Trump doubles down on mass deportation of illegals but says he wants immigrants

While doubling down on his campaign stance of deporting illegal migrants, US President-elect Donald Trump says he wants immigrants to come in legally.

"We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful and, and we have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country," he said in an interview with NBC, his first since his election to a second term.

"I'm not somebody that says, 'no, you can't come in.' We want people to come in," he said. When the interviewers asked him about the cost of mass deportation of illegal migrants, he said, "It's not a question of a price tag. When people have killed and murdered when drug lords have destroyed countries… there is no price tag."

Trump said in his interview with two journalists from the network that his mandate is "to bring common sense" to the country. "You can't have 'defund the police', these kind of things. They don't want to give up and they don't work, and the people understand that," he added.

He said "the Democrats are not in line with the thinking of the country" resulting in a political realignment with him making gains among Latinos, Asian Americans, women, and young voters compared to 2020.

Surveys bear out the claim and also show gains among Blacks. He described his calls with President Joe Biden and Harris as "very nice calls, very respectful both ways", and said he expected to have lunch with Biden. Trump also said he has spoken to 70 world leaders, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but not to Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is among the leaders he has spoken to. PM Modi said in a post on X, "Had a great conversation with my friend, President @realDonaldTrump congratulating him on his spectacular victory. Looking forward to working closely together once again to further strengthen India-US relations across technology, defence, energy, space, and several other sectors."