When President Trump last summer said to a stadium of supporters, “I’m a builder. That’s what I do. That’s probably what I do best,” I suspect they had in mind more impressive architecture than a wall, but that’s all they wanted anyway.

Two years into his presidency, the most Trump has managed to build are bits and pieces of what a mounts to a high picket fence.

The administration in late November proudly sent out an email featuring a before-and-after set of images purporting to show the swimming progress on the construction of the wall. They look like those infomercials for anti-wrinkle creams, wherein the model in one slide is shown frowning under ghastly florescent light and then in the second slide giving a radiant smile with a soft camera focus.

It’s a scam.

The administration’s “after” photo is nothing more than new fencing put up after border patrol as far back as 2009 identified specific areas where enhanced barriers were needed due to high crossing rates. It looks nothing like the massive prototypes Trump was photographed with in March.

Those walls underwent intensive testing for potential weaknesses by both the military and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, using power tools, torches, and ropes, according to the Associated Press. Only one agent was able to throw a hook atop one of the walls so that he might climb up. Everything else failed, though agents did recommend combining elements of each prototype if any actual structure were to be put up on the border.

Those are the walls his supporters fantasize about when Trump says “we need a wall.” Though they could be forgiven for being unsure whether a wall has already been built, whether it’s almost completed, or whether it’s even still needed.





Depending on the hour, Trump speedily shifts between declaring victory on the wall and pleading to Democrats for votes to pass more funding for it.

At the on-camera Oval Office meeting Tuesday with Democratic leaders, Trump at one point said, “So we’ve done a lot of work on the wall; a lot of wall is built.” And then he said, “We have walls that were in very bad condition that are now in A-1, tip-top shape. And, frankly, some wall has been reinforced by our military. Our military has done a fantastic job.”

So do we need the wall, is there already a wall that’s simply getting a makeover (not what he promised), or is the military the wall?

At yet another point in the meeting, Trump all but insisted a wall was unnecessary because of the tremendous job that border patrol is doing. “[W]hen you look at these numbers of the effectiveness of our border security, and when you look at the job that we’re doing with our military …” he said.

In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Trump said building a wall would be cost-effective but only after heralding the “newly built Walls, makeshift Walls & Fences, or Border Patrol Officers & Military.”

Trump is asking for $5 billion to build more “wall.” Were he trying to build a real wall and not some reinforced playground fence, he'd be asking for closer to $30 billion.

“[I]f we got $5 billion, we could do a tremendous chunk of wall,” Trump said at the meeting Tuesday.

But what “wall” is he talking about? Does he know anymore?

I don’t.