Thread: Trump keeps lying about his border wall

Trump keeps lying about his border wall

Gaslight theater.

AARON RUPARJUN 26, 2018, 3:47 PM

CREDIT: SCREENGRAB

During a White House event on Tuesday, President Trump said that while construction of his border wall has already “started up in San Diego,” he plans to “ask for an increase in wall spending so we can finish it quicker.”

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Those comments came a day after the president claimed during a rally in South Carolina that the wall “is happening.”

“Oh, it’s happening. It’s happening. It’s not ‘build that wall’ it’s ‘continue building that wall,'” Trump said. “We’re building it. We’re building it.”

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Those comments came hours after Trump claimed “we must continue to BUILD THE WALL” on Twitter.

Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

....If this is done, illegal immigration will be stopped in it’s tracks - and at very little, by comparison, cost. This is the only real answer - and we must continue to BUILD THE WALL!
8:54 AM - Jun 25, 2018

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That tweet wasn’t the first time in June that Trump claimed construction on the wall has started.

Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

Separating families at the Border is the fault of bad legislation passed by the Democrats. Border Security laws should be changed but the Dems can’t get their act together! Started the Wall.

7:58 AM - Jun 5, 2018

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During a speech on Saturday in Las Vegas, Trump claimed “going to have the wall and we have started it.”

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During a speech on Saturday in Las Vegas, Trump claimed “going to have the wall and we have started it.”

Last week in Duluth, Trump said, “we will have the greatest borders, the greatest walls. We have already started.”

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Going all the way back to April, Trump has been in the habit of claiming that taxpayer-funded construction of the wall he promised Mexico would pay for has already started.

There’s just one problem — he’s lying.

Congress has in fact appropriated no money for Trump’s wall. Democrats were willing to give Trump up to $3 billion on border security measures last winter, but Trump wouldn’t take yes for an answer. Instead, he refused any deal that included less than $20 billion in multi-year wall funding (in addition to rollbacks on legal immigration) as part of an omnibus immigration bill.

Trump’s $20 billion ransom note to American taxpayers

A spending bill signed by Trump in March contained $1.6 billion on border security measures, but that money is only available for fencing and improvement to existing barriers — not to build the wall prototypes Trump made a big show of inspecting in March.

With no money appropriated by Congress, Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) recently floated the idea of introducing legislation to crowdfund Trump’s wall. The president, however, seems to have other ideas.

At the end of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Trump was asked “if building a wall is worth a shutdown” when the government needs to pass another spending bill in late September.
“I don’t know — we’ll see,” Trump replied.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-wont-stop-lying-about-his-border-wall-5ff47be6ba2f/

Nothing has changed since June, Trump is still lying about the border wall at his rallies.

It's Trump's Wall, if he likes the big bollard fencing he can get funding for, that BP likes and prefers and that works, no one really interested in border security cares what it's made of. During the campaign, Trump talked a lot about the fact that parts of the wall would be bollard steel, real American steel, because the agents want to be able to see through it and it works better for drainage and little wildlife coming and going.

So Trump Supporters who are the people who attend and watch his Rallies all knew that portions of the wall would be this bollard fencing. That's why this "Trump lying about the border wall" approach to criticize Trump doesn't work and never gains any traction. I don't know why the left keeps writing these articles, because they're duds.

KEEP THE TRUMP TRAIN ROLLIN' ROLLIN' ROLLIN'!!

VOTE REPUBLICAN IN 2018!!!!

Originally Posted by Judy

It's Trump's Wall, if he likes the big bollard fencing he can get funding for, that BP likes and prefers and that works, no one really interested in border security cares what it's made of. During the campaign, Trump talked a lot about the fact that parts of the wall would be bollard steel, real American steel, because the agents want to be able to see through it and it works better for drainage and little wildlife coming and going.

