Trump condemns wall talks in New York Times interview
- by Janet Clayton
- in Global
- — Feb 1, 2019
It would significantly boost spending for scanners at ports of entry, humanitarian aid for apprehended migrants, and new aircraft and ships to police the U.S. -Mexico border.
Trump indicated in his interview that he'd prefer to allow current litigation challenging both the constitutionality of the act itself and the constitutionality of his repeal to make its way through the courts before he offers any concessions on the Act, even if it means he may not get the border wall funding he's looking for in the next round of budget negotiations.
But the president has also found vindication in internal polling (purportedly) showing that his voters do care deeply about the border wall - and appreciate the radical steps he's taken to secure it.
On Thursday, Trump upbraided congressional Democrats for refusing to appropriate wall funding that is "DESPERATELY needed" - right before stipulating that, actually, the "Wall is already being built".
Senators revisited a bipartisan $1.6 billion proposal for 65 miles of fencing in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas that passed a key committee a year ago.
Hours later, the head Democrat in the lower house of Congress, Nancy Pelosi, shot back with an equally emphatic statement that "there´s not going to be any wall money in the legislation".
Trump has been buoyed by polling commissioned by his 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, suggesting that the government shutdown wasn't as damaging to him as several other public polls had shown. He threatened to declare a national emergency to circumvent Congress and use the military to build the wall if they fail to reach a deal he can sign.
A bipartisan group of 17 lawmakers from the House and Senate, known as a conference committee, is tasked with finding a spending deal that would fund the government past February 15 while at the same time satisfying Trump's border security demands.
Democratic leaders have called on Trump to stand aside and let the negotiators do their work as a way of fostering success. In another tweet, he declared Democrats were becoming the party of "open borders and crime".
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Earlier in the day, Trump said Republicans are "wasting their time" trying to negotiate with Democrats and he doesn't "expect much help" from Congress to get the wall built.
Pelosi got into a few specifics at her news conference. Is there a place for enhanced fencing? "Normandy fencing would work". She would, however, support other forms of barriers, new technology and agents for stronger border security.
Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who also commonly aligns himself with the president, told Newsweek that he, too, did not agree with Trump publicly declaring bipartisan talks futile so quickly after they began.
Trump on Thursday tamped down expectations, telling GOP negotiators they were "wasting their time".
"I think to have the 17 of us in the room - seasoned appropriators, members that have for many, many, many years worked on the appropriations process and reached compromise on very hard issues - I don't think we're wasting our time", she added. We could be, if people aren't doing some serious negotiating.
"President Trump has been told he's an unwelcome guest, there only to fulfill his constitutional requirement to address the people before the sun sets on the Ides of March". But Trump is anxious about his base, which has been extremely loyal to him but wants the border wall he promised so frequently - and loudly - during his campaign.
"If the president wants to call that a wall, he can call it a wall", she concluded.
But in his tweetstorm Thursday, Trump dropped the semantics. "Let them have that discussion".
