“Washington, D.C. – Donald Trump believes Pope Francis’ words on immigration are “beautiful,” but expressed fundamental disagreements with the Pope on how to handle immigrants as well as the need to address climate change. On Wednesday, Pope Francis urged Americans to “not be afraid to welcome” immigrants into the U.S., a stark contrast with Trump’s harsh language calling undocumented Mexican immigrants “killers” and “rapists.”
“Trump has also pledged to build a massive wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. “Well, I think his words are beautiful and I respect the Pope and I like the Pope very much,” Trump said Thursday to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.” “I will say this, we have a country that is going through tremendous problems. We owe $19 trillion. So No. 1 we can’t afford this process.”
In a subsequent interview with Newslo, Trump stated among other things that climate change, although “something I don’t personally believe in,” has got other people around the world “fighting for dear life, particularly Europeans.” Asked to elaborate, the real estate mogul responded, “Well, look at what’s going on with migrants all across Europe.”
The businessman continued: “Europeans are very concerned about so-called climate change, as they should be, not because it is causing warmer weather across the continent, but because they believe that global warming is responsible for the migrants’ siege of various European countries. They actually believe that it is attracting people from hot, Middle Eastern countries to Europe, where the temperatures are still relatively bearable.”
“And that makes sense,” the billionaire went on, “since Europe really is a beautiful place. But I can certainly understand why Europeans are freaking out, I mean, I would probably be doing the same if all those refugees were on their way here, which I have no doubt some of them actually plan to do. But, they’ll come to find America’s borders are a tough nut to crack, especially so when I become president next year. My message to them is ‘don’t come over unless you’ve got ropes, ladders and climbing shoes.’”