Still No Wall, Still No Work
During the first half of the fiscal year 2018, U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained 47 possible terrorists trying to get into the United States.
Perhaps we need to build a wall – on the northern border.
That’s ’cause 41 of the 47 would-be terrorists were heading south from Canada.
Only six of them were trying to cross from Mexico.
President Donald Trump, though, wants you to believe that terrorist, who’ll surely crawl through your bedroom window tonight, will be wearing a sombrero – while he beats you like you’re a pi帽ata.
Ever since Trump launched his presidential campaign in June 2015, he’s been obsessed with Mexicans who’re, “bringing drugs, bringing crime, they’re rapists – and some (he assumed) are good people.”
He built his entire presidential campaign on the ways Mexicans are ruining the United States.
He then hatched his plan to build a border wall so high, so wide and so impenetrable, that undocumented immigrants from the south would just stay home.
Balderdash.
Such a structure just might drain the U.S. Treasury of everything but pocket lint.
So, Trump hatched another plan. Mexico will pay for the wall.
On March 31, 2016, the Trump campaign released a position paper in which it said in part: “It’s an easy decision for Mexico. Make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion…,” with a detailed description about how Mexico would do it.
That was then.
Last week, Trump even denied that he’d insisted on how Mexico would pay for his wall.
“When during the campaign I would say Mexico is going to pay for it, obviously I never said this, and I never meant they’re going to write out a check,” he told reporters.
In case you hadn’t heard, Trump has problems telling the truth.
He had bragged that he would get Mexico to write a check to pay for a wall.
He’s now treading heavier on the truth than he ever has.
With hundreds of thousands of government employees working without pay, or on furloughs, he’s reneged on a promise he made to Democrats (namely Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer) last month.
“I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it,” he told Schumer.
That was on Dec. 11.
On Dec. 21 – the eve of the shutdown – he tweeted, “The Democrats now own the shutdown.”
Presidential cowardice is a rarity, but it’s become commonplace since January 2017.
When cameras were whirring in the Oval Office, Tarzan Trump boldly accepted responsibility for a government shutdown.
When it became clear Democrats wouldn’t supply him with enough votes to pay for his infernal border wall, Milquetoast Trump blamed them for the shutdown.
Worse, when members of Congress hammered out a bipartisan plan to keep the government running until February while it haggled over payment for a border wall – Trump appeared to support it until he heard the rumblings of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
Coulter attacked Trump for his wobbling on a border wall. Saying, “Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people…”
Limbaugh told his radio audience that if he would sign any bill that didn’t include a border wall, it would mean, “Trump gets nothing and the Democrats get everything.”
Thus, Trump showed his true colors.
Instead of being a master-negotiator, he caved under pressure.
He’s since turned up the heat on Democrats, but Democrats aren’t budging.
He’s even claimed that past presidents have indicated that they’ve supported his efforts to build a wall on the nation’s southern border.
“Some of them have told me that we should have done it,” he said recently.
That was mere desperation since each of the previous living presidents has denied they ever talked to him about a wall.
“I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump, and do not support him on the issue,” said former President Jimmy Carter through The Carter Center.
America awaits Trump’s next move; or Limbaugh’s; or Colter’s.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, a former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and a 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.