Not long-ago, April 2024, Time Magazine interviewed Donald J. Trump. Donald has a fixation on Time Magazine, even creating fake covers of the magazine showing him winning their “Person of the Year” award and hanging copies of that in his golf resorts before being named “Person of the Year” in 2016. What was discussed, the positions Donald J. Trump holds on issues and policies are what every voter should be aware of and educate themselves on. Here is my takeaways from that interview.

1. Deportation of Immigrants: He would conduct a deportation operation designed to remove between 11 to 15 million people from the country. To accomplish this, he would build detention (concentration) camps and deploy the US military within our country’s borders. To rip out that many – up to 4.5% of our country’s workforce – would immediately affect multiple industries. Retail service, restaurant, building, agriculture industries would all be severely impacted due to labor shortages. In some areas agriculture activities would grind to a halt – they are that dependent on migrant workers – many of whom are “illegal” migrants. Economists across the board say this proposal would increase inflation, break supply chains in critical industries, and overall have a significant negative effect on the economy.

2. Monitoring of Women’s Pregnancies: Trump would support “red” states to “monitor” women’s pregnancies, allowing the state governments to be able to open and review women’s personal health records. He would support prosecution of women who violate state abortion bans, even if the women leave their home states to have the procedure done.

3. Withholding of Allocated Funds: Using his own discretion (and infallible wisdom) he would withhold funds appropriated by Congress, this according to top advisers. Keep in mind it is Congress (through a House and Senate jointly approved budget) who approve the authorization to spend money, not the President.

4. Firing U.S. Attorneys: And here is one that is even more troubling. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who does not conduct his order to prosecute someone. From this country’s founding we have had independent law enforcement – to ensure that political, religious, and even social pressures do not corrupt the enforcement of our laws. This tradition is already being broken in some states – look at Florida.

5. Pardons for January 6th Rioters: Donald J. Trump in this interview and since the interview has reiterated, he would pardon for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It was a violent attack on our democratic processes to ensure the transfer of power. More than eight hundred of his supporters have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury.

6. Abandoning Ally Commitments: He stated, as he did during his presidency, that he might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country was not paying enough for its own defense. He fractured our NATO alliance while in office and many opinions hold that Putin determined after the election of 2020 that he had a window of opportunity to invade Ukraine because of these fractures and the window of time could be used for the invasion before the USA under a new President Biden could heal the fractures. Putin miscalculated as Biden and our NATO allies quickly came together to aid Ukraine.

7. Loyalty Tests for Federal Employees: He plans to “gut” U.S. civil service, employing methods to ensure only individuals “loyal” to him would be in leadership roles and would require every civil service employee to pledge to an oath of loyalty. Think about that! Nazi Germany put that exact process into place for their nation civil service in 1932!!!

8. Federalize the National Guard: He would deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit. Currently it is the role of Governors to activate their state’s National Guard. Trump would have to “federalize” National Guard units to circumvent the authority of the state Governors.

9. Abandon Pandemic Planning: He would close the White House pandemic-preparedness office – which he did in the first year of his administration – 2017. In hindsight that severely hamstrung the initial Federal response to the COVID pandemic in our country – that decision cost thousands of American lives.

10. Only “Loyalist” May Serve: He learned a lesson from his first administration. Do not hire experienced administrators, they will push back on his often-ill-thought impulses or illegal proposals. Should he be elected, he will staff his Administration with acolytes who give him total loyalty and a blank check to do as he pleases.

Voters – educate yourself, dig into what a second Trump administration would mean to this country.