During the third week of the ongoing partial government shutdown, President Trump offered a stark message: Abducted women are being driven across the U.S.-Mexico border with tape on their mouths, and only a wall — a technology as age-tested as the wheel — would end it.

Trump hit the message repeatedly last week, invoking human and drug smuggling during his first prime-time Oval Office address on Tuesday before vividly describing bound women during roundtable events near the border in Texas and at the White House.