Trump Infomercial Avoids the Elephant in the Room
Give this to the so-called President: he is one heck of a con man. That much is apparent after his Tuesday-night prime-time infomercial and the Democrats’ televised rebuttal. And, yes, it was an infomercial; it was a televised talking head telling you of the great bargain that you can have, if you act now — as he said:
“The border wall would very quickly pay for itself. The cost of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion a year — vastly more than the $5.7 billion we have requested from Congress. The wall will also be paid for, indirectly, by the great new trade deal we have made with Mexico.”
Fact check — as NBC News pointed out:
“It’s unlikely that a wall would stop illegal drugs from coming into the U.S., since the bulk of drugs coming across the southwest border do so through legal ports of entry, hidden in cars or tractor-trailers, according to a 2015 report by the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
Also, as the New York Times observed: “it is not clear how reducing the cost of drug addiction would finance the wall.”
And, as a matter of economics, the trade deal is not paying for the wall…. (If it were, then this infomercial — asking for taxpayer funding for the wall — wouldn’t be necessary now, would it?)
But the informercial’s absurdity only underscores the so-called President’s skill as a con man.
Here are the simple facts:
• He had a Republican majority in both houses of Congress for the last two years.
• During those two years, the Republican Congress did not fund his wall.
• Now that Democrats have taken over the majority in the House of Representatives, the so-called President has framed the wall funding issue as one where Democrats are at fault — including tweet after tweet after tweet.
• Those same Democrats, in their rebuttal speech (on Tuesday night), failed to mention the matter of the Republican Congress’ declining to fund the wall for two years.
That’s right: the Democrats allowed the so-called President to build his divisive narrative that this is a rift along party lines (Democrats vs. Republicans), when that is far from the truth.
Granted, the Dems made many other good points (e.g., the so-called President’s false promise that the wall would be funded by Mexico, the futility of the wall, the impropriety of the government shutdown)…but how did they fail to mention the matter of the last TWO YEARS in which the so-called President had the chance to get the wall funded by Republicans, yet was unable to do so? How did they let him get away with framing this as a party-lines rift, when in reality his own party has not supported his position?
Pathetic as a President, but you can see how he succeeds as a con man….
UPDATE: despite not making the point in the televised rebuttal, Pelosi eventually tweeted it:
They had complete control of the White House, the House and the Senate for two years. A border wall *was not* a priority. Republicans instead focused on giving wealthy people and big corporations nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts.
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) January 9, 2019