A Message From the Liar In Chief

So Tuesday night, Li’l Donnie Trump put on his big boy pants, sat at his desk in the Oval Office and delivered an address to the United States.

 

Hold on. Let me fix that sentence.

 

So Tuesday night, Li’l Donnie Trump put on his big boy pants, sat at his desk in the Oval Office and lied his moronic ass off to the United States.

 

"I am speaking to you because there is a growing and humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border. Every day Customs and Border Patrol agents encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country. We are out of space to hold them and we have no way to promptly return them back home to their country."

 

Border Patrol arrested 396,579 people at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2018.

The agency arrested an average of 400,751 people per year over the previous decade.

 

In other words, arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border are pretty much business as usual with a slight decline in 2018 over the annual average. Hardly a crisis. 

 

It’s also worth mentioning that a lot of those arrested are immigrants crossing outside of legal ports of entry who then present themselves to be arrested. Most of these are immigrants seeking asylum and the asylum process is so messed up right now with lack of staffing, the wait time for asylum requests through legal ports of entry can take months or years.


Getting arrested is perceived as the better option than going through a legal port of entry. 

 

"Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl.”

 

Most fentanyl comes from China.

 

Most heroin enters the U.S. through the border with Mexico through legal ports of entry, according to a 2018 report by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Per the DEA, Mexican cartels move “the bulk of their drugs” over the border using passenger vehicles or tractor trailers. “The drugs are typically secreted in hidden compartments when transported in passenger vehicles or comingled with legitimate goods when transported in tractor trailers.” 

 

Also per the DEA, only a small portion of heroin is transported in between legal port of entry. The drug cartels can’t move a lot of product that way and people trying to carry drugs across that way are more likely to get busted. 

 

The Mexican drug cartels have more respect for our existing border security than Trump does.

 

Yes, we have a problem with drugs coming into the United States. But most of it is not attributable to illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.  

 

"Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country."

 

Several studies show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.  

 

Do undocumented immigrants commit crimes? Of course — but at lower rates than their native-born counterparts.

 

"As part of an overall approach to border security, law enforcement professionals have requested $5.7 billion for a physical barrier. At the request of Democrats, it will be a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall."

 

Well, that is a damn lie! Never once has anyone objecting to Trump’s border wall made that objection based on the building materials used. Someone might have said something like, “We’re not going to fork out over $5 billion for some damn concrete wall!”  So some smart ass (I’m thinking Stephen Miller) says to Trump, “Let’s make it a steel wall.” Or it’s so stupid, it’s possible Trump came up with that one himself. 

 

"The wall would also be paid for indirectly by the great new trade deal we made with Mexico."

 

Trump vowed during his presidential campaign that Mexico would pay for the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, but Mexico has refused to pay.

 

I believe the exact wording on Mexico’s response to that was “Hell no!”.

 

The president now insists that Mexico will pay for the project through the renegotiated NAFTA agreement.

 

Except…

 

The deal still needs congressional approval and isn’t yet in effect.

 

AND even if it were in effect, any economic gains from the deal would go to private individuals and companies, not the U.S. Treasury.

 

"Sen. Chuck Schumer, who you will be hearing from later tonight, has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past, along with many other Democrats. They changed their mind only after I was elected president."

 

Let’s see what there is to unpack here.

 

Schumer and nearly two dozen other Democrats voted for the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which authorized the construction of roughly 700 miles of fence along the southwest border.

 

But Schumer never voted for anything close to the scale of Trump's $5.7 billion wall.  

 

Common sense suggests that physical barriers at key points along the border would be helpful. A wall along the entire board of the size and scope of Trump’s petulant demands would egregiously expensive and the costs would exceed any benefits from such a wall. And $5.7 billion is a lot of tax payer money to spend on a solution that doesn’t fit the real immigration issues confronting this country. 

 

"The federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only: because Democrats will not fund border security."

 

Democrats have backed bills to reopen the government and proposed more than $1 billion for border security. They’re just not ponying up the $5.7 billion Li’l Donnie is asking for the build his damn wall.

So Trump's big address to the nation just served up the usual lies he spouts off about on Twitter.

I'm not sure which offends me more: that Trump sat behind the Oval Office desk and lied to the nation or that Trump couldn't be bothered to come up with new material.