STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Day by day, we're pursuing a question - how radical will a new Trump administration be? While campaigning, the president-elect talked of jailing his critics and terminating the Constitution. Some Trump voters expressed confidence he wouldn't do that stuff. And in truth, a lot of his language was imprecise. Since the election, some cabinet picks suggest drastic acts, while Trump's language is a little mixed. Yesterday, for example, the president-elect asserted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would not be so radical and then repeated some of Kennedy's questioning of vaccine science. Trump has talked of more lawsuits against journalists and pollsters, and, yesterday, a Trump adviser talked with our colleague, Mary Louise Kelly, about immigration and more. Mary Louise, good morning.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Who'd you talk to?
KELLY: I spoke with Jason Miller. He is a senior adviser. He worked on all three of Trump's campaigns. He came by our studio to talk about Day 1 and just how they are thinking about it because, as you just laid out, Trump made campaign promises on all kinds of things. He has not spelled out detailed plans for how he plans to execute on a lot of them. So that is where I wanted to go with Miller. I want you to listen. This is a taste of when I asked him, is Trump going to close the Southern border on Day 1?
JASON MILLER: We're going to put the Trump policies back in place. So if you liked what we had during the first four years of the Trump administration, you're going to like what he's going to do. So we talk about Remain in Mexico. We talk about - catch-and-release will be abolished, for example. Title 42 I would expect to be back, and there'll probably be some other measures - so literally on Day 1. These are things where there'll be EOs in place...
KELLY: Executive orders.
MILLER: ...Executive orders. So that's something that the president can sign. It doesn't have to go through Congress. So his policies are...
KELLY: And again, just on that basic question - close the border, not close the border - Day 1, what's the timeline?
MILLER: Well, we're going to make it so, if you're illegal, you're not coming in through a port of entry. Or if - even if you're trying to come into a port of entry illegally, you're not going to be allowed in. Now, when you say close the border, the impression is that nobody's allowed to go back and forth. What the border will be closed to is for people trying to enter the United States illegally. So there's a distinction. I want to make sure people don't think that all of a sudden, like, all trade between the countries or traditional commerce is going to be shut down or anything of that nature.
KELLY: And as you know, the president of Mexico has not fully signed off on these policies, nor have some of the countries that Donald Trump would like to send these people back to. What happens if, say, Venezuela says, no, we're not taking them back.
MILLER: They'll take them back.
KELLY: And, Steve, Jason Miller and I went back forth on that a bit on what kind of legal challenges they're expecting to these border policies, for example, because you will recall, last time around - first Trump administration - Trump tried to ban travel from majority-Muslim countries, which led to confusion, led to legal challenges that went all the way to the Supreme Court. So this time, they are very much hoping to avoid a repeat.
INSKEEP: OK, how are they planning to avoid repeating that chaos?
KELLY: Yeah. Well, this was striking because, in the first Trump administration - well, I mean, it wasn't just the travel ban - there was chaos inside the White House. People may recall Trump's first national security adviser lasted just a few days on the job. Jason Miller told me they learned from that.
MILLER: It's fascinating to watch, having kind of had a front-row seat with all this with President Trump. In 2016, he knew what he wanted to do from kind of a macrovision - improve the economy, secure the border. Now he knows exactly how he wants to do it. So the fact that he had his entire cabinet named by Thanksgiving - he had a chief of staff, Susie Wiles, named before Thanksgiving - his - kind of his senior White House team. He knows exactly what it is. So a lot of times, when you have incoming presidents, they're trying to figure out - and this sounds a little bit crass, but, you know, where's the bathroom? You know, what are the logistics? How does this place work? Not only does President Trump know how the West Wing - how the White House works, he knows how to do it with other foreign leaders as well.
KELLY: And he gave an example of a conversation Trump just had with Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau - other foreign leaders he wants to meet from the get-go. So it's going to be a busy Day 1.
INSKEEP: Mary Louise Kelly of NPR's All Things Considered and Consider This, thanks so much.
KELLY: You are welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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