In an interview with Anderson Cooper that will air on Tuesday evening, American Psycho: The Musical extra Donald Trump Jr. argued that his father’s immigration policy is the same as it ever was, despite reports that Trump Sr. is backing away from his initial pledge to kick eleven million undocumented immigrants out of the country.
“He wasn’t softening on anything. He didn’t change his stance on anything,” Trump Jr. said. Referring to a moment on Sean Hannity’s show in which Trump Sr. polled the room on what his immigration policy should be, Cooper suggested that his father wasn’t actually sure himself. Trump Jr. responded by saying that his father’s policy “has been the same for the last you know, six, seven, eight months.” Asked if that meant deporting eleven million people, Trump Jr. said, “That’s been the same, correct. But again, you have to start with baby steps. You have to let ICE do their job, you have to eliminate sanctuary cities, you have to get rid of the criminals certainly first, and, foremost, you have to secure the border.”
That’s a very confusing answer! It could be a preview of the needle that Trump Sr. will try to thread in the supposedly major immigration speech he’s set to deliver on Wednesday. He may argue for an incrementalist approach to dealing with border security and undocumented immigrants, winking at the anti-immigrant voters who flocked to him in the primaries, while trying to appear more reasonable to voters who think that his immigration policy is insane, inhumane, and unfeasible.
But no matter what Trump Jr. says, this will be different than the comprehensive, sweeping immigration proposals Trump Sr. made months ago. It’s possible that Trump Jr., the campaign’s ambassador to the alt right, is just being the campaign’s ambassador to the alt right. But it’s likely that he’s just as confused about his father’s immigration policy as his father is.