Donald Trump is still a political newcomer, but he’s making experienced D.C. insiders like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi look like amateurs.
At a press briefing Thursday afternoon, President Trump deftly challenged Democrats to back up their repeated claims that they support border security by having some of the people responsible for protecting our country’s borders explain just what they need from Congress.
Democrats have steadfastly refused to compromise with the President over his demand for $5 billion to fund construction of a wall along our southern border, insisting all the while that their intransigence is not because they secretly support illegal immigration, but merely because they believe a border wall would be “ineffective.”
That was always a rather dubious explanation — Democrats, after all, aren’t exactly known for their frugality.
One thing that the Border Patrol agents at President Trump’s press briefing made perfectly clear was that it is impossible to achieve true border security without a wall. They weren’t just offering assurances that a wall would be effective; they were saying that a wall is vital.
It wasn’t just empty rhetoric, either. The men and women who protect America’s borders are among those affected by the partial government shutdown, meaning they are currently working without pay, yet the agents were adamant that they’re standing behind the President because they believe so strongly in the need for tougher border security, including a wall.
As one Border Patrol agent memorably put it, “If I come to your home, do you want me to knock on the front door, or do you want me to climb through that window?”
America’s border is pretty much all windows right now, making a mockery of the occasional doors that we put up every few dozen miles, as the agents well know.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer believes that Democrats are winning the shutdown battle, but he would be wise to think long and hard about what those immigration enforcement officers had to say.
Most ordinary people wouldn’t even have noticed this partial shutdown absent the media hysteria surrounding it, and to this point, some may have been inclined to support a quick resolution solely out of sympathy for furloughed federal workers. Now that the very federal workers most adversely affected by the shutdown have given it their unequivocal support, there’s precious little reason for other Americans to care how long it lasts.
In fact, while President Trump has enjoyed great popular support for his position and has diligently solicited input from border security experts, Schumer and the Democrats have done nothing but play politics with our national security. They’ve incessentantly chanted the mantra that this is the “Trump shutdown,” banking on their outdated assumption that political pressure will always force Republicans to cave in when it comes to a government shutdown, but they’ve offered absolutely no constructive proposals for achieving the border security they profess to desire.
In a press briefing lasting less than 10 minutes, Donald Trump shattered long-held misconceptions about the political calculus of government shutdowns while exposing the Democrats’ utter refusal to take the necessary steps to secure our borders.
Not bad for a guy who only entered the political arena three years ago.
Mark Serrano is the president of ProActive Communications and a senior adviser to Donald J. Trump for President Inc.
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