Many things happened during last night’s GOP debate. The level of debate discourse (can I use highfalutin words like “discourse” without being called a snobbishly out-of-touch member of the “elites”?) has fallen even further and we are now reduced to talking about the size of Trump’s male member and his hands, both of which interest me not at all (by the way, this talk of Trump’s hand size is decades old; see this).
There were substantive revelations as well, although they got somewhat lost in the din. One was that Trump mentioned what appears to be a change in his policy towards H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers, and later took it back again after he got a lot of criticism for it, saying he was never talking about that in the first place. But the intent of the question in the transcript was clear, as was Trump’s answer, and later Ted Cruz even mentions H-1B visas by name when asked a related question.
Here’s an article describing Trump’s back-and-forth on this, and here’s a piece I wrote on the subject of H-1B visas back in November when it came up in a debate in the context of Rubio’s policy on them.
The relevant part of last night’s debate went like this:
KELLY: Mr. Trump, your campaign website to this day argues that more visas for highly skilled workers would, quote, “decimate American workers”. However, at the CNBC debate, you spoke enthusiastically in favor of these visas. So, which is it?
TRUMP: I’m changing. I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have.
So, we do need highly skilled, and one of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges. They’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, they’ll go to Wharton, as soon as they’re finished they’ll get shoved out. They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately, they’re not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: So you abandoning the position on your website…
TRUMP: … I’m changing it, and I’m softening the position because we have to have talented people in this country.
There’s nothing equivocal there. Trump repeats the word “highly skilled” and mentions Silicon Valley, which is where this visa program is often used, and he adds a list of elite colleges to make it even more clear. He also agrees that this represents a change in his policy. Later, Trump’s walkback went like this:
Trump’s post-debate statement suggested that Kelly’s question wasn’t specific to the H-1B program: “Megyn Kelly asked about highly-skilled immigration.” Then the statement goes to attack the visa program:
“The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay. I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program.
What are those who are not in the habit of rationalizing every utterance of Donald Trump to make of this? In the transcript, you can see that Kelly’s question—which was not long or involved—used the word “visa” twice and the word “immigration” not at all. So Trump’s later statement is demonstrably false on that score. We also know that he explicitly said this represented a change; how does he now explain what he had thought he was changing during the debate? I don’t think he even attempts to do so. And his description of the H-1B visa program, which he explicitly cites as being the relevant program in his later statement, is factually wrong. He says these workers are temporary and “not high-skilled,” and yet one of the main criticisms of the program (I go into it in my lengthy November piece on H-1B visas) is that these workers tend to later be sponsored for green cards and permanent citizenship, and they are overwhelmingly in STEM occupations (science, technology, engineering, and math). In addition, they are undoubtedly “high-skilled”; it is part of the requirement for entry into the program:
…Requirement 2 – Your job must qualify as a specialty occupation by meeting one of the following criteria:
A bachelor’s degree or higher degree or its equivalent is normally the minimum requirement for the particular position;
The degree requirement is common for this position in the industry, or the job is so complex or unique that it can only be performed by someone with at least a bachelor’s degree in a field related to the position;
The employer normally requires a degree or its equivalent for the position; or
The nature of the specific duties is so specialized and complex that the knowledge required to perform the duties is usually associated with the attainment of a bachelor’s or higher degree.
Requirement 3 – Your job must be in a specialty occupation related to your field of study…
So these are the possibilities for what we can conclude about Donald Trump, after his statements on this in the debate and his later correction/clarification:
(1) Trump stated his true opinion during the debate, later saw that it didn’t sit well with some of his supporters, and then lied to them about what he really meant. Or perhaps his statement during the debate was the lie and the revision was the truth. Or maybe none of it is the truth and we (and he?) have no idea what his actual position is.
The entire episode, if he expects to get away with it, is an example of his contempt for the ability of people in general to follow what he’s actually saying and doing, as well as his confidence in his supporters’ blind faith in him. Perhaps he is correct on both scores. The sequence of events also appears to indicate the extreme mutability of his promises and of his entire program, since immigration policy is probably the single most important foundation on which his popular support rests.
