Thursday on CNN’s “Situation Room,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) said President Donald Trump’s “great wall of hate” that had a $20 billion price tag “could be spent far better in creating educational opportunity. That he said included creating jobs and “a whole host of things that are important to our country.”

Menendez said, “When our products become more expensive if there is retaliatory tariff by Mexico, that’s going to affect jobs here in the United States. That’s not how you become the greatest job creator ever known to mankind. So, you know, our challenge is we need to work with Mexico and get our relationship to meet our mutual challenges, to create greater stability, greater economic growth, to control the traffic of people and at the same time protect ourselves against the scourge of gangs and drugs.”

“But you don’t do it by putting up a wall,” Menendez said. “Last time a wall was built was in Germany, and at the end of the day it ultimately came down. And, so, I don’t believe this is the way to go. And I don’t believe the taxpayers of the United States should spend nearly $20 billion dollars — billion dollars — on a wall, the great wall of hate, at the end of the day when that 20 billion could be spent far better in creating educational opportunity, in creating jobs, in a whole host of things that are important to our country.”

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