‘Plenty of time’ for wall
President patient now, but vows to build later
President Trump still is insisting the U.S. will build a wall across the southern border, even though he’s giving up the fight for short-term funding that would have risked shutting down the government to keep his controversial campaign promise.
“The wall is going to get built, folks, in case anybody has any question,” said Trump, who vowed the structure will be created by the end of his first term. “The wall’s going to get built and the wall is going to stop drugs and it’s going to stop a lot of people from coming in that shouldn’t be here. ... The wall gets built — 100 percent.”
Trump promised six times in 90 seconds that the wall will be constructed, during a brief availability with reporters at the White House yesterday. But he is apparently willing to delay parts of it. Trump is backing away from his insistence that $1 billion in funding be inserted into a spending bill that Congress must pass by the end of this week to keep the federal government running. Trump’s decision avoids a difficult political face-off with Congress that could have shut down the government over funding for the wall.
“We have plenty of time,” Trump told reporters about the wall. And he took his message beyond the press, to Twitter yesterday.
“Don’t let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL,” Trump tweeted. “It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc.”
Trump was dealt another blow to his 100-day agenda when a federal judge in San Francisco yesterday temporarily halted a White House order that would have blocked federal grants to socalled sanctuary cities. U.S. District Judge William Orrick, acting on suits brought by San Francisco and Santa Clara County, ruled that Trump can’t set new conditions for federal grants already set aside by Congress. Lawrence and Chelsea are also suing, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, representing both cities, said the ruling “prevents the federal government from bullying and sabotaging sanctuary communities.”
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said Boston “will not be intimidated by threats to federal funding because we have the Constitution on our side,” in a statement. Boston has not adopted sanctuary city status, but has enacted the Trust Act, barring police from detaining illegal immigrants for ICE who they would otherwise release.
Meanwhile, the White House will play host to an unusual briefing on North Korea for all 100 U.S. senators today, as tensions in the region continue to rise. Four Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, will speak at the meeting, which is being organized by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.