Newt Gingrich fires another warning shot at Trump over his top policy priority

Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a warning for President-elect Donald Trump, reported The Guardian: an excessively restrictionist immigration regime would have prevented a key person who helped him back into power from coming to America.

Gingrich is a committed Republican who has been consistently supportive of Trump for years — but he has recently been warning Trump not to move forward with his ideas for mass deportation, telling him only his most hardcore fans want such a draconian policy and that the American people will turn on him quickly if the news is full of children and hardworking families being rounded up.

Moreover, he said, tech billionaire Elon Musk could not have moved to this country if not for a functioning and at least somewhat permissive immigration system.

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“I always remind people, you had Elon Musk [owning] SpaceX, Tesla, etc," said Gingrich. "He’s from South Africa. So you talk about great American entrepreneurs, and you say, ‘Elon Musk, well, fine, he’s now an American.’ Because … as long as you do it legally, you can become a really important American. And I think that’s important to remind people. Look at the heads of some of the biggest corporations in Silicon Valley. They’re very often from India, but they’re amazing people. They do great work, and they enrich all of our lives.”

Musk played a key role in Trump's election, funding a super PAC that effectively ran most of Trump's voter outreach operations. He is now heading up a task force called the "Department of Government Efficiency," tasked with recommending ways to trim waste and redundancy from the government and balance the budget, although in recent days Musk has admitted his original plans to cut $2 trillion were too ambitious.

Ironically, some members of the MAGA community are increasingly growing to distrust Musk and his influence over Trump, including longtime Trump strategist and ally Steve Bannon.