The Saw

Yesterday, Donald Trump repeatedly said that he never claimed Mexico would directly pay for his proposed wall. Within a few hours, various media outlets began playing clips from his campaign when he said explicitly that Mexico would pay directly for any wall.

In fact, his own campaign released a memo in 2016 detailing how he would force Mexico to pay directly for the wall (details here) Similarly, his 2016 campaign website still has similar text about how he would force Mexico to pay directly for the wall.

So, once again Trump lied.

In related developments, a report from Trump's own Homeland Security staff showed that all eight prototypes for the President's proposed wall could be breached with common tools. The design that Trump selected could be cut through with a commonly-available power saw, as a photograph demonstrates (details here).

And when Trump visited the border area yesterday, Homeland Security staff showed him how tunnels are being dug under the existing walls already there (details here), thus demonstrating how his proposal is completely worthless. Trump tried for some political theater at the event, posing with mounds of seized drugs, cash, and weapons that he claimed his proposed wall would stop. Trouble is, the props he was using were actually seized at legal border crossing points.

So, once again, Trump lied.

All of the above notwithstanding, Trump is making more and more noises about declaring a state of emergency so that he can circumvent Congress and divert funds earmarked for things like disaster relief into building part of his proposed wall. Hopefully, that attempt will be quickly stopped in a federal court.