‘Come On!’ Trump Sec Bristles When Fox’s Bret Baier Confronts Him With Criticism of $5 Mil ‘Gold Card’ for Rich Immigrants
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick bristled when Fox News anchor Bret Baier merely mentioned a critique of President Donald Trump’s plan to create a $5 million “Gold Card” for wealthy immigrants, exclaiming “Give me a break!”
Trump held the first Cabinet meeting of his second term Wednesday afternoon, during which he floated — among other things — raising $50 trillion with the sale of the “Gold Cards” to 10 million rich immigrants. There are fewer than 9 million people in the world whose entire net worth is $5 million or higher, according to data from UBS.
Asked if Russian oligarchs would be eligible, Trump quipped “Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”
On Wednesday night’s edition of Fox News Channel’s Special Report, Baier showed Lutnick some of the coverage of the Cabinet meeting, including a Politico headline that referenced the oligarch line — which drew a scoffing laugh from Lutnick:
BAIER: Let me talk about what you were talking about there, the EB-5 program, which is gold green cards, $5 million that essentially gets you a pathway to citizenship. Explain, first of all, how that came to be.
LUTNICK: So there is an EB-5 program that always had if you invest in real estate or make a loan in America, you get a path to citizenship with a green card. And so the president had conversations over the weekend with his friend John Paulson, who came up and said, hey, why aren’t we doing better with that? He called me. We talked about it. And I did work over the weekend and on Monday. And on Tuesday, at a press conference, the president comes out and gives the path which says, imagine if we sell a million of them? That’s $5 trillion and that pays off our debt, drives down interest rates, and makes America amazing.
BAIER: So the coverage of it, you know, Trump gold card to offer rich foreigners route to U.S. citizenship for 5 million. Trump says U.S. can pay off $36 trillion debt by selling wealthy immigrants $5 million gold card visas.
And then Politico took another take, “Trump: I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”
What do you say to people who say…
LUTNICK: (LAUGHS) Oh, come on!
BAIER: Yeah — no, not…
LUTNICK: Give me a break!
BAIER: Not about that. Are they going to be vetted, first of all?
LUTNICK: Of course. Deeply vetted. And we said that from the first minute go. These are vetted people. These are going to be great global citizens who are going to bring entrepreneurial spirit, capacity, and growth to America. If one of them comes in, think of the jobs they’re going to bring with them, the businesses they’re going to bring with them. And they’re going to pay American taxes as well. So this is huge money for America.
BAIER: And how many people are waiting in this line, currently?
LUTNICK: So there are 250,000 people waiting in line now. If they’re willing to pay the 5 million, that’s over a trillion dollars that comes directly to — $1.25 trillion just for that line. And I think these people are going to come enormous ways because they know they can come into America and they can be in the greatest country on earth.
Watch above via Fox News Channel’s Special Report.
