Thread: Trump threatens to have military build border wall if Pelosi, Schumer won’t budge

Trump threatens to have military build border wall if Pelosi, Schumer won’t budge

By Judson Berger | Fox News
Published 1 hour ago

President Trump threatened Tuesday to have the military “build the remaining sections” of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, appearing to revive a call to use Pentagon money to finish the project as he braces for a tense meeting with congressional Democratic leaders opposed to the president’s funding request.

“People do not yet realize how much of the Wall, including really effective renovation, has already been built. If the Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country, the Military will build the remaining sections of the Wall. They know how important it is!” Trump vowed, capping a series of tweets meant to set the stage for the White House summit.

For their part, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer put out a joint statement Monday arguing Trump and his party will own a government shutdown if they can’t strike a deal.

"Republicans still control the House, the Senate and the White House, and they have the power to keep government open," they said. "Our country cannot afford a Trump Shutdown," the Democrats said, adding that Trump "knows full well that his wall proposal does not have the votes to pass the House and Senate and should not be an obstacle to a bipartisan agreement."

Congress last week temporarily averted a partial shutdown amid the funeral services for the late President George H.W. Bush, pushing the new deadline to Dec. 21. Trump is set to meet at the White House Tuesday with Pelosi and Schumer to discuss a government spending package – with border wall funding the biggest sticking point.

Trump wants $5 billion for the project, while Democrats are offering $1.3 billion for border security.

The president earlier this year pushed for military funding to finance the border project. But while administrations can move some money around in their budgets, they need approval from Congress – and the relevant appropriations bills for fiscal 2019 did not include money for this purpose.

Top Democrats also warned earlier this year that the Pentagon would not have the power to redirect funding to the border wall.

But Trump’s tweets marked the latest effort on both sides to project a strong negotiating position.

The president also claimed that the wall and fencing already in place helped turn back the migrant caravans forming in Mexico. He accused Democrats of sacrificing border security for political reasons, even suggesting Pelosi is holding up funding for a border wall in order to secure votes for the speakership in the next Congress.

“We have already built large new sections & fully renovated others, making them like new. The Democrats … however, for strictly political reasons and because they have been pulled so far left, do NOT want Border Security. They want Open Borders for anyone to come in. This brings large scale crime and disease,” he tweeted.

“Our Southern Border is now Secure and will remain that way … I look forward to my meeting with Chuck Schumer & Nancy Pelosi. In 2006, Democrats voted for a Wall, and they were right to do so. Today, they no longer want Border Security. They will fight it at all cost, and Nancy must get votes for Speaker. But the Wall will get built.”

Pelosi does face pressure from her base not to bend on the border wall funding fight. But more than the speaker’s gavel is at stake – Democratic votes in both the House and Senate could be critical for averting a partial shutdown.

Sixty votes are required in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. And, at least for the near-term, Republicans only have 51 members.

Republicans for the rest of the month have a comfortable majority in the House, but lack the votes on their side alone to pass a bill with or without wall money.

Pelosi and Schumer have urged Trump to support a bill that includes a half-dozen government funding bills largely agreed upon by lawmakers, along with a separate measure that funds the Department of Homeland Security at current levels through Sept. 30.

Democrats will likely push for a continuing resolution that funds the remaining appropriations bills if Trump doesn't agree to that, an aide told The Associated Press.

Trump said Friday that Congress should provide all the money he wants for the wall and called illegal immigration a "threat to the well-being of every American community."

Pelosi said she and many other Democrats consider the wall "immoral, ineffective and expensive."

Schumer said Democrats want to work with Trump to avert a shutdown, but said money for border security should not include the concrete wall Trump has envisioned. Instead, the money should be used for fencing and technology that experts say is appropriate, Schumer said.

"We do not want to let a Trump temper tantrum govern our policies or cause the shutdown of a government, which everyone on both sides of the aisle knows is the wrong idea," Schumer said. If Trump "wants to shut down the government over Christmas over the wall, that's his decision," he said.

But House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said Democrats were the ones playing politics.

Trump "wants to secure the border. He got elected president on that platform," Scalise told Fox News.

If there's a better way to secure the border than the $5 billion plan Trump has laid out, Democrats "need to come with an alternative," Scalise said Monday.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tru...mer-wont-budge

Let the military build it. They built the Alaskan Highway and they can build the wall!

We already pay their paychecks.

Secure our border! Stop the drugs, human trafficking, terrorists, diseases and illegal aliens!

