Oh. As far as I know he's never said he wants to deport legal immigrants.
That's correct. From my memory (dicey at my age) during the campaign he said he wanted to deport all the ILLEGAL immigrants. At the time I said to myself, "He isn't going to do that. Where does he think he will send them? It's not like they have a house back in Mexico to which to return. He's just speaking emotionally to connect with the rage a lot of Americans have about illegal immigration. If he's elected he will modify that drastically."
And now it looks like I was right. He's saying he's only going to deport the criminal ones. I could have sworn he admitted on 60 minutes that he exaggerated during the campaign for the exact purpose of getting people to listen to him and give him media attention, because otherwise, he wouldn't get it. If he used that rhetoric as a tool to gain popularity among the Republicans so as to win the nomination, it makes sense to me, there may not have been another path for him to use.
I suspected he would back down to a more reasonable position once elected and it looks like that's exactly what's happening. Same with Obamacare. During the campaign he was trashing the whole thing. Now he's going to keep a couple items.
Same with same sex marriage. He's supposedly against it, I don't remember specifically him saying so during the campaign but I'd guess he did, again, to win with Republicans. But on 60 minutes when asked about it he said, "Look, it's a done deal. I'm not messing with it." Which is exactly what he should do at this point; his priority needs to be ramping up the economy real fast so he's got a chance to win again in 2020. If he has any effect on gay marriage, it will be because of whomever he nominates for the Supreme Court. I guess theoretically they could reverse it? But that is not the hill he needs to try to die on right now. And I don't think he ever would. He is NOT a traditional religious conservative. I seriously doubt he cares a fig if gays marry each other.
They way he campaigned with a lot of extreme rhetoric is part of the reason the media and the left could portray him as a complete monster. I suspected he is not, and it looks like (thank God) I was probably right. But he had to do it that way just to get himself taken seriously.
I don't know who first said this but it hits the nail. The left took him literally but not seriously, and the right took him seriously but not literally. The latter was me (although technically I'm not right-wing; I am libertarian) I took him as a serious candidate but did not take his words literally.
I am seeing however that his extreme speech is already paying off. Mexico is coming to him now saying, let's get the wall built so we can be good with you and our trade relationship. They don't want to call his bluff, they're too scared of him. That's WONDERFUL. He's got them off balance. Same with the rest of the world. "I'm not gonna tell you my plan for ISIS." LOVE IT. Keep them all guessing. We've been stupid too long and it's obvious the world doesn't respect us. Looks like Trump might turn that around.