TOI correspondent from Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump doubled down on his support for “smart people” immigrating to the United States, largely aligning himself with the views of Elon Musk. Such a policy would go against the sentiment in his MAGA base, the most radical fringe of which wants a moratorium, if not a ban, on all immigration to America.
Buttonholed on the red carpet during a New Year’s party in Mar-a-Lago, Trump rejected the idea that he had changed stand on the H1B visa program for guest workers (which he has sometimes opposed), saying, “I’ve always felt we have to have the most competent people in our country.”
“We need smart people coming into our country, and we need a lot of people coming in. We’re gonna have jobs like we’ve never had before,” he added, before quickly moving on to other topics.
Trump’s stand is causing immense disquiet among MAGA radicals, with some prominent figures starting to kvetch about Musk’s growing influence on the President-elect and calling him a recent “MAGA convert.”
Among them is Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House counselor, who called Musk “a total and complete phony… owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Chinese Communist Party” and warned him “not go to the pulpit in your first week here and start lecturing people about the way things are going to be.”
“If you’re going to do that, we’re going to rip your face off,” Bannon said in a brewing MAGA v Musk battle that has become ferocious.
The optics of the face-off — aside from Trump’s remarks — suggest Musk currently has the upper hand. The tech titan, with his toddler son X on his shoulder, was present at Trump’s New Year party. Bannon was not; he was unloading on Musk on a podcast in what his critics described as a case of Musk envy.
“This guy lives on government contracts and taxpayer subsidies…You’re a war profiteer…you’re not an American nationalist,…you’re not even an American, you are a globalist… You would take a check from Adolph Hitler,” Bannon raged.
MAGA radicals are comforting themselves that Musk’s rise is temporary and they will have the upper hand once Trump takes office. Arguing that Trump’s pro-immigration remarks is being taken out of context, one MAGA warrior on X pointed out that Trump has put Stephen Miller and Tom Homan — “the two biggest immigration hawks in the country” — in charge of crafting and enforcing his immigration policies.
Miller, who will be the White House Deputy Chief of Staff in the incoming Trump administration, has previously been a critic of the H1B program and helped tighten the rules and regulations during Trump’s first term, besides crafting the ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries. He is also in favor of deploying the US military and building detention camps to deport illegal immigrants. Among his more famous remarks: “America is for Americans and Americans only.”
