President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News’s Kristen Welker during his first mainstream media interview since winning the 2024 presidential election that he still plans to end birthright citizenship on “Day One,” which he promised while campaigning.
When Welker quoted the 14th amendment of the Constitution to Trump (“all persons born in the United States are citizens”), he said “we might have to make a change.”
Trump’s niece, liberal political pundit Mary L. Trump, responded to the news on her podcast The Nerd Avengers by pleading, “So I have a favor, can we please retroactively deport my grandfather?” Ms. Trump added, “my grandfather was an anchor baby.”
Her grandfather is the President-elect’s late father, Fred Trump, who was born in New York City in 1905 to German immigrant parents.
Note: The term “anchor baby” is a slang term, generally considered offensive, for a child intentionally born in the United States from a foreign mother so the child receives US citizenship.
Ms. Trump, who said the Meet the Press interview was full of her uncle’s “typical combination of ignorance, lying, bluster, gaslighting and stupidity,” noted that Welker didn’t correct him when he said, “you know we’re the only country that has it,” meaning birthright citizenship.
That assertion is false: 32 countries have similar unrestrictive birthright citizenship laws including U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico.
Ms. Trump’s fellow “nerd avenger” Norm Ornstein (Emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, contributing editor for The Atlantic, cohost with Dr. Kavita Patel of the podcast Words Matter) agreed that it was outrageous that Welker didn’t respond to the president’s claim.
Ornstein said: “That was journalism malpractice. If you’re going to ask a question about birthright citizenship, you need to do your homework. And be prepared to call out the lies.”
