David E. Sanger

And look, he says he just wants people who love this country to be allowed in.

But what we're learning is he basically only wants to favor white South Africans, as I raised with him.

Or the immigrants he wants the most are those who bring special skills that can help our economy.

And that's a very select group.

He actually invoked the ICE raid on that Hyundai plant in Georgia, where they deported a whole bunch of South Korean workers who were there setting up a car battery factory.

Well, I think what he's saying is they certainly can't do it at the beginning.

Immigrants can.

That's right.

You can't just drop a car battery factory and expect it to be up and running without the help of the technical workers that they need to get it up and running.

And the American workers aren't going to catch on until that happens.

You know, Michael, to hear President Trump come back and discuss this, I was sitting there thinking, how is his own base going to go react to this?

Because, yes, the core of it is you do find a pathway for at least some to get to citizenship.

And I'm not sure the current Trump base is ready for that.

You know, we kept trying to steer him back to this, to try to get him to think about

The economic anxieties of ordinary Americans.

That's right.

Or that new technology like artificial intelligence would bring about more economic anxiety.

And so I think you've got to come to your own conclusion about whether or not there's anything in this interview that would make an ordinary American feel better about supermarket prices or tightening job market or the anxieties that come from the arrival of a new and somewhat terrifying new technology that's going to have effects that none of us can predict.

Well, the president had stuff he wanted us to see.

And after nearly two hours of conversation, he got up, started pointing out paintings he had dug out of the vault of the White House and hung.