Even by the standards of Fox News hosts, Maria Bartiromo isn’t known for ever challenging Donald Trump on anything. She’s had a record of several years as a Trump loyalist, including a willingness to indulge in outlandish conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
However, in an interview that aired on Fox on Sunday, Bartiromo pressed the president on the issue of his deportations and how she believes they’ve been handled in a “clumsy” manner.
Bartiromo accused Trump of “easing up” on deportation policies, especially when it comes to farmers and factory workers.
“I don’t back away. What I do have, I cherish our farmers,” Trump said, per Raw Story. “And when we go into a farm and we take away people that have been working there for 15 and 20 years, who were good, who possibly came in incorrectly. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to do something for farmers where we can let the farmer sort of be in charge. The farmer knows he’s not going to hire a murderer.”
Bartiromo: “Have you been backing away from [deportations]? Recently you said let’s ease up on…farms and hotels.”
Trump: “I don’t back away. What I do, I cherish our farmers…Let the farmers sort of be in charge. The farmer knows. He’s not going to hire a murderer.” pic.twitter.com/X8uiBMwWis
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) June 29, 2025
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Bartiromo then asked, “Right, you said it from the beginning, you wanted to first focus on the criminals, but I’m wondering if this change in giving people a pass is a response to the critics who said the execution was a little clumsy. People were afraid to go to work.”
“So the execution was unbelievable because you have no people coming through our border anymore,” Trump said in response. “So it wasn’t clumsy. What was clumsy is the fact that they allowed millions and millions of people to pour into our country.”
Also in the interview, per The Independent, Trump left Bartiromo “speechless,” in declaring that the U.S. is hacking China.
“You don’t think we do that to them? We do. We do a lot of things,” Trump said in the interview. “That’s the way the world works. It’s a nasty world.”
Trump also said that he has found a buyer for TikTok, described as “a group of wealthy people,” and that he will announce the buyer in two weeks. That does not, however, mean that Bytedance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, will agree to sell.
Photo courtesy of an X screenshot.
