Wednesday, April 26, 2017

How Trump gave up on his border wall...

One reliable way to know that Donald Trump has reversed himself on an issue is if he denies having done any such thing. The pattern repeats itself: his Administration is dealt a major setback—the courts blocking his travel bans, the G.O.P. health-care bill dying in the House—and Trump responds by decreeing that “great progress” is being made and the media is neglecting to cover it. It’s easy to become inured to how bizarre this is: America has a President who denies observable reality and uses his social-media accounts to feed his supporters an alternate version of the truth. All politicians spin. Trump lies, regularly and brazenly.

It should have come as little surprise, therefore, when Trump tweeted the following on Tuesday morning: “Don’t let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL. It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc.” Of course, he did change his position. The tweet came just a day after the White House had retreated from its stance that funding for the wall had to be included in the spending bill that Congress must pass by Friday to keep the government open.

The White House’s latest push to pressure lawmakers into funding the wall began last week. During the election campaign, of course, Trump promised that Mexico would pay for the wall. But that idea was discarded even before Inauguration. (In January, Trump insisted that the money would be “paid back by Mexico later.”) On Thursday, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, spoke to the Associated Press about the spending bill and brought up the wall money. “We want wall funding. We want [immigration] agents,” he said. “Those are our priorities.” A top White House official—not Trump, despite the unusual use of the first person—subsequently told me, “I just want my wall and my ICE agents.” Full story...

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  3. Donald Trump accused of 'shocking ignorance' as he repeats...
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