President Trump is facing backlash from some of his staunchest supporters after insisting the H1-B Visa program, which admits international immigrants for high-skilled work into the US, is necessary. The President was speaking to Laura Ingraham on Fox News and pushed back when Ingraham criticized the program. She claimed such programs suppress US wages, which Trump agreed with. “but you also do have to bring in talent,” he added. Ingraham stated there were “plenty of talented people [in the US],” to which the President glibly responded, “No, you don’t. No, you don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn.” “You can’t take people off the unemployment line and say, ‘go make missiles,” he said.

The comments did not sit well with the President’s usual base, particularly given President Trump had vowed to wipe out the program completely when he ran for President in 2016. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who ran in the primary against President Trump in 2024, referred to the H1-B Visa program as a “scam.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga, who has often supported the President, pushed back. “I believe in the American people. I am one of you,” she told supporters. “I believe you are good, talented, creative, intelligent, hardworking, and want to achieve. I am solidly against you being replaced by foreign labor, like with H1Bs. 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. The system in place isn’t helping our young people anyway.”

Social media also had a lot to say about the comments. “This is how you lose your base in a single interview,” wrote one user on X. “When you start saying there aren’t people in the US that can do these jobs, while importing foreign workers that have no experience in those jobs, you are admitting you have no clue what you are talking about.” The White House defended the President’s remarks, pointing at a $100,000 annual fee the administration has vowed to require for companies seeking to obtain an H-1B visa. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital that the President aims to reform 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.”