And oh yes, Mexico will pay.

Trump to ABC: Construction on the wall will begin within months

You’ve already heard, I’m sure, that President Trump issued the executive order that sets the stage for the Mexico border wall to be built. Of course, presidents can issue “orders” for lots of things. Trump’s predecessor issued an executive order to close Gitmo on his first day in office. That, as you know, was more than eight years ago and Gitmo outlasted the president in question. Will Trump actually be able to follow through on his order and build the wall? According to what he told ABC’s David Muir today, he will not only do so but do so quickly:

Now to be sure, Trump has some leeway in deciding how to use funds already allocated for border security. And while Muir is trying to pin Trump down on the question of taxpayer funds being used - hoping to portray it as the breaking of a promise - but Trump has been consistent for months now in saying he would go ahead and spend cash on hand and then get reimbursement through a deal yet to be negotiated with Mexico. If Trump fails to get the funds through that negotiation, then fine, he broke the promise. But getting the project rolling now with cash allocated by Congress is not only consistent with what he’s said, it’s also the only way to do it. You can’t send government employees to go do a job and tell them they’ll get their paycheck from the Mexican government. From an accounting standpoint, you have to use U.S. funds. I think Muir probably knows that too. He’s just trying to create controversy. As such, the media are now trying to change the story from “Trump will never get the wall built” to “the wall won’t work.” Check this fake news from the New York Times that protests a wall alone won’t work (as if Trump was proposing a wall alone as U.S. border security strategy): President Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, John F. Kelly, has been clear about his views on a border wall with Mexico: It won’t work. When asked by senators about his views on a border wall during his confirmation hearing this month, Mr. Kelly, a retired general, said a “physical barrier will not do the job.”

Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that he would order the construction of a wall along the United States-Mexico border, fulfilling his campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration and stop the flow of drugs coming into the United States. Mr. Kelly said that a wall would be effective only to the extent that it was backed up by far more sweeping measures. “It has to be a layered defense,” Mr. Kelly said during an exchange with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “If you build a wall, you would still have to back that wall up with patrolling by human beings, by sensors, by observation devices.” Well, duh, New York Times. Whoever said border security should consist of a wall alone? Trump certainly never said that, and there is nothing in Kelly’s testimony that indicates he thinks a wall would be a negative. He simply believes you can’t rely on it solely, which is about as obvious as saying your shoes are for your feet. What no one can seriously deny is that, taken together with other necessary measures, a physical barrier makes it harder to sneak across the border. Impossible? Maybe not. But if it’s hard to do it with border patrol guards, infrared technology, drone patrols and the like, then why wouldn’t be even harder if you do all those things and also put up a wall? What Trump has said all along is that relying solely on what we’re doing now isn’t working, and how can anyone seriously disagree with that? Then again, it’s been obvious all along that the anti-wall arguments of the political class aren’t serious. They’re offered because the political class doesn’t really want a secure border. They want a way for people to stream into the country, become recipients of public assistance programs and ultimately become registered voters. In their fondest dreams, this would turn Texas blue and deny those 34 electoral votes to future Republican nominees for president. Too bad these same people might take 55 reliably blue electoral votes and transplant them in the Republic of Moonbeam. Then we’ll need a wall outside of Barstow too.

Dan's new novel, BACKSTOP, is a story of spiritual warfare and baseball. Download it from Amazon here



Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

{/exp:ce_cache:it}