So Trump Supporters who are the people who attend and watch his Rallies all knew that portions of the wall would be this bollard fencing. That's why this "Trump lying about the border wall" approach to criticize Trump doesn't work and never gains any traction. I don't know why the left keeps writing these articles, because they're duds.

KEEP THE TRUMP TRAIN ROLLIN' ROLLIN' ROLLIN'!!

VOTE REPUBLICAN IN 2018!!!!

Oh my goodness, I can't believe you're actually attempting to excuse his lies on the border wall away. Do your homework. The truth is there for anyone that's paying attention.

DACA Amnesty remains up for illegals by the hand of Trump. There is no wall as promised and no funding for a wall. Trump caved on the budget veto threat and the continuing budget has no money for the wall. All that and we got to spend the first two years of Trump's Presidency fighting Amnesty bills in Congress he endorsed!

check: Trump says his border wall is under construction. It's not.

July 03, 2018


President Donald Trump tours U.S.-Mexico border wall prototypes on March 13, 2018, in San Diego.Evan Vucci / AP file

When the crowd at President Donald Trump's South Carolina campaign rally last week started up the now-familiar chant of "Build that wall, build that wall," he stopped to chastise them.

“It's not 'build that wall' anymore, it's, 'Continue building that wall,'" he said. "Because we're building it."

He repeated this claim a day later at the White House.

"We’ve started the wall," Trump said. "Started up in San Diego and other places. It's under construction with $1.6 billion dollars, but we’re going to ask for an increase in wall spending so we can finish it quicker."

A U.S. Border Patrol agent looks at one of border wall prototypes on June 28, 2018, in San Diego.Jae C. Hong / APBut that's not true. While some new fencing has been built along the U.S.-Mexico border in the past year, it's not the concrete barrier Trump vowed because of the strings Congress put on the cash.

THE FACTS

The president rooted his campaign and early presidency in the idea that the southern border needed a concrete wall to secure American borders, which he said was overrun by crime and drugs. He said over and over that Mexico would pay for it. (Mexico has so far refused.)

"There's a BIG difference" between a wall and a fence, he tweeted in 2015.

"It's not a fence, it's a wall," he said days before his inauguration.

"A properly built, constructed, designed wall. High, not a little fence they had," he told Fox News' Sean Hannity in 2017.

Trump ordered eight prototypes for his wall built in the desert outside San Diego. He toured them in March, declaring the prototypes superior to existing fencing.

Oct. 23: Trump's border wall prototypes take shapeCT.23.201702:52


"That wall, they can get over very easily," Trump told reporters, pointing to existing fencing that had been patched from attempts to break through them. “These walls,” he said, indicating his prototypes, “they can’t.”

The same month, legislators passed a spending bill that included $1.6 billion in border barrier funding. That's the money Trump has touted at recent rallies as a "down payment" on his wall. But by law, the money can only be used for the construction or repair of existing fencing designs.

That funding "shall only be available for operationally effective designs deployed as of the date of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017 ... such as the currently deployed steel bollard designs," the bill reads, referencing designs that were completed well before Trump's prototypes were built.

A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said that more than seven miles of border fencing had been replaced in the past year. (The president has said the U.S. needs 700 miles of new barrier on the border, and has sought $25 billion for his wall.)

Additionally, a spokesman for CBP told NBC News that the findings from prototype development and testing had been presented to leadership, but it was unclear when — or if — they would be deployed in future border barrier construction.

Trump has maintained that he still intends to make Mexico pay for the wall — in one rally he teased that that issue might come up in NAFTA negotiations — but has yet to offer any specifics.

The new president-elect of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, seems unlikely to offer fresh aid on that front. He has denounced Trump's plan to build a border wall and his latest book was titled, "Listen, Trump!"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...ion-it-n888371

POLITICS 09/25/2018 03:39 pm ET Updated Sep 25, 2018

Trump On Track To Sign Another Spending Bill That Fails To Pay For His Wall

Building a wall, making Mexico pay for it – it remains a lot of bluster.


