President Donald Trump's wide-ranging tweets over Easter weekend touched on issues he feels "very strongly about," Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said Monday night.
In an interview on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," Ruddy, a longtime friend of the president, defended both Trump's fervor for a border wall, and his immigration policy — asserting Trump listens to multiple views on issues and is "a feedback junkie."
"He loves information, he loves hearing people's thoughts," Ruddy said. "And even if it's critical, he's actually open to a lot of that. The press tries to play that he doesn't want to hear anything. He likes fresh ideas. He likes new ideas. And he asks a lot of people — I saw him several times over the weekend. He was asking me a few questions. Very typical of him."
Ruddy called Trump's openness "a very positive attribute."
"He adjusts course," he said. "The press again tries to spin it like he'll stick on one position and never change. At one point he was calling for deportation of 10 million people on a policy pushed by Steve Bannon. That's not even talked about anymore."
Ruddy also dismissed theories that Trump's tough stance on immigration, especially on the Obama-era program protecting young illegal immigrants, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is an attempt to assuage his base — including immigration hawk Ann Coulter.
"This has been an issue that he's felt very strongly about for a long time," Ruddy said, adding: "I don't know if it was any meeting that he had [in Palm Beach]. The president's been very strong on the border. In fact, he's been very effective because he stepped up border enforcement laws."
"It's a serious issue, and I think the polls show that most Americans don't want unfettered access." he added. "He just wants to have national borders and national sovereignty. I think it's an okay position."
Ruddy said that in his view, Coulter's position on immigration "is extreme."
Ruddy also defended Trump's position on DACA, and thinks the president "wants to deal humanely with the illegals that are in the country or people that want to work and seek restitution. He's been very open in dealing with DACA."
"Democrats don't want to afford him the right to build a border wall, and he campaigned for it, he promised it, polls show the American people want a border barrier," he said. "If he's angry because they won't compromise, I think that's a legitimate position. I would not take Coulter's position on the matter."
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