President Donald Trump insists in an interview airing Thursday that he is not "anti-immigrant," and that in fact, he is "all for people coming into the country legally," as well as for people being allowed in based on merit.
He also told the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody and Jenna Browder, in an interview recorded aboard Air Force One Wednesday, that he rejects critics' claims that he is a racist.
"You know the word racist is used about every Republican that's winning," Trump said in the interview, which will air in full on "The 700 Club" Thursday. "Any time Republican is leading they take out the R word, the racist word."
However, he noted that when there is a caravan heading to the United States, "with thousands of people, maybe 10,000 people," that is a concern.
"You see the violence that was caused by a second caravan that's forming on the northern Mexico side, where you look at what's going on with Guatemala and Honduras, and you look at the people being hurt," Trump added.
The caravan's migrants won't be permitted to enter the United States, he promised.
"We have 10 (thousand) and we might go up to 15,000 soldiers on our border," said Trump. "We are building a wall, in its own way. We're putting up walls of barbed wire. When you look at what we're doing they're just not coming into our country. They might as well go back now."
He also denied that the push back against the caravan is being done for political reasons.
"I've been on this issue for a long time and now we have a chance to do something about it," said Trump. "The problem is we have no Democrat votes."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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