By S.V. Date

KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERSTrump viewed a prototype for a border wall during a trip to California in March.

WASHINGTON ― Unable to make either Mexico or Congress pay for his promised border wall, President Donald Trump is on track to renege on his first and most prominent campaign promise yet again.

The House is scheduled to vote on a temporary government spending bill Wednesday that provides not so much as a dime for the wall ― and prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from starting one. The Senate already passed the bill 85-7, and Trump will have until Sunday to sign it to keep most federal government agencies from having to shut down at midnight.

“What part of ‘no wall’ are you having trouble understanding?” laughed Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant and a Trump critic since the start of his presidential candidacy in 2015. “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Trump lied about this. He lies about everything. There was never going to be a wall.”

Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies that wants to restrict immigration into the United States, said the quandary Trump faces over the wall is his own fault for making such a big deal about the need for the barrier rather than better border enforcement broadly.

“At some point, people are going to say: Okay, where’s the wall?” he said.

With critical congressional elections now just six weeks away, some Trump allies fear that his strongest supporters will stay home out of disgust over the wall issue. “He’s going to have to do something before the election,” said Sam Nunberg of Citizens of the American Republic, a group created by former top White House aide Steve Bannon.

Bannon has for months advocated a government shutdown over the lack of wall funding as a way to energize Trump’s base of voters. Nunberg suggested an executive order of some sort that makes it appear the administration is doing something to advance it. “He’s got to have a deliverable on this,” he said.

His base would literally believe that a bucket of dung was a bucket of ice cream if he told them it was. He’s going to do his rallies and claim the wall is already halfway built, and it’s 400 feet tall. And people will cheer and whoop.Rick Wilson, Republican political consultant

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley on Tuesday criticized Democrats for opposing the wall: “Democrats do not want a single dime spent on securing the border, building a wall, or on any other safety measures because they want open borders and sanctuary cities.”

But Trump’s White House did not address why Trump failed to get the Republican-led chambers of Congress to include any money to construct a wall along the southern border. Trump famously promised the wall in his candidacy announcement speech and said he would force Mexico to pay for it. He repeated both promises hundreds of times over the course of his campaign.

As president, Trump has taken multiple positions about signing another spending bill that does not include wall money. In March, just before signing a $1.3 trillion package, Trump lashed out at the Republican-led Congress over the funding omission.

He tweeted that one reason is he was considering a veto of that funding measure was because “the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded.”

He posted that message just hours before he wound up signing the bill, anyway.

He explained he was doing so because of all the money going to the military, and then claimed his wall was also getting some funding. “We have $1.6 billion for the wall,” he said. “We’re going to be starting work, literally, on Monday.”

That assertion, however, was false. While there was $1.57 billion for border security “procurement, construction and improvements,” 98 percent of it could not be used to build any type of structure that wasn’t already in use by 2017. Only $38 million was set aside for “border barrier planning and design” ― but not construction.

Since then, at his campaign rallies, he has repeatedly vowed to shut down the government if Congress did not give him wall money. “We’re about to get really nasty over the wall. We’re either getting it or we’re shutting down government,” he said in August in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

But earlier this month, Trump began signaling that he would be following the advice of congressional GOP leaders who desperately want to avoid a pre-election government shutdown. They told him to wait until December to fight for his wall because he would have more leverage then, Trump has said.

“We’ll do it right after the election where hopefully, frankly, it will be easy because we have more Republicans, not less,” he told Fox News just before a Sept. 6 rally in Billings, Montana.

“I have no idea what the logic is,” Krikorian said, arguing that exactly the opposite political dynamic will probably be true ― that Democrats and those Republicans who oppose building a wall will have far more leverage after the elections than they do now, particularly if Democrats retake the House in November and are only weeks away from gaining formal control in January’s new congressional session.

