President Donald Trump is now suggesting that instead of a wall on the border with Mexico, it might be more effective to have armed soldiers point machine guns at immigrants.
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday evening, Trump defended spending $25-35 billion on a wall that polls show a majority of Americans don’t want constructed, remarking:
“You go to a lot of the generals, they will tell you, this is a national emergency.”
As is usually the case with this president, Trump offered no supporting evidence to back up his specious claim.
That’s when Trump began talking about machine guns:
“But we don’t do like other countries! Other countries stand there with machine guns ready to fire. We can’t do that and I wouldn’t want to do that, okay? It’s a very effective way of doing it and I wouldn’t want to do it. We can’t do it.”
Considering some of the disgusting things Trump has said about immigrants and immigration since he first announced his run for the White House, is it really a stretch to suggest that if he thought he could get away with it, he would indeed station troops with machine guns on the border?
Thursday morning, Trump doubled down on his disgusting comments to Hannity, posting this on Twitter:
Mexico is doing NOTHING to help stop the flow of illegal immigrants to our Country. They are all talk and no action. Likewise, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have taken our money for years, and do Nothing. The Dems don’t care, such BAD laws. May close the Southern Border!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2019
A quick fact check of Trump’s assertion that military officials support his national emergency declaration clearly rebuts his comments, ThinkProgress notes:
“Last month, a coalition of former national security officials denounced his power grab, stating that they ‘are aware of no emergency that remotely justifies’ his actions. On Tuesday, when members of the Senate Armed Services committee questioned Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command, he could provide no justification for the national emergency except to reiterate that Trump had, in fact, declared it.”
The wall is just another campaign promise Trump made to his racist, xenophobic supporters, and he’s trying desperately to make it a reality because he’s afraid he’ll pay a price in 2020 if he doesn’t.
Featured Image Via ImgFlip
