To understand how politically potent immigration is as an issue in America, look at how CNN and MSNBC downplayed or flat-out ignored President Trump’s press event Thursday with border patrol officials.
After brief remarks on wanting to work with the new Democrat-controlled House, Trump introduced National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd, who said, “I can personally tell you, from the work that I have done on the southwest border, that physical barriers — that walls actually work.”
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Shortly thereafter, National Border Patrol Council Vice President Arturo Del Cueto was introduced to say, “It has nothing to do with political parties. You all got to ask yourself this question: 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?”
And then there was Hector Garza, another vice president and agent who works on the Texas border, who said, “We’re talking about murderers, rapists, people that commit very serious crimes in this country,” and “[I]f we had a physical barrier, if we had a wall, we would be able to stop that.”
If you were watching MSNBC live, you missed everything the officials said. Anchor Katy Tur interrupted the feed from the White House to say, “The president clearly wanting to take the day’s narrative back from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, back from the new Democratic Congress … and back to the border and his demand for a wall.” Even if true, that still doesn’t make what the agents had to say about about the chaos at the border any less important.
Judd said at the press event that he had worked on the border in Naco, Ariz., where there was no physical barrier, and as a consequence, “Illegal immigration and drug smuggling was absolutely out of control.” Instead of hearing that crucial information, Tur treated MSNBC viewers to ratings giant Bret Stephens to say that Trump should simply change his mind about the wall and instead insist on “security.”
Every Democrat and every Republican says they want “border security.” Trump said he wanted a “wall.” He won the 2016 election, and they didn’t.
Even when Trump came back to the lectern, MSNBC still refused to go back and cover the event.
CNN carried it, but rather than debate the merits on immigration, the network’s analysts immediately complained that the display was wrongly labeled by the White House as a “press briefing.” Anchor Brianna Keilar bemoaned that Trump “didn’t even take questions.” The next day on CNN, a screen graphic referred to the event as a “publicity stunt.”
Lest you were under the impression that the media don’t work in concert, Hunter Walker, White House correspondent for Yahoo News, also called it a “publicity stunt.” So did the liberal Talking Points Memo.
When the press can actually be brought to talk about the border wall proposal, they solely focus on embarrassing the president by pushing the myth that he ever insisted on a massive, 10-feet-thick continuous concrete wall. Friday on CNN, anchor Alisyn Camerota badgered former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., over the imaginary time that Trump demanded a full concrete wall.
“Let’s just be precise with language,” she said. “A fence is different than a wall. Steel slats are different than a wall. natural barriers are different than a wall.” She added later, “And do you think that there’s any problem with the fact that the president can’t say, okay, I don’t need an actual, physical 30-foot-high, cement wall? … He’s never said that.”
But as far back as February 2016, Trump was saying that the “wall” was a concept without clear definition, even though his supporters might say they assume he meant a substantial barrier of some kind that has not been built before. That month, well before he was the Republican nominee, he said on Fox News that the wall was “negotiable” and said, “we need 1,000 of the 2,000” border miles to be a physical barrier. That same month on MSNBC he said, “What we’re doing is we have 2,000 miles, right? … And of the 2,000, we don’t need 2,000, we need a thousand because we have natural barriers, et cetera, et cetera.”
At a campaign rally in August 2016, he said, “We will use the best technology including above and below ground sensors, that’s the tunnels. Remember that, above and below. Above and below ground sensors; towers; aerial surveillance and manpower to supplement the wall …”
That Trump is nebulous on what should be a cut and dried concept is a problem in itself. But the lie the media keep spreading that he always demanded something impossible is worse. It’s meant to confuse voters, put him in a position he didn’t take, and then label him a failure.
Trump said Monday in a tweet that “some areas will be all concrete,” but, again, it’s unclear what he meant. A USA Today report in 2017 looked at the various types of border barrier that currently exist and, yes, concrete is used in some places.
The report described “tall, vertical steel slats, often buried in the ground” in areas with some “on top of long rows of concrete in river basins.” It described fencing “typically anchored with a concrete foundation.” And in Penitas, Texas, “a segment of concrete and steel fencing …”
The government is in a partial shutdown because Trump is demanding $5 billion — pennies in federal government terms — for a border wall, and immigration as an issue is the only thing that’s going to get him out of political suicide. The media know it, and that’s why they misrepresent the debate if they bother to talk about it at all.