“What is he going to do in December if he doesn’t get his wall funding?” Krikorian asked. “What’s he going to do, shut the government down? I’m not sure what the thinking is.”

The details of the spending legislation Congress is currently working on will likely diminish Trump’s leverage even further. Agencies including Defense, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs will be funded through October 2019. Only about a third of the government would shut down if Trump refused to sign a new spending bill by Dec. 7 ― but that third would include DHS, which is charged with border security. The effect would be to hurt Border Patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and others whom Trump frequently claims to support.

“Are the Democrats really going to cave because of that? I don’t think so,” Krikorian said.

The whole wall thing was a shtick. As long as they were applauding it, he was going to go keep repeating it. It’s just part of the concert lineup.Rick Tyler, Republican political consultant

Whether and how much Trump’s failure to deliver on the wall will matter in the coming midterms remains a matter of some debate among Republicans.

While Bannon has argued that winning money for the wall is critical for Republicans to have any chance of holding onto the House – “The wall is not just totemic. The wall is absolutely central to his program,” he told CNN in June – others think that not even his hardcore base ever truly believed Trump would actually build one.

Rick Tyler, who worked for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign, said Trump’s promise to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it was simply something he invented for his rally speeches. “The whole wall thing was a shtick,” he said, likening Trump’s rallies to professional wrestling shows where the audience is in on all of the set pieces. “As long as they were applauding it, he was going to go keep repeating it. It’s just part of the concert lineup.”

GOP consultant Frank Luntz said he doubts most of Trump’s strongest supporters will even learn that he failed to get wall money in the pending spending bill. The fight over Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, “what’s happening in China and a host of other issues will overshadow this,” he said.

Wilson, who recently published a book excoriating Trump, said the president’s most loyal supporters ignore news sources that do not portray him in a flattering light. “His base would literally believe that a bucket of dung was a bucket of ice cream if he told them it was,” he said. “He’s going to do his rallies and claim the wall is already halfway built, and it’s 400 feet tall. And people will cheer and whoop.”

Krikorian, nevertheless, does not believe that Trump can get away forever with promising a wall but never delivering. “The president has talked himself into a box,” he said. “You can’t keep making threats and not follow up.”

This story has been updated with comment from the White House.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0f143d10e0c8e

Donald Trump’s Lies About the Border Wall, Explained

KEVIN DRUMMARCH 30, 2018 11:39 AM


Steve Benen today:

Steve Benen@stevebenen

Trump's lying about border-wall construction is so over the top, I'm starting to think he actually believes his own ridiculously untrue claims

http://on.msnbc.com/2J4QCXA
11:18 AM - Mar 30, 2018

Trump's border wall rhetoric is increasingly divorced from reality

Trump's lying about border wall construction is so over the top, I'm starting to think he actually believes his own ridiculously untrue claims.
msnbc.com

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I won’t pretend to know what goes on in the lump of gray matter Trump uses for a brain, but the reason he says stuff like this is simple: it’s aimed at his supporters, who have no idea that he’s lying. As far as they’re concerned, it’s promise made, promise kept. That’s all Trump cares about.

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dr...all-explained/

May 31, 2018

Trump hurts himself with falsehoods on Mexico, border wall, taxes

By Ed Straker

A year and a half into his presidency, President Trump has a number of accomplishments he can honestly refer to. He appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, among other accomplished jurists to federal circuit courts. He has tried to stop the DACA program and increase the apprehension of illegal aliens. He is in the process of rolling back a number of ridiculous environmental regulations, and he has enacted a great corporate tax cut that is bringing cash abroad back to the U.S.

That's why it's distressing to see the president, in a recent speech, tout accomplishments that are falsehoods:

1. Mexico paying for the wall. Trump once again said Mexico will pay for his border wall. A year and a half into his administration, Trump has not even laid out a plan to get Mexico to pay for the border wall, because there is no plan. By lying to his supporters, Trump disrespects them.

