Young immigrants brought to the US as children and now here illegally can "rest easy," President Donald Trump said Friday, telling the "dreamers" they will not be targets for deportation under his immigration policies.
Trump, in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, said his administration is "not after the dreamers, we are after the criminals."
The president, who took a hard line on immigration as a candidate, vowed anew to fulfil his promise to construct a wall along the US-Mexico border. But he stopped short of demanding that funding for the project be included in a spending bill Congress must pass by the end of next week in order to keep the government running.
"I want the border wall. My base definitely wants the border wall," Trump said in the Oval Office interview. Asked whether he would sign legislation that does not include money for the project, he said, "I just don't know yet." Throughout the campaign, he had firmly and repeatedly guaranteed that Mexico, not US taxpayers, would pay for the wall.
Eager to start making progress on other campaign promises, Trump said he would unveil a tax overhaul package next week, "Wednesday or shortly thereafter", that would include a "massive" tax cut for both individuals and corporations. He would not provide details of rate proposals or how he planned to pay for the package but asserted the cuts for Americans will be "bigger, I believe, than any tax cut ever."
He panned that marker as "artificial." Still, the White House is eager to tout progress on the litany of agenda items he promised to fulfil in his first 100 days, despite setbacks including court bans on his proposed immigration limits and a high-profile failure in repealing and replacing the current health care law.
The president said Friday he spent his first 100 days laying the "foundation" for progress later in his administration, including by building relationships with foreign leaders. He cited German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a leader he was surprised to have developed strong chemistry with, given that he has been critical of her handling of immigration policies.
On foreign policy, Trump said it was "possible" the US will withdraw from the nuclear accord with Iran forged by Obama and five other world leaders. He said he believes Iran's destabilizing actions "all over the Middle East and beyond" are violating the spirit of the accord, though the State Department this week certified that Tehran is complying with the tenets of the deal aimed at curbing its nuclear program.
The president also appeared to side with his advisers' increasingly harder line on Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Assange's arrest was a priority for the Justice Department as it steps up efforts to prosecute people who leak classified information to the media.
