Johnson says price tag on Trump mass deportation plan is ‘small investment’ to ‘restore’ security, safety

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Sunday denied that President-elect Trump’s mass deportation plan could cost trillions of dollars, though said that there is no better investment than restoring the safety and security of the country.

Johnson made the remarks during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when he was asked about the border crisis and grocery prices, the two issues that Trump says helped him win the election.

“I cannot think of a better dollar for dollar investment than to restore the security and the safety of the country,” Johnson said. “We’ve had a wide-open border for four years and millions upon millions of illegal persons. We have dangerous illegals in the country, criminals who have already committed crimes here, violent crimes against American citizens.”

The speaker cited crime and “the untold humanitarian cost in terms of trafficking and fentanyl deaths” in the U.S. as important reasons to tackle border security, saying, “getting rid of that criminal element … is something the American people want us to do.”

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“The number one job of the federal government is protecting the citizenry,” he said. “And when you have a wide-open border, you don’t have safety, security or even sovereignty, for that matter. President Trump is going to follow through on his campaign promises and the promises that we all made on the campaign trail. It costs money to do that. But there is a small investment in terms of what it costs us.”

When asked whether the plan would come with a price tag in the trillions of dollars, Johnson rejected the notion.

“It won’t cost trillions of dollars. I think we don’t yet know the dollar figure,” he said. “But I will tell you that the American people are going to support that effort. And we’re going to begin with the most dangerous elements. And you’re going to see a dramatic change in the country because of it.”

Johnson did not provide an estimated cost for the deportation plan.

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Regarding grocery prices, Johnson said those costs would unquestionably come down under Trump with the return to “fiscal sanity” and “common sense.”

Johnson said that Congress and the Trump administration will “turn the economic engines back on” like during the first Trump term when lawmakers “reduced the tax burden on the American people, but even more importantly, the regulatory burden.”

“That’s going to be a major theme of the upcoming administration in this Congress, because if you release the red tape, you unleash the free market again. And that’s good for everybody,” he said.