President Donald Trump infuriated some of his own most influential supporters this week with a new, eye-popping plan to admit students from China, Newsweek reported on Tuesday.
"I hear so many stories about we're not going to allow their students," Trump told reporters the day before. "We're going to allow their students to come in. We're going to allow. It's very important, 600,000 students. It's very important. But we're going to get along with China."
This would be a massive reversal from Trump's policies so far, which have threatened international students' ability to enter the country and jeopardized the admissions of many top institutions — and it also contradicts his prior moves to revoke visas for Chinese students. But the new pledge, which was backed up by Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, provoked instant fury from the MAGA world.
"We should not let in 600,000 CHINESE students to attend American colleges and universities that may be loyal to the CCP," wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). "If refusing to allow these Chinese students to attend our schools causes 15 percent of them to fail then these schools should fail anyways because they are being propped up by the CCP. Why are we allowing 600,000 students from China to replace our American student's opportunities? We should never allow that."
"If we are only mass deporting 1,000 illegals each day but allowing 600,000 Chinese spies to come to our country, how can we call them mass deportations?" wrote far-right influencer Laura Loomer, a frequent influence on the Trump administration's hiring decisions. "Do the math. We will never get rid of the millions who came in under Biden. It's basic math."
"Did Lutnick really just argue that Trump is letting 600,000 Chinese students into America so Americans will go to worse schools and keep them from closing?" wrote right-wing commenter Chase Geiser.
"I don't know a single Trump voter in favor of this," wrote Marina Medvin, a right-wing attorney.