While he has yet to officially announce intentions to run in 2024, former President Donald Trump is already teasing what his first move will be if he were to return to the White House: finish the wall on the southern border.
"It's so easy: You close it up, you got to close it up – and that would send a big signal, a really big signal," Trump told EpochTV's "Kash's Corner" host Kash Patel in an exclusive interview last week that will air in full Monday.
Trump said closing our border will fix a lot of the damage done by President Joe Biden and his administration, including getting respect of other world leaders.
"First of all, the wall, even for him," Trump told Patel of how to restore the respect from China's Xi Jinping. "You know why? Because when he sees millions of people pouring into our country, he loses respect for our country.
"And then you've got to get their respect again," Trump added. "How do you do that?
"You do that by making sure that they know that this country is here and it's here to stay and we're not going to take any nonsense."
Open borders has been a symbol of open season on the U.S. around the world, according to Trump.
"When [Xi] and [Russia's Vladimir] Putin and [North Korea's] Kim Jong Un and Iran's leaders, when they're watching millions of people walk into our country," Trump added, "they lose respect."
Biden has unwound Trump's border policies when taking office to disasterous results. Illegal border crossers apprehended shot up four times the number in 2020 to 1.9 million in 2021 under Biden, according to the report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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