Tag Archives: immigration

Prominent conservative media figures are once again trying to convince him not to go for it, as they did successfully last time when they changed his mind and got him to force a shutdown. This time, they’re not going to succeed.

President Trump appears ready to sign a spending deal that would avert a government shutdown but provide only skimpy funding for his proposed wall.

So Trump is trying to assuage conservatives, according to the New York Times:

As he inched closer to reluctantly accepting a bipartisan spending compromise without the money he demanded for his border wall, Mr. Trump offered no acknowledgment on Wednesday that his pressure tactics had failed even as aides sought to minimize the damage by tamping down criticism on the right.

One call was made to Lou Dobbs, a favorite of Mr. Trump’s whose Fox Business Network show he often tries to catch live. Another was placed to Sean Hannity, the Fox host who regularly talks with the president. The message: Mr. Trump deserved support because he still forced concessions that he would never have gotten without a five-week partial government shutdown.

Even so, it was arguably the most punishing defeat Mr. Trump has experienced as president, and it left the White House scrounging for other ways to pay for a wall on the southwestern border and rethinking its approach to a Congress now partly controlled by Democrats. The agreement that lawmakers produced this week would allocate $1.375 billion for fencing along the border, even less than was on the table at one point last year. 

Mr. Trump argued that the shutdown had been useful because it educated the country about troubles at the border and, if nothing else, he has framed the national debate on his terms. That did not completely assuage conservatives. Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, contradicted the White House line and declared that the agreement was “a bad deal for the president.”

Should conservatives feel reassured? Should conservative opinion leaders leave Trump alone this time around? What do you think?

After spending weeks trying to placate Democrats by suggesting they could call his border wall something else, President Trump is now not only insisting that it will be a “wall,” but he’s referring to existing barriers as walls.

Large sections of WALL have already been built with much more either under construction or ready to go. Renovation of existing WALLS is also a very big part of the plan to finally, after many decades, properly Secure Our Border. The Wall is getting done one way or the other!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2019

Lets just call them WALLS from now on and stop playing political games! A WALL is a WALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2019

This means at least one of two things. First, he has definitely given up on negotiating a deal with Democrats. Calling what the stuff he wants to build a wall means he can forget about compromising with them, not that they were going to compromise anyway. Second, it could also mean he has decided to declare the situation at the border an emergency and have the military build the wall.

Or maybe not. He’s also calling existing barriers, which continue to be built and repaired, walls. That sounds like he may have given up on building an actual new wall and wants to campaign on things that are already there and on things short of an actual wall that are being built by terming them walls.

My bet is that he will declare an national emergency. But the problem with this is that once a Democrat becomes president, they will declare health care, the climate, or school snack time a national emergency and do whatever they want. They will probably do this anyway, but it’s periloous to set the precedent.

Sounds like the kind of thing Jesse Jackson used to love to do. He was constantly rhyming his ideas.

But the White House has put forth a relatively sophisticated PR campaign for the wall, with constant Trump appearances, public commentary, and social media posts – not to mention an Oval Office address – promoting his position. A slogan is probably a pretty good idea, even though the crowd that imagines itself as so much more sophisticated than Trump will snicker.

BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL! This is the new theme, for two years until the Wall is finished (under construction now), of the Republican Party. Use it and pray!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2019

BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2019