President Donald Trump further riled up his conservative MAGA base last month by saying the United States needs to bring in more skilled foreign workers on visas because the country lacks “certain talents” to perform some demanding jobs. The White House staff is still doing damage control.
When asked by a reporter on Nov. 24, “Is it MAGA to support American workers being replaced with H1B visa holders?” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt huffily responded that the president’s position has been mischaracterized.
“The president wants to see our manufacturing industry be revitalized,” she said, noting that “his effective use of tariffs and cutting good trade deals around the world” is “creating good-paying American jobs right here at home.”
“As for the H1B visa issue … if foreign companies are investing trillions of dollars in the United States of America and bringing foreign workers with them to create very niche things like batteries,” she added. “He wants to see that at the beginning to get those manufacturing facilities and factories up and running, but ultimately the president always wants to see American workers in those jobs and he’s told those foreign companies that are investing here, ‘You better be hiring my people.'”
In an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, when pressing the president on how he plans to handle H-1B visas, which allow companies to hire foreign skilled workers in specialty occupations, Ingraham said flooding the country with foreign workers would hurt efforts to raise wages for American workers
“We have plenty of talented people here,” Ingraham said.
“No, you don’t,” Trump replied. “No, you don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn.”
Trump went on to argue that “you can’t take people off an unemployment line that haven’t worked in five years” and expect them to make missiles or, referencing a recent fiasco, make batteries, as at the Hyundai electric car battery plant in Georgia that was raided by ICE agents in September, when more than 300 South Korean workers were arrested, and several dozen deported.
“They had people from South Korea who made batteries all their lives,” Trump said, noting that is complicated, dangerous work and that the South Korean workers were there “to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You’re gonna need that, Laura.”
The president’s comments led to a meltdown among his MAGA followers, who were already upset with Trump for defending his call for 600,000 Chinese students to attend American universities, noted The Hill.
Conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a social media post that she was “solidly” against U.S. workers, who are “talented, creative, intelligent, hard working … being replaced by foreign labor, like with H1Bs.”
“I believe in the American people. I am one of you. … I am solidly against allowing foreign students into our colleges and universities, like 600,000 Chinese students, just to financially prop them up. If they fail, they fail,” Greene wrote, adding, “I am America First and America Only.”
Savanah Hernandez, a MAGA influencer and contributor to conservative youth group Turning Point USA, called Trump’s comments “disheartening” in a post on X. “His H-1B comment shows how out of touch with the base he has become,” she said.
“This recent Ingraham interview has been catastrophic for Trump,” wrote Matt Morse, a pro-Trump commentator, on X. “Whoever’s in Trump’s inner-circle that’s been telling him that we need more H-1B visas, 50 year mortgages, and 600,000 Chinese students needs to be FIRED IMMEDIATELY.”
Trump then doubled down at the U.S. – Saudi Investors Forum, saying, “I may take a little heat from my people who love me, who are right of center … but we need these [skilled foreign workers] to teach us how to make computer chips” and other technical jobs that can’t be done by Americans “who don’t even know what a computer chip looks like.”
Meanwhile, the White House pointed to the Trump administration’s announcement in September that would require a $100,000 annual fee for companies seeking to obtain an H-1B visa and its increased scrutiny of workers in the program.
“The Trump administration is protecting American workers by restoring accountability in the H1-B process, ensuring that it is used to bring in only the highest-skilled foreign workers in specialty occupations and not low-wage workers that will displace Americans,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the president’s comments in an interview on Fox.
“The president’s point here is we can’t snap our fingers and say, ‘You’re going to learn how to build ships overnight,’” Bessent told the network.
“An American can’t have that job, because we haven’t built ships in the U.S. for years. We haven’t built semiconductors. This idea of overseas partners coming in again, teaching American workers, then return home. That’s a home run,” he continued.
The Trump administration’s evolving position and policies on foreign workers threaten to widen the divide among his MAGA followers and right-wing Republicans.
“This may be the moment MAGA died in the Trump Administration. The H1B visa program is a scam to lower wages for American workers,” posted Lawrence Sellin, who often writes about Chinese “infiltration” in American companies, on X.
“This is insane—we’re going to lose the mid-terms so badly,” Anthony Sabatini, a Republican county commissioner in Florida, said of Trump’s comments in post on X, Fox News reported. “We’ve never seen an administration crash & burn in its first year so badly—for no reason other than to appease donors and special interests.”
Trump has long been criticized for championing American workers and demanding America First economic policies while employing foreign workers in his own businesses.
According to a new investigation by Forbes, which analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Labor, the Trump Organization sought to bring in at least 184 foreign workers in 2025 for temporary positions at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, two golf clubs and his Virginia winery, The Guardian reported.
The number of applications for H-2A and H-2B visas covering temporary workers, including servers, clerks, housekeepers, kitchen staff, and farm workers, was the highest ever submitted by the company. Overall, Forbes reported, the Trump Organization sought to employ 566 foreign laborers over the five years Trump has been in the White House, from 2017 to 2021, and in 2025.
