RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif.—Former President Donald Trump said he’ll make the most of another chance to reduce illegal border crossings if reelected.
“I’m the border president,” Trump said at a press appearance at his golf club in the wealthy coastal enclave of Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on Sept. 13.
“We went from a terrible border to a great border very quickly. I hope you call me ‘the border president.’ We’re going to do a job like never has been done before,” he said.
Trump proposed policies targeting border issues in California and the U.S. during the event.
He vowed to push back on sanctuary cities, which he said protect illegal immigrants who commit crimes from deportation.
“These 21 million [illegal immigrants] that have come in, they’re just getting settled in,” Trump said. “It’s going to get worse at a level like nobody’s ever seen before.”
Trump lost in the state of California in the last election to Biden, earning only 34 percent of the popular vote in the state in 2020. He won about 32 percent of the California vote against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Landslide Crisis
Trump met with Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank Friday morning before the press conference to talk about the ongoing landslides in the coastal city.Gas service was cut off at another 29 homes in the western Seaview area and 25 homes in the Portuguese Bend Beach Club on Sept. 6.
The city has installed generators to keep the sewer system operational but asked residents to prepare to leave in the event of a mandatory evacuation order. Those who are staying in their homes have been asked to limit their water and plumbing use, especially overnight.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency earlier this month to free up state resources to help in the response.
On Friday, Trump said although it’s an affluent community, some residents need help from the federal government.
“It’s a very wealthy area, but you also have people living here that are elderly and have fixed incomes and have houses that are going to be shoved into the Pacific Ocean if something’s not done,” Trump said.
About 600 houses have been affected by the landslide, according to officials.
“There are ways of fixing that,” Trump said. “We discussed it,” he said, referring to his meeting with the mayor.
The landslide area is about a mile away from Trump’s 18-hole cliffside Trump National Golf Club of Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, which opened in 2006.
For 30-year Rancho Palos Verdes resident Rebecca Simon, Trump’s visit and attention to the landslide issue was encouraging.
“I really did not think the president would talk about our landslide issues and he did,” Simon said. “He promised great things for us. We were told this landslide is too big to be fixed or repaired. And he says he’s going to do it. He will do it.”
If reelected, Trump said he would restart his relationships with officials in California and push for a new voting system that wouldn’t allow mailing ballots to people throughout the state.
Trump also said he would work with officials to make the state more business-friendly. Billionaire Elon Musk, who strongly endorsed Trump in August, has moved the headquarters of Tesla and the Boring Company out of state and has said he plans to move X and SpaceX headquarters in the future.
“Right now, it’s business unfriendly,” Trump said. “Taxes are way too high here.”
Trump said he asked Musk recently if any officials from California reached out to him after he announced his business relocation plans and was told they didn’t.
Looking around his golf course property, he said it saddened him to speak negatively about California, and said there were actions they could take to make the state better for business.
“There’s many things you could do ... start lowering taxes and making it friendly,” he said.
The former president also talked about forest fires affecting California and water shortages—two issues he would like to address by allowing forest management and improved water infrastructure to prevent the millions of gallons lost to the Pacific Ocean each year.
“Vote for me, California,” Trump said. “I’m going to give you safety. I’m going to give you a great border, and I’m going to give you more water than almost anybody has.”
Trump said he would place conditions on federal funding to California, such as funds for wildfires, based on his plans if reelected.
“Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding for North Carolina or flooding assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania,” Newsom said.