(2) Or, alternatively, Trump simply has no idea what the H-1B program is about. Now, I find this hard to believe, because as I’ve said before I think he’s a smart man, and he’s also a businessman who should know these things even if he weren’t running for office. However, his original ad-lib answer actually indicated some understanding of the program, and it was his written revision that indicated a lack of understanding, which undercuts this explanation further. Nevertheless I include it as a possibility.
These two explanations (first one “knave,” second one “fool”) appear to be the only logical ones the fit the circumstances. Both are extremely chilling, and either ought to completely destroy him as a viable candidate. But I think I rest on safe ground in predicting that they won’t.
There was much more during the debate. But the exchange that makes my blood run cold was this one [emphasis mine]:
BAIER: Mr. Trump, just yesterday, almost 100 foreign policy experts signed on to an open letter refusing to support you, saying your embracing expansive use of torture is inexcusable. General Michael Hayden, former CIA director, NSA director, and other experts have said that when you asked the U.S. military to carry out some of your campaign promises, specifically targeting terrorists’ families, and also the use of interrogation methods more extreme than waterboarding, the military will refuse because they’ve been trained to turn down and refuse illegal orders.
So what would you do, as commander-in-chief, if the U.S. military refused to carry out those orders?
TRUMP: They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me.
BAIER: But they’re illegal.
TRUMP: Let me just tell you, you look at the Middle East. They’re chopping off heads. They’re chopping off the heads of Christians and anybody else that happens to be in the way. They’re drowning people in steel cages. And he — now we’re talking about waterboarding.
…Can you imagine — can you imagine these people, these animals over in the Middle East, that chop off heads, sitting around talking and seeing that we’re having a hard problem with waterboarding? We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding. That’s my opinion.
BAIER: But targeting terrorists’ families?
TRUMP: And — and — and — I’m a leader. I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about.
Now, I’ve already seen Trump supporters trying to defend this. For example, on this very blog commenter “Kinch” had the following to say:
If you look into what the JAG types are sticking their noses into these days, it’s practically illegal to shoot a guy until the instant he points his RPG directly at you.
There. Are. Too. Many. Laws. And Lawyers.
Again, Assembled Light Bearers, this does not mean I support Nacht und Nebel Orders. And I suspect nor does Trump.
But the topic that was under discussion was not the Rules of Engagement (something we’ve talked about and criticized on this blog, for example here). The topic was Trump’s desire to expand beyond waterboarding in terms of physically coercive methods of interrogating prisoners (perhaps including outright torture; as with most things he says, he fails to specify the all-important details) and targeting terrorist’s families.
So Kinch’s reply is off-topic in that sense—plus, he does what a lot of people do with Trump, imagines that what Trump really meant is not only different, but better, than what Trump said. But Kinch’s comment is also irrelevant in another way—as are the topics of whether we should torture captives or go after families of terrorists—because Trump is not talking here about following some procedure for changing the rules. He’s talking about his own leadership skills in overcoming the rules and ordering troops to do whatever he says to do, whether his orders violate the rules and are illegal or not. He simply doesn’t care.
In essence, Trump is talking about throwing out the Rule of Law and replacing it with the Rule of Trump. And he is stating his contempt for the US military as a separate institution with its own rules, and his contempt for the members of the military, whom he sees as They Who Must Obey their Commander in Chief, Donald Trump, once the Great Leader has spoken.
[NOTE: I’ve written before of Trump’s tyrannical intentions and his lack of a respect for the limitations on presidential power and his contempt for the rule of law, here and here. The evidence mounts, based on last night’s debate.
It’s almost a side issue, but I’ll mention it anyway, that Trump equates his “leadership” skills as builder of casinos and golf resorts—which is essentially a planner and funder and employer and boss situation—with the sort of leadership and judgment required of a military Commander in Chief.]
