President Donald Trump expressed optimism Friday that his border wall is going forward and will be built despite Congress not providing funds.
After calling border wall negotiations with Democrats a "waste of time," the president went on to say he’s figuring out how to build border barriers without Congress’s cooperation.
He claimed to have money "on hand" to work on barriers, but recently he has still been fighting with Democrats on getting the wall funded. He said he’s looking at declaring a national emergency because he doesn’t think "anything is going to happen" with funding it.
"We’re building a lot of wall right now as we speak, and we’re renovating a lot of wall, and we’re getting ready to give out some very big contracts with money that we have on hand and money that comes in. But we will be looking at a national emergency, because I don’t think anything is going to happen," Trump said.
With only some barriers being rebuilt or repaired, Trump’s comments fly in the face of critics’ claims that he’s failed to deliver on his promised wall. However, he came back to the argument that his administration was doing some work to build the wall now, pointing to the maintenance the administration has done on barriers while seeming to take credit for completing them.
"I would say we will have 115 miles of wall, maybe a little more than that, very shortly. It’s being built, some of it’s already been completed, in San Diego, if you look, it’s been completed," Trump said. "It’s getting built one way or another."
Trump also argued one of the strengths of his new wall is how physically attractive it is.
"We’re building it with funds that are on hand. We’re negotiating very tough prices. We’ve designed a much better-looking wall that is also actually a better wall, which is an interesting combination," he said. "It’s far more beautiful, and it’s better. It’s much more protective, but it looks better because the walls they used to build were not very attractive."
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