MSNBC’s Tamron Hall drew cheers and jeers Tuesday afternoon after she pressed billionaire businessman Donald Trump to explain how he plans to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it.
“Earlier in the year … you released your immigration plan. A five-point plan. We have not heard much more since then. So let’s go by the numbers. We talked a lot about building the wall, the very big wall. How much will the wall cost?” she asked.
“The wall is probably $8 billion, which is a tiny fraction of the money that we lose with Mexico,” Trump told Hall. “We lose a tremendous amount of trade deficits. We have a trade deficit with Mexico that is astronomical, much bigger than that. We will get, and I say it also it’s also as part of my plan, Mexico is going to pay for the wall,” Trump responded.
She persisted, “How did you come up with the dollar figure and who pays for that?”
“All I’m doing is I’m multiplying the number of miles by a certain number — it’s a very simple number,” he said.
“So you’re doing construction numbers here?” Hall asked.
“I’m very good at that,” Trump said, “No, no. I’m very good at that.”
Hall continued, pressing Trump for specifics on his plan.
“You bring up for example the Great Wall of China that was built with slave labor,” she said. You don’t have that in the United States.”
“The great wall of China is 13,000 miles long,” Trump said.
“But that’s the example that you point that there’s proof you can build a great wall,” she said.
“You can build a great wall,” Trump reiterated.
Hall asked again how trump came to his $8 billion figure.
“So it’s $8 billion, and what we’re doing is we have 2,000 miles, right? Two thousand miles. It’s long, but it’s not 13,000 miles like they have in China. And of the 2,000, we don’t need 2,000. We need 1,000 because we have natural barriers, et cetera, et cetera, and I’m taking it price per square foot and a price per mile, and it’s a very simple calculation,” the casino tycoon answered. “I’m talking about precasts going up probably 35 to 40 feet in the air, that’s high, that’s a real wall. It will actually look good. … and it’s going to do the trick.”
The online response to Hall’s questioning was mixed, as the anchor’s interview drew both praise and criticism.
“Listening to [Tamron Hall] interview Trump, taking very little s–t,” GQ Washington correspondent Anna Marie Cox said in a tweet. “Occurs to me that women tend to do a better/tougher job talking to Trump — very little deference, more dubiousness.”
WESH’s Stewart Moore added jokingly in a note predicting that the GOP front-runner would react poorly to the interview, “Looking forward to [Donald Trump’s] tweets post that interview with [Tamron Hall].”
“Thank [you for] asking Donald Trump the tough questions and not backing down! I’ve seen him intimidate journalist, but not you!!” said singer-songwriter Vivian Green.
Author and Trump booster Ann Coulter, however, was not impressed with the MSNBC anchor’s performance.
“Tamron Hall questions whether it’s possible to build a wall, telling Trump China’s Great Wall was built with slave labor,” she said on Twitter. “After point about slave labor, Tamron Hall bleats @ U.S. businesses that rely on cheap illegal alien labor. #TooDumb4Irony.”
