Day 1,454: Trump takes likely final trip in office to see expensive, failed, partially-built, taxpayer-funded, vanity project of a wall
Of the few promises that Donald Trump made while campaigning in 2015 and 2016, the most prominent one was that he’d build a “big, beautiful wall” at the southern border. So it only makes sense he’d wrap up his time in office standing in the shadow of his failed vanity project.
Trump traveled to Alamo, Texas on Tuesday, likely in his final trip in office, to take one last gander at the wall and deliver a speech to a few dozen border patrol agents.
The wall, Trump swore, would span from coast-to-coast. About 15 miles of new barrier actually got erected.
The wall, Trump swore, would be impenetrable and infallible. It was easily defeated by ladders and cheap saws.
The wall, Trump swore, would be paid for by Mexico. It was paid for by U.S. taxpayers and stolen from military projects.
The wall, Trump swore, would see construction run timely and be cost-efficient. It was wracked with delays and went billions of dollars over budget.
The wall hasn’t deterred undocumented migrants from crossing the border, despite Trump’s Tuesday bluster.
Tuesday afternoon, Trump used his speech largely as a victory lap for his administration’s immigration policies, claiming he “ended the immigration chaos and reestablished American sovereignty.” He said the partially-built wall is “one of the largest infrastructure projects in the history of our country.”
“We reformed our immigration system and achieved the most secure southern border in U.S. history,” Trump said in a 22-minute speech with the border wall as a backdrop.
Migration experts dispute the success of Trump’s wall and policies given that there have been repeated surges in illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border during his presidency.
With his days in office coming to a close no later than next Wednesday, Trump wanted to visit the wall. His wall. In many ways, the project is the perfect metaphor for just how short Trump came up on all of his grandiose promises. It is a heaping, physical testament to Trump’s failure to achieve objectives as promised, while focusing entirely on the glitz.
1,454 days in, 8 to go
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