Stop the big talk. Just do it. You are in charge of protecting the nation and borders.

Day one, President Trump should have been on the border laying a symbolic brick and announcing it starts here and builds out from there.

So disappointed.

Related: 11/2/2018


Duncan Hunter Urges Trump to Use Military to Build Road for Border Wall

https://www.alipac.us/f12/duncan-hun...r-wall-365747/

Related: 9/8/2018

The military may build part of Trump’s border wall, but it won’t be easy

https://www.alipac.us/f12/military-m...t-easy-362545/

Related: 3/25/2018

Trump suggest the military might build the border wall


https://www.alipac.us/f12/trump-sugg...r-wall-357086/

Laura Ingraham (Ingraham Angle) has former ICE Director, Thomas Homan, on as a guest. She firmly tells him the President must stop saying any wall has been built. It has not. He must be told. He is ill-advised on the subject..

Congressman Steve Scalise mentioned 100 miles but Laura dismissed any real wall being built.

Trump sprang three traps on Pelosi and Schumer yesterday

And they are walking right into the next two with their eyes wide open.

December 12, 2018
By Thomas Lifson

President Trump clearly shocked House speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer yesterday with his televising of the Oval Office sit-down over his demand for $5 billion in funding for border security, including funding of critical mileage for his border wall. Knowing well that Pelosi had already vowed publicly that "transparency and openness" would characterize the Democrat-run House starting next month, her plaintive request to speak in private scored points for Trump and revealed her hypocrisy before any substance at all was considered.
The remarkable body language during the meeting tells the story of Trump's dominance. Here is the full video of the press gaggle, via Grabien:

Video at the page link

That was merely the first of three traps Trump had prepared for the Democrats' congressional leadership.
Trump's second trap is his bold declaration of ownership of any "government shutdown." Democrats have convinced themselves that what is called a "shutdown," but really means furloughing non-essential federal workers, is a tragedy, a scar on the nation's psyche. The fact that federal workers are now a major and solid constituency for Democrats skews their perception of the public's concern. Aside from canceling sleigh rides in national parks and other such photo drama, the fact is that life goes on well for nearly all Americans during the furlough. They learn that there are a lot of non-essential government workers.
After multiple shutdowns, including the last one that bore the label "Schumer Shutdown" and was quickly conceded by the Democrats, the public is no longer afraid of non-essential services (roughly 25% of the government) being temporarily suspended.
Chuck Schumer took the bait on the second trap, and after the Oval Office meeting, he employed triumphantly the term "Trump Shutdown" as if he had won a victory through Trump's surrender. Thus fortified, he is more likely to take Trump's dare and refuse funding for adequate border security and metaphorically throw Bre'r Trump into the briar patch.
The third trap is maneuvering the Senate Democrats into standing for open borders, or at least ineffective border security. The current House of Representatives will pass the funding. It is the Senate, where a 60-vote filibuster could be employed, that would be the obstacle.
Never forget that Trump was the most successful producer of reality television in the history of the medium. He understands drama and a story arc. Chuck Schumer leading a Senate filibuster right before Christmas to stymie border protection is exactly the story Trump wants the nation's TV-viewers to absorb.
He is immeasurably aided in crafting his third trap narrative by the Democrats' acceptance of and belief in the narratives peddled by their allies in the mainstream media. Just as they believe that the voters share their own horror over a "partial government shutdown," they also believe their own rhetoric about a wall being "immoral" (Pelosi) or "wasteful" (Schumer).
But the arrival of the Central American caravan and the reaction of Tijuana's political leadership and citizens have changed the game. The "race card" (more properly, the "ethnicity card" for Hispanics) no longer trumps (pun intentional) the hand being played by Trump. It is obvious that a substantial portion of the populace of Central America would like to enter the United States and take advantage of our free schooling for their children; food stamps; the refundable tax credit (which doesn't refund taxes, but sends a check to poor families who file tax returns without owing any taxes); Section 8 housing; and, when their kids are ready for college, race preferences.
Trump knows he would win in the court of public opinion, by making the point that the Democrats want to let more illegals into the country, and that failure to reinforce the border will mean more caravans, more terrorists, and more welfare clients entering our country.

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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...esterday_.html

Get military tanks down there to plow down the brush along the Rio Grande! Then start burning it to get ready for the wall.

No turning themselves in.

Shove them BACK over the border with all we got!