Trump builds hopes for wall, tears down California leaders

President inspects barrier prototypes, blasts state officials over immigrant policies

San Diego — President Donald Trump broke from his inspection of border wall prototypes near San Diego on Tuesday to castigate California’s Democratic state government, saying that Gov. Jerry Brown is “doing a terrible job running the state.”

Trump’s first visit to the nation’s most populous state is brief — just one day — but long on symbolism. He spent about an hour inspecting border wall prototypes built at his direction, spoke at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and will attend a fundraiser in near Beverly Hills Committee.

The attention Trump wanted to bring to his signature issue, the border wall and related immigration crackdowns, was overshadowed, as often happens by the president’s own distracting actions — in this case a new round of chaos within his leadership team after his abrupt firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Trump appeared to relish his visit to the border wall prototypes, which stood as the physical manifestation of his central campaign promise. He spoke with border agents about the superiority of “see-through” walls, talked about the ugly aesthetics of current barriers and insisted the new versions would block smugglers who have the skills of “professional mountain climbers.”

The president has yet to secure from Congress the $25 billion he seeks to build a wall and it’s not clear whether even that would be enough; one estimate put the cost as high as $100 billion.

On Tuesday, Trump introduced a new argument, asserting that “the wall will save hundreds of billions of dollars — many, many times what it will cost.” An administration official, who refused to be identified, said the savings — for which no substantiation was provided — would come from keeping out immigrants trying to enter illegally and in that way reduce costs for social services and law enforcement.

Trump also insisted that California political leaders actually want walls, despite what they say in opposition. “The state of California is begging us to build walls in certain areas, they don’t tell you that,” he said.

That was hardly the only shot he took at state leaders and their policies, especially the so-called sanctuary laws that are the subject of a new administration lawsuit.

He said the laws limiting local government cooperation with federal immigration enforcement officers are “the best friend of the criminal … the smugglers, the traffickers, the gang members. They’re all taking refuge.”