Trump Hammers Immigration as Midterm Election Approaches
*By Conor White*
Donald Trump may be looking to score points with his base ahead of midterm elections by turning the conversation back to immigration.
With one week to go before Election Day, Trump proposed ending birthright immigration with an executive order during an interview for "Axios on HBO" [released Tuesday morning](https://www.axios.com/trump-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-0cf4285a-16c6-48f2-a933-bd71fd72ea82.html).
"It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," the president claimed in the video.
Birthright citizenship is protected under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and any effort to end it would come under immediate legal challenge. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan broke with Trump to make a firm statement against his proposal shortly after the interview was released.
"You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order," he said in an interview with Kentucky radio station WVLK.
Trump's birthright proposal came one day after the Pentagon said it would send more than 5,000 U.S. troops to the southern border to prepare for what Trump has called an "invasion" of asylum-seeking migrants slowly making their way through Mexico.
Some observers see the focus on immigration as politically-motivated.
"One gets the sense that he hasn't thought through the details very strongly," David Graham, staff writer at The Atlantic, said about Trump's birthright proposal in an interview Tuesday on Cheddar. "What he's really concerned with is the rhetoric and how it plays politically."
"He's remembering 2016 and seeing the magic he got talking about immigration," Graham continued, "Hoping he can recreate that and pull a win out."
However, Shannon Vavra, a political reporter at Axios, noted that Trump has long railed against so-called "anchor babies" and other longstanding immigration policies such a "chain migration," which refers to immigrants sponsoring family members to come to the U.S. She said the timing may just be Trump being Trump.
"The timing of it is definitely questionable at this point," she said, "but President Trump tends to do what he wants to do."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/trump-says-hell-end-birthright-citizenship).
The U.S. is back in negotiations for a nuclear deal with Iran, years after former President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which had been meant to curtail the Middle Eastern nation's nuclear ambitions. Former State Department senior advisor to the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, Christian Whiton, joined Cheddar News Wrap to discuss. “It appears to be very similar to the original JCPOA, which does put some constraints on Iran's nuclear program, but also has sunset provisions, including some that in the original plan were expected to take effect in 2025," he said. "And so, if we just reenter that plan, really it just buys perhaps a few years of slowing down, stopping, whatever you want to say, Iran's nuclear program."
The U.S. has announced the first of what could be multiple levels of sanctions against Russia after Moscow recognized two regions of Ukraine as independent. This comes as Britain imposes sanctions on five Russian banks and two oligarchs, and Germany freezes the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Terrell Star, a foreign affairs reporter at The Atlantic Council, joins from Kyiv to discuss.
Growing tensions in Ukraine might soon be impacting consumers in the United States. With Russia on an invasion footing in the region, gas prices are predicted to go up 10 to 15 cents a gallon in the next coming weeks, according to Robert Sinclair, spokesperson for AAA. Sinclair joined Cheddar to break down what could happen even further. "We've been seeing prices go up, and there's been nothing that's happened to affect supplies," he said. "But it's something known as the fear tax where just the talk of something that might interfere with supplies leads to prices going up speculatively."
The end of 3G is upon us. On Tuesday, AT&T became the first major provider to disable its 3G services, and T-Mobile and Verizon plan to follow suit later this year. The shutdowns are expected to impact millions of vehicles that use 3G networks for updates, remote connection, and certain emergency and convenience features. Lance Ulanoff, the U.S. Editor-in-Chief of TechRadar, joined Cheddar's Closing Bell to discuss the ramifications of the changeover.
A new report shows nearly 240 former officials in Congress, the White House, and regulatory agencies have changed careers to work in the crypto industry.
President Biden unveiled new economic sanctions on Russia for what he called "the beginning of a Russian invasion". This came one day after Putin sent troops into two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine. Alex Ward, national security reporter for POLITICO, explains what these sanctions might do to the global economy.
U.S. stocks ended today's session sharply lower on the heels of rising geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Melissa Brown, Managing Director of Applied Research at Qontigo, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the U.S. will begin to impose sanctions on Russia, calling recent troop movement into Ukraine an 'invasion.' Biden and other government officials including from the State Department have begun to classify the Russian troop movement as an invasion after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to two independent Ukrainian areas in an alleged "peacekeeping" mission — which the West considers an act of aggression. Biden said Russia will continue to pay 'an even steeper price' if it continues sending troops into Ukraine. What happens next? Will Putin find a way around these sanctions? Ariel Cohen, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, joins Closing Bell to discuss Biden's remarks, how the West will protect Ukraine since it doesn't belong to NATO, and more.
