Living off the wall

President Trump again this week proclaimed that “one way or the other,” Mexico will be footing the $20 billion to $70 billion bill for his misbegotten wall on the Southern border. Bull. Meantime, the border barrier’s true costs pile up, borne in human pain as much as dollars.

Trump’s executive order, issued Friday, denying admittance to the military to transgender individuals came a month after an impetuous tweetstorm short circuited an in-progress Pentagon review, calling instead for a total ban of transgender personnel in the armed services.

What did that have to do with the wall? Nothing — except that the tweets that prompted the policy were triggered by a meeting that filled Trump with a sudden fear that Congress, uncomfortable with public money going toward transgender surgery, might pull the plug on wall funding.

Meanwhile, the administration confirmed that Trump, again blinded by his obsession with the wall, has seemingly flipped on his earlier promise to do right by Dreamers, the undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — who had been protected by an Obama executive order.

These young men and women represent the very best of America. After the election, Trump told these Dreamers they could rely on his “big heart” and “rest easy,” because he wasn’t “after them.”

Instead, the White House now toys with their futures, cruelly dangling the notion that the executive order, known as DACA, will be scrapped lest Democrats agree to pay up.

So two groups of people who contribute great things to their country are being made to twist in the wind so that Trump can try to pry out of taxpayers billions of dollars to pick up a tab he continues to dishonestly promise Mexico will pay for.

If this is the art of the deal, it’s as ugly as it gets.