President Donald Trump was challenged Friday to explain his designation of Tren de Aragua gang members as part of a “terrorist” organization by a somewhat unlikely source: Fox News.
Peter Doocy, the network’s senior White House correspondent, questioned Trump during an Oval Office press conference, first citing Trump’s proclamation last week designating the Venezuelan gang as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.” The proclamation invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to carry out deportations, which have been met with legal challenges, especially since any potential gang affiliations are in some cases disputed.
“If ISIS or al Qaeda foreign terrorists were operating here in the United States, cops would probably be shooting first and asking questions later,” Doocy said.
“And so what is the difference between terrorists? Between somebody like an ISIS or an al Qaeda operative versus MS-13 or a Tren de Aragua?”
Trump replied, “Well, these are people that focus on destroying people in their homes. They’re not as international in that sense.”
That was the extent of Trump’s explanation, as he proceeded to relish in a photo op of deportation flights, complain about “transgender for everyone,” and rehash false grievances about past elections.
“They’re very, very dangerous people… But they didn’t look so dangerous when the guards took care of the situation from El Salvador. And I want to thank the president. He’s a friend of mine. He’s done a great job,” Trump said.
“I just can’t imagine that the Democrats are taking this issue where they want to have them back, you know?” he continued. “So now they have men playing in women’s sports, they have transgender for everyone, they have open borders, they have all of their crazy policies that are, I think, 95-5, not 90-10, OK?”
“And their new policy is, let’s bring Tren de Aragua back into our country,” he claimed.
“When they were in Colorado, cutting the fingers off a man because he made a phone call to the police, they seemed a lot tougher then than they did when they were having their head shaved and they were in shackles,” he said.
Trump then complained, once again, about how a judge had ordered the deportation flights to be turned around. The flights continued, however. And the judge, James Boasberg, has since been grilling government lawyers about it.
“They’re tough people. They’re bad people. We don’t want them in our country,” Trump said. “We can’t let a judge say that he wants them. You know, he didn’t run for president. He didn’t get much more than 80 million votes. And we just can’t let that happen. It would be so bad for our country.”
