Donald Trump’s waffling on the question of what to do about undocumented immigrants passed a critical milestone on last night’s episode of Hannity when the Republican nominee said he’s considering the idea of not deporting gainfully employed undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for a long period of time. From the transcript (Trump is directing his questions to Hannity’s live audience):

You have somebody who’s terrific, who’s been here 20 years. Can we go through a process or do you think they have to get out? … Tell me. I don’t know. You tell me. … So now we have the person 20 years, upstanding person, the family’s great, everyone’s great. Do we throw them out, or do we work with them?

You’ll note that this position—of not deporting undocumented individuals who are otherwise upstanding citizens—happens to be the one advocated by Trump’s greatest nemesis, President Barack Hussein “ISIS” Obama. Indeed, it’s a position that hard-line conservative activists have a name for: amnesty. And Donald Trump has been vocal for years about hating amnesty.

Amnesty is suicide for Republicans.Not one of those 12 million who broke our laws will vote Republican.Obama is laughing at @GOP. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2013

In the primary:

Ted Cruz only talks tough on immigration now because he did so badly in S.C. He is in favor of amnesty and weak on illegal immigration. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016

Donald Trump’s most ardent far-right fans also hate amnesty. And one of the most prominent of those fans, Ann Coulter, actually published a hagiographic book this week called In Trump We Trust in which she stated explicitly that the one thing Trump could never be forgiven for is changing his position on immigration:

Saw this quote going around from new @anncoulter book In Trump We Trust, assumed it was fake. Nope. Via @TheStalwart pic.twitter.com/FhYPT3XVLV — Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) August 25, 2016

For the record, Trump told Sean Hannity that he was not considering “amnesty as such.” But that’s what every Republican who supports the granting of legal status to some undocumented immigrants says; indeed, prominent immigration hard-liner Steve King, a Republican congressman from Iowa, answered in the affirmative when a CNN host asked if what Trump is considering was “tantamount to amnesty.”



What it definitely is, unambiguously, is a reversal of Trump’s previous position. Trump, in a February debate:

We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.

Then: “They will go out.” Now: “Do you think they have to get out? … I don’t know.” Yeah, who knows?

Either way, Ann Coulter—whose book-launch party was Wednesday night in Washington, D.C.—is NOT HAPPY.

Well, if it's "hard," then nevermind. Trump: "... to take a person who's been here for 15 or 20 years ....It's a very, very hard thing." — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 25, 2016

She’s being sarcastic, as one will do when one is let down by one’s nationalist goon hero-savior; there’s more on her feed. She’s even implying that she might cancel her book tour (though she says she will still ultimately continue to support Trump because of the “blind loyalty” he earned from her by giving his “Mexican rapist speech”).

Meanwhile, Twitter’s Daniel Lin has a suggestion for what Trump might call his next publishing project:

Small change in the second edition of Trump’s book pic.twitter.com/F9rGrFcDEl — Daniel Lin (@danwlin) August 25, 2016

Sounds about right. Sorry, Ann Coulter.

Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.

