Trump: Democrats lost because they supported defunding the police

Democrats lost the election because of its support for defunding the police , Donald Trump said in his first interview since winning back the White House.

The former president, who saw a massive boost in his backing from black, Hispanic and young voters, argued the Democrats' leftward shift had realigned politics.

"I started to see realignment could happen because the Democrats are not in line with the thinking of the country," the president-elect told NBC.

"You can't have defund the police, these kinds of things. They don't want to give up and they don't work, and the people understand that."

Demands to defund the police were triggered by the murder of George Floyd in 2020 when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

His death was followed by a wave of protests by the Black Lives Matter movement .

Police in more than a dozen cities saw their funding cut by Democrat administrations – although many later restored some of the money.

Measures introduced by Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris's running mate , also went down badly.

Although he did not advocate defunding the police, some held him responsible for the demands and other changes made to policing which were viewed as restrictive.

Minneapolis lost 40 per cent of its police officers and against a backdrop of the defunding calls, five first responders including four police officers were killed in the line of duty.

The widow of a sheriff who was gunned down pointedly told Mr Walz that he was not welcome at the funeral.

Shortly after the 2020 election, Joe Biden blamed the defund the police campaign for the Democrats' failure to win a raft of senate and congressional races.

He said the Republicans used the campaign "to beat the living hell out of Democrats".

'Immigration led to election victory'

Mr Trump also said his hardline position on immigration and his pledge to mount America's biggest ever deportation of illegal migrants had led to his decisive victory.

"They want to have borders, and they like people coming in, but they have to come in with love for the country. They have to come in legally."

The American Immigration Council, which supports migrants, says deporting one million people a year would cost more than $88 million.

However, the president-elect said there was no price tag on the plans.

"When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they're going to go back to those countries because they're not staying here."