US-Mexico border wall: Trump set to pitch his case as a ‘security crisis’
WASHINGTON: With talks going nowhere over the government shutdown, US President Donald Trump is scheduled to pitch his case to the nation in a prime-time Oval Office address on Tuesday. He is expected to make the case for a barrier along the US-Mexico border, arguing there’s a “humanitarian and national security crisis on our southern border”.
Trump’s characterisation of the situation as a “crisis” has already been criticised as being an exaggeration - such as his claims of an influx of terrorists through the “southern border”, when, in fact, most suspects were held at airports or were entering the US from Canada.
“I am pleased to inform you that I will address the nation on the humanitarian and national security crisis on our southern border,” Trump wrote on Twitter Monday, about his move to take his case to the people.
Press secretary Sarah Sander announced he will be travelling to the southern border on Thursday to meet those on the “frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis”.
Wary of possibly being used to further those falsehoods, TV networks and cable news channels took their time before eventually agreeing to air Trump’s proposed address.
Some of them - CNN, CBS and NBC - plan to allow Democrats equal airtime to rebut the US president’s stance.
It is not without precedence. Republicans were given rebuttal slots in 2011 to respond to a speech by then president Barack Obama on national debt.
In Trump’s case, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are expected to jointly deliver the rebuttal.
There has been no headway in negotiations to break the US-Mexico border wall funding deadlock that has shut down a fourth of the US government for 18 days now.
Trump is standing his ground on the funding he wants - $5 billion - but has dropped plans for building a concrete wall for a “steel barrier”.