Politics

Donald Trump Covers Campaign Tenets On '60 Minutes'

September 28th 2015

In a sprawling "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday night, Donald Trump said—among other things—that rounding up millions of illegal immigrants for deportation could be done in humane way that would ultimately benefit them.

"60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley posed the hypothetical logistics of the plan to the GOP front-runner—including blockages from immovable facets of U.S. government: the Constitution, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

"We're rounding 'em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they're going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn't sound nice. But not everything is nice," Trump told Pelley in his penthouse suite in Midtown Manhattan.

"You know, the problem with a lot of these ideas is that the president of the United States is not the CEO of America," Pelley noted, eliciting a characteristically Trump-esque back-and-forth between the reporter and the businessman:

Scott Pelley: The constitution is going to tell you no.

Donald Trump: We'll see.

Pelley: The Congress is going to tell you no.

Trump: We'll see.

Pelley: The Supreme Court is gonna tell you no.

Trump: Well, we'll see.

Pelley: And you're not used to working in an environment like that.

Trump: Look—I do it all the time.

Pelley: Who tells you no?

Trump: I do it all the time. Not that many people—I do it all the time. And I deal with governments all the time. I have, overseas, I have vast holdings overseas.

Immigration, however, was hardly the only subject to make the candidate's appearance on the show notable. Trump, who has consistently (and divisively) been leading the polls for the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, was pressured during the interview to reveal just how he planned to accomplish the many ostentatious political promises that have marked his campaign thus far. Here are four more huge takeaways from the interview:

1. Trump's tax plan

Pelley's first question to Trump was about his much anticipated tax plan, which the candidate only hinted at, saying he would raise taxes for some, eliminate them for others, and ultimately cover the country's bases by incentivising growth in the economy. After setting himself apart from many other Republicans on taxation by saying he would crack down on "certain people on Wall Street getting away with paying no tax," Trump said he would roll out substantial cuts to some middle and low-income families, as well as for corporations. (More details of his tax plan were released today.)

"I will say this, there will be a large segment of our country that will have a zero rate, a zero rate. And that's something I haven't told anybody," Trump said. "We're talking about the people in the low-income brackets that are supposed to be paying taxes, many of them don't anyway." Trump said he would reveal the details of his tax plan this week.

2. Jobs at home

Trump touted his plans to bring back jobs from China, Japan, and Mexico in order to boost the economy, hinting that he would go as far as breaking existing trade agreements to do so. "Let's say Ford—let's say Ford moves to Mexico. If they want to sell that car in the United States they pay a tax. Here's what's gonna happen, they're not going to build their plant there. They're going to build it in the United States."

"You can't just break the law," Pelley pointed out.

"Excuse me, every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair. Every agreement has a defraud clause. We're being defrauded by all these countries... Scott we need fair trade. Not free trade. We need fair trade. It's gotta be fair," Trump said.

3. ISIS

"I would end ISIS forcefully," Trump began, adding that the U.S. should let ISIS fight Syria's Assad regime, and then go in to "pick up the remnants."

"Why are we doing this? We're fighting ISIS and Assad has to be saying to himself, 'They have the nicest of dumbest people that I've ever imagined.'" Trump also suggested letting Russia destroy ISIS, and putting U.S. troops on the ground to "knock out" ISIS in Iraq.

4. Universal healthcare

After promising to repeal Obamacare, Trump said that although it is very "un-Republican" of him, he would "take care of everybody."

"I don't care if it costs me votes or not," Trump said on the topic of healthcare. "Everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken care of now."

When pressed for details, Trump said that the government would pay for it, making deals with existing hospitals, and setting up most with private plans that allow them to negotiate with lots of competitors. Trump also backed down on claims he made in his book "The America We Deserve" that the Social Security retirement age needed to be raised to 70.

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