The signature issue of his campaign is immigration.
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Texas’ grudging embrace of Trump was summed up earlier this month when Land Commissioner George P. Bush, Jeb Bush’s son and scion of the Bush family, urged activists to get involved and support the Republican candidate.
But the NY businessman, who trails Clinton in national public opinion polls as well as in many battleground states where the election will be decided, may be moving toward the center on immigration to appeal to moderate voters and minority groups who have been disenchanted by his bellicose rhetoric.
Over the weekend, Trump told his Hispanic advisory council that he would adopt a “humane and efficient” solution to the crisis of the undocumented.
Media Matters for America says Trump’s “Hannity” spots are the equivalent of $31 million in free advertising.
“You have somebody that has been in the country for 20 years”, Trump said hypothetically at a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity taped on Tuesday, the second half of which aired tonight at 10 p.m.
“We want the ones that want to love us, not the ones that want to create problems”, Trump said.
On Fox News Monday night, he championed existing immigration policy, saying, “Obama got tremendous numbers of people out of the country”. “We have some great, great people in this country”. “He was one great governor”. She said: “We go to them where they live, literally”. And we’re going to have protection for tunnels so that people can’t tunnel under. You know, OK, so if you’re a killer and you’re in this country, they go after you big league and it’s tough.
To explicate the subtext of Trump’s remarks, CNN solicited the expertise of GOP congressmen – and master of Trumpian semiotics – Steve King.
Trump: Yes, I’ve already announced who the 11 could be.I have 11 people from which to pick. “His answer then was there could be some softening, which I didn’t quite hear as he’d be willing to change the law …” “They’ll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there’s no amnesty, as such, there’s no amnesty, but we work with them”.
OH?? “enforce our laws”?
Trump launched his campaign in June 2015 with a harsh speech claiming Mexico was sending rapists and drug dealers to the U.S. And the reason is they’re not law abiding in the first place.
“By crossing the border illegally, they’re, by definition, criminals”.
The backbone of Trump’s support has been his successful ability to tap into that segment of the racist Republican Party that hates immigrants. He notes: “So involved is Mr. Hannity that three separate denizens of the hall of mirrors that is Trump World told me they believed Mr. Hannity was behaving as if he wanted a role in a possible Trump administration – something he denied to me as laughable and contractually prohibitive”.
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Perry left office previous year and was a harsh Trump critic as he briefly ran for the Republican presidential nomination, even calling the billionaire businessman a cancer on conservatism.
