President Donald Trump slammed the New York Times‘ suggestion that he wants an alligator-filled moat at the U.S. border.

Now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moat stuffed with alligators and snakes, with an electrified fence and sharp spikes on top, at our Southern Border. I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough. The press has gone Crazy. Fake News! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2019

Trump’s statement came in response to a firestorm of Democrat jeering and complaints about his reported demand for the alligator moat.

The report was published by the New York Times, which offered unattributed tales of Oval Office arguments about border policy — while hiding Trump’s successful pressure on Mexico.

In March 2019, “the president’s zeal to stop immigration had sent him lurching for solutions, one more extreme than the next,” the New York Times reported October 1, and continued:

Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.

But the newspaper actually shows how Trump repeatedly and relentlessly fought his own cautious or oppositional appointees to deliver on his promise to block illegal immigration:

In the Oval Office that March [2019] afternoon, a 30-minute meeting extended to more than two hours as Mr. Trump’s team tried desperately to placate him. “You are making me look like an idiot!” Mr. Trump shouted, adding in a profanity, as multiple officials in the room described it. “I ran on this. It’s my issue.” … The president’s advisers left the meeting in a near panic.

In the following months, Trump revamped his staff, fired top aides, fended off appeals from business lobbies, and then achieved his strategic success by threatening to impose tariffs on Mexico.

Since then, the cross-border flow from Mexico has crashed from 133,000 in May down to 51,000 in September, according to federal data. Other actions — although fought by California judges — are expected to reduce the cross-border flow further.