have marched in cities across the US since Tuesday’s election, which Trump won in the electoral college but lost in the popular vote.
The demonstrations were largely peaceful, although on Saturday police blocked off a section of Fifth Avenue in New York to keep marchers away from Trump Tower.
In Indianapolis, some people threw rocks at police and officers fired pepper balls into the crowd.
In Portland on Saturday night, police made several arrests after clashes between protesters and officers in riot gear.
Mayor Charlie Hayes pleaded for calm.
“As long as protests are peaceful, that’s what we can do in this country, that’s what the first amendment is all about,” Ryan said.
Trump has given no clear view about the protests.
On Thursday night he said the marchers were “professional protesters, incited by the media” and “very unfair!” On Friday, he said: “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country.
We will all come together and be proud!”
Ryan has had a difficult relationship with Trump, whom he met in Washington on Thursday when the president-elect also met Obama at the White House.
Asked yesterday about his denunciation in June of Trump’s “textbook racism”, regarding a Hispanic judge overseeing a fraud lawsuit against the businessman, Ryan told CNN: “Look, I’m not going to relitigate the past.
I’m looking toward the future.”