Trump Claims U.S. Lacks “Talented People,” Defends Foreign Experts Amid Skills Debate

In a recent Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, President Donald Trump stirred the pot by suggesting the U.S. simply doesn’t have enough “talented people” for certain jobs, arguing that foreign experts are sometimes a must.

The chat started with the usual H-1B visa talk. Ingraham warned that bringing in a flood of foreign workers could depress wages for Americans. “I mean, the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration, because if you want to raise wages for American workers, you can’t flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers,” she said.

Trump, never one to shy from bold statements, shot back, “Well, I agree, but you also do have to bring in talent when a country,” before giving an example from Georgia.

“No, you don’t have certain talents and people have to learn,” he said. “You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles.”

Ingraham pressed, “We don’t have talented people here?” Trump doubled down with a story from Georgia:

“Let me give you an example in Georgia. They raided because they wanted illegal immigrants out. They had people from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know, making batteries is very complicated. It’s not an easy thing and very dangerous. A lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like five or six hundred people, early stages, to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country, you’re going to need that, Laura.”

He was talking about a federal raid at a battery plant in Georgia that detained hundreds of foreign technicians, throwing the U.S. electric manufacturing plans into a bit of chaos.

Online reactions were immediate, with many Americans confused by the idea that some jobs are too hard for U.S. workers.

Others went a bit further.

 

 

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