PALM BEACH, Florida — Former President Donald Trump ripped Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration for allowing what Trump calls an “invasion” at the U.S. border with Mexico, something the former president likened to a “migration of civilization into our country.”
Trump’s comments, which came during a two-hour-long exclusive interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday evening, come as Biden’s administration has been involved in talks with Mexico to try to stem the tide of migrants flowing into the country. They also come as lawmakers in Washington seek an elusive deal that would fund more aid to Ukraine—a Biden administration priority—in exchange for border reforms that Republicans in the Senate want.
Trump ripped Biden for not understanding the leverage that he says the United States has in negotiations with Mexico.
“He doesn’t understand anything—they went into Mexico today, hat in hand,” Trump said. “We have all the power—they have none of the power.”
Trump was referring to how Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken met this week with Mexican foreign minister Alicia Barcena to produce what the Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador—known as AMLO for short—called afterwards “important agreements.” A joint communication from Mexico and the United States that the Biden White House shared after the meeting stated the two countries’ commitment to “orderly, humane and regular migration.”
Trump thinks Biden got rolled by Mexico—something he says he would have never let happen when he was president. Trump told Breitbart News that when he took office in January 2017 after eight years of Democrat Barack Obama in the White House, there were many people streaming across the border. But Trump was able to significantly cut the flow down with deals like Remain-in-Mexico and other agreements with Northern Triangle countries in Central America—in addition to things like the implementation of Title 42 and the end of catch-and-release policies. But.now that Biden is in there, and because of the fact he ripped up Trump’s policies immediately upon taking office, Trump says now there is an “invasion” and a “migration of civilization into the country” unlike any other in world history. Trump also repeatedly pointed out his belief that many of the people coming in are from mental institutions worldwide, and that some are even terrorists.
“Mexico is very interesting. They came to me—we were having a lot of people come in as soon as I got there, through Obama they were coming in very substantially but nothing like today. In history, there’s been anything like this,” Trump said. “In any country, there’s never been a migration like this. It’s an invasion—and it’s a migration of civilization into our country. Take a look at the mental institutions all throughout the world. They’re empty. Some are literally empty and some are down 50, 60, 70 percent. They’re all here.”
Later in the interview, Trump reiterated the “invasion” and “migration” terminology.
“When you have millions of people pouring through our borders, that’s an invasion. I like the word I used—migration,” Trump said.
Trump said that the way Mexico has behaved with Biden as compared to how Mexico worked with him is a stark contrast.
“Mexico could not have been nicer to me,” Trump said. “They gave us 28,000 soldiers. They gave us so much—far more than the wall. The wall was peanuts compared to what I got from them. There’s no way to fund a wall—how can Mexico fund a wall that’s being built? But I got much more money than that.”
Trump told Breitbart News that he believes the border is becoming a real problem for Democrats and for Biden heading into next year, too, as it becomes more of a story that they cannot hide from the broader public. He also pointed to the continued stream of migrant caravans—including the latest big one forming in Mexico—as something that grabs the nation’s attention.
“For the first time this week, I’m seeing that the border is becoming a real story,” Trump said. “People are now seeing it’s destroying our country. When they say 5,000 people are in that caravan, it’s really 50 or 60 thousand. Did you see that thing? It’s miles long.”
In total, by the time Biden is done as president—which Trump thinks will be at the end of next year because he believes he will win the election next November—Trump thinks that Biden will have imported a total of 15 million people.
“I think by the time he finishes, it’s going to be 15 million people—which is going to be in 11 months,” Trump said. “That is bigger than New York State. Many of those people are from prisons. Many are from jails. There’s a slight distinction. Many are from mental institutions and insane asylums. Many are terrorists. Did you see in 2019 I had no terrorists? Not one terrorist came in. They didn’t find any. Now, we have record numbers of terrorists coming in.”
