”In Texas, wall deal looks like a tall tale: White House still struggles to explain Trump’s 115-mile brag”. That is the title of the story by the Houston Chronicle’s Washington journalist Kevin Diaz on today’s front page of the Houston Chronicle. Now we in Texas do appreciate our Texas tall tales and boasts, but this one is a whopper (but probably not too surprising given that it’s Trump). The story is behind the Chron’s paywall (sorry), so let me summarize starting with the first two paragraphs of the article:
WASHINGTON - On Christmas Eve, the third day of the ongoing government shutdown, President Donald Trump launched a flurry of tweets, one of them announcing that he was in the Oval Office “and just gave out a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas.”
On Thursday, Day 13 of the wall showdown, administration officials and allies still were struggling to explain any new border wall construction that Trump said he contracted amid his standoff with Democratic leaders in Congress.
Now it turns out that there are only 4 independently verified CBP wall project contracts for 18 miles of “wall” in Texas. That includes 4 miles of steel fencing to replace chain link fencing in El Paso, and 14 miles of new levee wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley near McAllen, Texas. Where the other 97 miles of Trump’s “wall” came from out of thin air no one can explain except that Trump was claiming that “Yesterday [Christmas Eve] I gave out 115 miles’ worth of wall, 115 miles in Texas. It’s going to be built, hopefully rapidly. I’m going there at the end of January for the start of construction.”
More from Diaz’s article:
While some supporters have suggested that his tweet could have anticipated Texas border wall projects funded from his pending $5 billion request to Congress, Trump has doubled down on his contract claim and vowed to follow up with a trip to Texas later this month.
…
The confusion about his claim, along with changing accounts of what materials would constitute a “wall,” have clouded the ongoing debate about border security at a time when Trump has been under increasing pressure from his conservative base to make good on his biggest campaign promise.
Lordy, help us all—Trump is going to visit the Rio Grande...finally! Anyone who has visited West Texas or the Valley or anywhere along the Rio Grande Texas-Mexico border knows that among Texans who live, ranch, or farm along the Rio Grande there is little to no support for a wall along the length of the Rio Grande. Even Texas conservative politicos know these feelings of those who live and work along the border and that there is only perfunctory support even among these politicos for a wall along the entire length of the Rio Grande. If even that because Republican Representative Will Hurd whose congressional district borders the Rio Grande has come out against the wall. But remember Hurd only won his election by 926 votes over Democrat and Air Force veteran Gina Ortiz Jones, and San Antonio resident and former journalist Liz Wahl has already filed as the first Democrat (among others I am sure) to run against Hurd in 2020.
I know that this is not that “big” a lie from Trump, given how he lies constantly. But thought it would be useful to get this out there and to add this to the near black-hole-size pile of Trump lies.
Also as an aside, the normally lean-conservative Houston Chronicle also today had on its editorial page its main editorial written by the Chron’s main editorial board entitled “Forget the wall: The president’s [sic, no capital] focus should be on replacing America’s crumbling bridges and roads.” The cracks in Trump’s non-existent wall are already growing fast. And the Chron’s editorial board is right—there are lots of much better projects that the “wall” money could be usefully spent on.