President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday pledged to commence “the largest deportation operation in American history” as soon as he takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, and mused about keeping TikTok around as well.
“On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign a historic slate of executive orders to close our border to illegal aliens and stop the invasion of our country,” Trump proclaimed to a friendly crowd at Turning Point Action’s AmericaFest conference in Phoenix.
Trump has vowed to launch “the largest deportation operation in American history” upon taking office. REUTERS
“And on that same day, we will begin the largest deportation operation in American history, larger even than that of President Dwight D Eisenhower,” he added.
Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump, 78, had vowed to undertake a mass deportation campaign against illegal immigrants residing within the US. He has tapped Tom Homan as his border czar designee to carry out that mission. Homan spoke earlier at the conservative conference.
Trump also crowed about his strong performance with young voters for a Republican candidate and credited TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is facing a Jan. 19, 2025 deadline to either divest or face a ban of the popular video-sharing platform on the Google and Apple app stores in the US.
“I think we’re going to have to start thinking about TikTok,” Trump said. “We did go on TikTok. We had a great response with billions of views…and it was so beautiful to see.”
“I said, we got to keep this sucker around a little while.”
During his first administration, Trump signed an executive order to block the popular video-sharing site, but a court later scuttled that move.
Migrants seen entering the US through Eagle Pass, Texas. Toby Canham for NY Post
Trump later warmed up to the platform amid efforts by billionaire GOP donor Jeff Yass, who invested in TikTok.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew met with the president-elect in Mar-a-Lago last week to make his case for an intervention. Trump has previously credited his campaign’s use of TikTok for his performance with younger voters and mused that sacking TikTok could be a boon for Facebook.
Underlying the divestment bill were concerns about ByteDance’s links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and a national security surveillance law in China.
Lawmakers and experts alike have warned that through TikTok, Beijing could access a vast trove of browsing history, biometric identifiers, location data and more from US users.
There had also been fears about the CCP deploying TikTok as a propaganda tool within the US.
Trump has previously shrugged off many of those concerns.
TikTok is facing a ban in the US in January 2025. Christopher Sadowski
The president-elect’s appearance at AmericaFest marks his first major rally since winning the 2024 election. An assortment of prominent conservative figures such as Homan, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and others delivered speeches at the conference.
Gaetz, who resigned from Congress last month and is bracing for the release of a House Committee on Ethics report this week, appeared to briefly flirt with a Senate run during his address.
Trump also pledged to take aim at fentanyl via a public awareness initiative intended to curb the crisis. Nearly 74,000 deaths in 2022 involved synethic opioids like fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’re going to do very big advertising campaigns, just like a campaign for running for president. We spend a lot of money,” Trump teased. “We’re going to advertise how bad drugs are for you…They ruin your looks, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin and ruin your teeth. If you want to have horrible teeth, take a lot of fentanyl. You want to have skin that looks so terrible, take fentanyl.”
Republicans have long contended that the border crisis has exacerbated the spread of the synthetic opioid within the US. Many Republican areas of the country have been ravaged by the fentanyl crisis, and it was a dominant issue in the 2024 GOP primary.
Shortly after winning the 2024 election, Trump threatened the leaders of Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs, seeking further actions on their part to curb the spread of precursor chemicals.
During his wide-ranging speech at AmericaFest, Trump also doubled down on his grievance that the US Navy and commerce have been treated “unfairly” by Panama.
“[It’s] ridiculous, highly unfair, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama, I say, very foolishly, by the United States,” he said. “[The] complete rip off of our country will immediately stop. It’s going to stop.”
“The United States has a big invested interest in the secure, efficient and reliable operation of the Panama Canal that was always understood when they gave it to Panama.”
