Trump Mentions ‘Jail’ For Liz Cheney And J6 Committee
In his first formal interview since winning the presidency, Donald Trump reaffirmed to NBC News’ Meet the Press his intention to pardon those convicted for participating in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Trump also made headlines by asserting that members of the Democrat-led House committee that investigated the riot “should go to jail.”
“Honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump told NBC News’ Kristen Welker. When asked directly, “So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail?” Trump responded, “For what they did.”
However, Trump clarified that he would not personally direct the FBI or attorney general to take such action, saying, “They’ll have to look at that, but I’m not going to — I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill. I’m going to look at everything. We’re going to look at individual cases.”
The president-elect also suggested he might pursue executive action to terminate “birthright citizenship,” which grants U.S. citizenship to children born in the country to undocumented immigrants. He acknowledged that such a move would likely provoke a constitutional challenge.
When asked about plans for large-scale deportations, Trump said, “Well, I think you have to do it, and it’s a hard – it’s a very tough thing to do. But you have to have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally. You know, the people that have been treated very unfairly are the people that have been on line for ten years to come into the country. And we’re going to make it very easy for people to come in, in terms of they have to pass the test.”
Trump also expressed a willingness to find a solution for “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, saying he wanted to “work something out.”
Welker questioned whether Trump intended to target President Joe Biden, referencing a Truth Social post from June 12, 2023, when Trump was facing multiple legal battles. Trump replied, “I’m really looking to make our country successful. I’m not looking to go back into the past. Retribution will be through success.”
Pressed further on the matter, Trump added, “I will say this, no, I’m not doing that unless I find something that I think is reasonable, but that’s not going to be my decision. That’s going to be [attorney general nominee] Pam Bondi’s decision, and, to a different extent, [FBI director nominee] Kash Patel, assuming they’re both there, and I think they’re both going to get approved. … While you ask me that, what they’ve done to me with weaponization is a disgrace.”
On economic issues, Trump defended his proposal for widespread tariffs, dismissing predictions from economists about potential cost increases for consumers. However, he acknowledged there were no guarantees.
“I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow. But I can say that if you looked at my – just pre-Covid, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. And I had a lot of tariffs on a lot of different countries, but in particular China. We took in hundreds of billions of dollars, and we had no inflation,” he said.
Notably, the U.S. has long imposed tariffs on various imports under administrations from both parties. Earlier this year, President Joe Biden approved substantial increases in tariffs on Chinese goods, raising rates by 25-50 percent.