Trump spices call to troops with politics
He discusses border, trade, says U.S. thriving under him
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump used a Thanksgiving Day call to troops deployed overseas to congratulate himself and air grievances about the courts, trade and migrants heading to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump’s call, made from his private Mar-a-Lago club, struck an unusually political tone as he spoke with members of all five branches of the military to wish them happy holidays.
“It’s a disgrace,” Trump said of judges who have blocked his attempts to overhaul U.S. immigration law, as he linked his efforts to secure the border with military missions overseas.
Trump later threatened to close the U.S. border with Mexico for an undisclosed period of time if his administration determines that Mexico has lost “control” on its side.
The call was a blend of boasting, peppered questions and observations as his comments veered from venting about slights to praising troops — “You really are our heroes,” he said — as club waiters worked to set Thanksgiving dinner tables on the outdoor terrace behind him.
And it was another show of how Trump has transformed the presidency, blurring the traditional divisions between domestic policy and military matters.
“You probably see over the news what’s happening on our southern border,” Trump told one Air Force brigadier general stationed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
“I don’t have to even ask you. I know what you want to do, you want to make sure that you know who we’re letting in,” he said.
Later, Trump asked a U.S. Coast Guard commander about trade, which he noted was “a very big subject” for him personally.
“We’ve been taken advantage of for many, many years by bad trade deals,” Trump told the commander, who sheepishly replied that, “We don’t see any issues in terms of trade right now.”
He complained about the military’s use of new electromagnetic catapult technology instead of steam in the new Navy aircraft carriers, telling a Navy officer that, “unfortunately, you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly.” The officer rebuffed him. “You sort of have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plants that we have here as well. But we’re doing that very well,” he said, advising
the president to “go electromagnetic.”
And throughout, Trump told the officers that the country is doing exceptionally well on his watch.
“I hope that you’ll take solace in knowing that all of the American families you hold so close to your heart are all doing well,” he said. “The nation’s doing well economically, better than anybody in the world.” He later told reporters “nobody’s done more for the military than me.”
Indeed, asked what he was thankful for this Thanksgiving, Trump cited his “great family,” as well as himself.
“I made a tremendous difference in this country,” he said. “This country is so much stronger now than it was when I took office and you wouldn’t believe it, and when you see it, we’ve gotten so much stronger people don’t even believe it.”
But Trump continued to warn about the situation on the southern border as he took questions from reporters, pointing to the caravans of Central American migrants that have been making their way toward the U.S. and warning that he may close the border.
“If we find that it’s uncontrollable, if we find that it gets to a level where we are going to lose control or people are going to start getting hurt, we will close entry into the country for a period of time until we can get it under control,” Trump said. “The whole border. I mean the whole border. And Mexico will not be able to sell their cars into the United States where they make so many cars at great benefit to them, not at great benefit to us.”
He said he has the authority to close the border by executive order and that he’d already used it earlier this week. “Two days ago, we closed the border. We actually just closed it, said nobody’s coming in because it was just out of control.”
The White House hasn’t released an order to that effect, and Trump wasn’t clear about his directive.
Officials did shut down one port of entry at San Ysidro, in California, for several hours early Monday to bolster security because of concerns about a potential influx of migrant caravan members. They closed northbound lanes into the U.S. and reopened most of them before the morning rush.
Trump also said Thursday that he has authorized troops to use lethal force against people who attempt to enter the U.S. illegally.
“If they have to,” Trump said, claiming without evidence that at least 500 criminals are among people trying to enter the U.S. “So I’m not going to let the military be taken advantage of. I have no choice. Do I want that to happen? Absolutely not. But you’re dealing with rough people.”
A small group of Central Americans marched peacefully to a border crossing in Tijuana on Thursday to demand better conditions and push to enter the U.S.
Mexican police watched closely as authorities from the National Human Rights Commission and the Grupo Beta migrant support agency told the migrants that their needs would be addressed.
They urged the migrants to apply for humanitarian visas in Mexico and seek work in Tijuana, where they said thousands of jobs are available.
But Oscar Rodriguez, 22, of Colon, Honduras, said he was still set on persuading “the United States to open its doors to us.”
Several thousand Central Americans arrived in Tijuana last week more than a month after leaving Honduras in a caravan.
The U.S. government processes only about 100 asylum applications per day at Tijuana’s main crossing to San Diego, and there were already several thousand people on a waiting list. Some outspoken Tijuana residents have given the migrants a cold reception leaving them stuck between the city, whose mayor said they aren’t wanted, and a U.S. president who is trying to keep them out.
“Thousands more people are going to continue coming because the United States is a government that sticks its hands into Central American governments,” Rodriguez said. He said Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was re-elected in a disputed result last year, is the United States-chosen president.
Among other subjects Trump touched on in his question-and-answer session with the reporters Thursday were that he would be interviewing candidates for potential openings in his administration, but he wouldn’t say for what positions.
“I’m very happy with my Cabinet and the people working for me and for us. … They’re absolute stars.” But, he said, “there’s always a lot of change. I’ll probably be changing a couple.”
Also Thursday, he would not discount the possibility of a partial government shutdown over lawmakers’ refusal to allocate billions of dollars for his promised border wall. “Could there be a shutdown? There certainly could, and it will be about border security, of which the wall is a part,” Trump said
Congress already approved full-year spending for most of the U.S. government, meaning that a shutdown would be limited.
In addition Thursday, Trump said he’d spoken with his daughter Ivanka after news broke that she’d sent hundreds of emails from a private address while serving as a senior White House adviser. Trump said she was “very innocent” and that situation was very different from the one he’s said his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton should be in jail for.
He also defended his acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, calling him “a highly respected person” whom the media has treated nastily.
Trump later traveled to a Coast Guard station, where he delivered a lunch of plastic-wrapped sandwiches, fruit and chips before spending some time at one of his golf courses.
He and his family capped the day with several hundred dues-paying members and their guests at a Thanksgiving feast in Mar-a-Lago’s opulent ballroom that included the usual fixings, along with chilled seafood, Chilean sea bass and braised short ribs.