2. Claiming to have passed the largest tax cuts in U.S. history (here at the 13:45 mark). Trump did not sign the largest tax cuts in U.S. history. Trump signed a bill authorizing large corporate tax cuts, but his tax cut for individuals was quite small for many, and for some, the marginal rates even increased. For example, for people making $170,000 a year, the top tax rate was 28% under the old plan; under the plan Trump signed, the top tax rate for that same family making $170,000 is 32%. That's an incremental increase of 4% in the top tax rate, not the largest tax cut ever. Most taxpayers will see little or no decrease in their taxes.

3. Saying that construction of his border wall has already begun. That is not true. Trump is engaging in replacing some border fencing. No wall is being built, and no new barriers are being built in places that didn't have barriers to begin with.

Trump hurts himself with these untrue statements by giving the media legitimate ammunition to attack him, and he makes it harder for people to support him when he demonstrates a more equivocal moral character. When his supporters defend his lies, they also intellectually discredit themselves. It's a shame he can't stick to his real accomplishments. For the moment, he's generally a good leader but a flawed one.

A year and a half into his presidency, President Trump has a number of accomplishments he can honestly refer to. He appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, among other accomplished jurists to federal circuit courts. He has tried to stop the DACA program and increase the apprehension of illegal aliens. He is in the process of rolling back a number of ridiculous environmental regulations, and he has enacted a great corporate tax cut that is bringing cash abroad back to the U.S.

That's why it's distressing to see the president, in a recent speech, tout accomplishments that are falsehoods:

1. Mexico paying for the wall. Trump once again said Mexico will pay for his border wall. A year and a half into his administration, Trump has not even laid out a plan to get Mexico to pay for the border wall, because there is no plan. By lying to his supporters, Trump disrespects them.

2. Claiming to have passed the largest tax cuts in U.S. history (here at the 13:45 mark). Trump did not sign the largest tax cuts in U.S. history. Trump signed a bill authorizing large corporate tax cuts, but his tax cut for individuals was quite small for many, and for some, the marginal rates even increased. For example, for people making $170,000 a year, the top tax rate was 28% under the old plan; under the plan Trump signed, the top tax rate for that same family making $170,000 is 32%. That's an incremental increase of 4% in the top tax rate, not the largest tax cut ever. Most taxpayers will see little or no decrease in their taxes.

3. Saying that construction of his border wall has already begun. That is not true. Trump is engaging in replacing some border fencing. No wall is being built, and no new barriers are being built in places that didn't have barriers to begin with.

Trump hurts himself with these untrue statements by giving the media legitimate ammunition to attack him, and he makes it harder for people to support him when he demonstrates a more equivocal moral character. When his supporters defend his lies, they also intellectually discredit themselves. It's a shame he can't stick to his real accomplishments. For the moment, he's generally a good leader but a flawed one.

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

Who is Ed Straker? As to ABC, Mother Jones and Huffington Post .... honestly?!!

Trump can't get the money for the concrete wall from Congress because there's too many DemoQuacks and not enough Republicans, so he has to build the bollard steel type wall/fence structures. Hopefully they'll keep some illegal aliens out until we have enough Republicans in Congress to pass the full wall/fence/levee structures Trump wants.

As a Trump Supporter adamantly opposed to illegal immigration, I'm thrilled to see those big bollard steel fences going up in San Diego, Arizona and Rio Grande Sectors which are known to be very high traffic areas. We know the traffic will just move miles down to another area but it slows them down, discourages some, and makes it more difficult, so it's some kind of progress until we have MORE REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS to get the funding and the authorization needed for Trump to build the whole wall the way he wants. Also, all those prototypes flunked the tests, so we need a new design anyway, which is why Trump is thinking, use the Army Corps of Engineers to design and build the wall, rather than private contractors, the same way we build dams, levees and other similar type structures.

Hopefully, Republicans will do well in the mid-terms and the issues surrounding the wall can be worked out next year.