Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Sunday he doesn’t believe President Trump’s proposed southern border wall is inherently immoral, appearing to break with some of his high-profile Democratic colleagues.
“I personally don’t think that a border wall is, in and of itself, immoral,” Coons said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What I think the speaker may have been referring to is some of the immoral immigration policies of the Trump administration: forcibly separating children from parents at the border and detaining children in cage-like facilities. The humanitarian crisis I think may have been what she was referring to.”
Earlier this month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border “an immorality” and “not who we are as a nation.”
Disagreement in Congress over whether to fund physical barrier projects at the border — hundreds of miles of fencing across the U.S.-Mexico line already exist — triggered a partial government shutdown on Dec. 22. Trump has insisted on roughly $5.6 billion for a wall, a demand Democrats on Capitol Hill have refused to meet.
Coons on Sunday said he didn’t expect Trump to capitulate, but he did expect him to compromise. When pressed by host Chris Wallace on whether his Democratic colleagues should also be willing to cut a deal, Coons said he wasn’t prepared to negotiate on behalf of Pelosi on national TV.
“I think the president should test that by making it clear what concessions and what compromise he’s willing to put forward,” Coons told Wallace. “Reopen the government, stop harming our country and our economy, and let’s make our best efforts, because we all agree we need to invest more in border security.”
