Remarks by President Trump in Meeting on Human Trafficking on the Southern Border | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Now, in all fairness to the Democrats, many of them want the wall. And I see it. They're just dying to say what they want to say, but they can't say it as well as they would be able to if they were allowed to do it.

    Yes.

    Q Mr. President, sir, are you saying now you believe that, on February the 15th, the only option you will have left is either close down the government or declare an emergency because you don't have any faith that this committee will come up with an answer?

    And if you do declare an emergency, are you concerned that you will almost be immediately be enjoined by some court - in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals district?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have very, very strong legal standing. It would be very hard to do that. But they tend to go to the Ninth Circuit. And when they go to the Ninth Circuit, things happen. For instance, the ban: It missed, and then missed, and then was approved in the United States Supreme Court where we have had a very good record.

    They go to the Ninth Circuit. In many cases - and in fact, in most cases, it has nothing to do with the Ninth Circuit. It's a shame what they do.

    So, let's see what happens. I can only tell you this, John: We have very, very strong legal standing to win. We are doing it regardless. I mean, we don't have - we haven't declared the national emergency yet, and yet we're building a lot of wall. We're continuing to build a lot of wall with, as we would say in business, "cash on hand." And we're negotiating tough prices. We have a great system. A great wall system. It's very uniform. They used to have all these different systems; nobody knew what was going on. We have a very good, solid system that looks good and is very powerful, as a wall.

    Q But are you saying now that you expect to declare a national emergency?

HbAD0

    THE PRESIDENT: I don't want to say. But you'll hear the State of the Union and then you'll see what happens right after the State of the Union. Okay?

    Q But are you going to wait until February 15th to do that?

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, we're building now. I mean, the one thing that I'm trying to stress to people and I wasn't before, because before it meant less. But when I see the obstruction, when I see the tremendous obstruction by Democrats, knowing that the only - the only saving of our southern border is the wall.

    I mean, you look at these towns - before the wall, they were crime-ridden. And now, the wall gets built - we put up a wall in a certain area, and all of sudden, it went from being a horrible hellhole into something that's really safe. They can't even believe it. The mayors can't even believe it.

    If you ever took some of the walls down in California - for instance, one story: In San Diego, they were begging us to build a wall. I mean, they were putting pressure on us - that area of San Diego - where people were rampant going through. And you'd have a lot of security, but the security can only do so much.

    When - as an example, when you have these caravans that are going to be hitting, we were - we've done a great job with the caravans. An incredible job. And most of them have gone back or they're staying on the other side of the wall. They haven't been coming in, for the most part. But we've done a great job. We don't have the ammunition because we don't have the barrier. But it's been really amazing to see the difference when you have it and when you don't. It's incredible to see the difference of an area on the other side of a barrier.

    So, you know the old expression, "walls work," whether you like it or not. In Israel, they have a wall, and it was 99 - it is 99.9 percent successful. And ours are too, when we have it. We're going to be starting in a certain - we have a few of them - a few areas that we're starting, where they catch up. Once you have the holes in the middle, they just - it's sort of like water; they just spread in. But you have to have it.

    So when you talk about the committee, I can tell you the Republicans want to have a wall, but the Democrats are told that you can't do that. They are doing a tremendous disservice. The Democrats are doing a tremendous disservice to our country.

    You heard today about human trafficking. Human trafficking can go down by a tremendous percentage if we had a wall on our southern border. Tremendous. Because it's very hard to do human trafficking through ports of entry because you have people standing there, looking. And they say, "Hey, what's going on in the backseat? What's going on in the trunk?" They check these things.

    So they come in through areas where you don't have the barriers. And we're not going to let that happen. So we're building a lot of it. We'll be up to about 115 miles of wall - some renovated, some new. And we're going to make a big step in the next week or so, prior to my doing anything. But actually having a national emergency does help the process. It would certainly help the process.

    What would help a lot would be if the Democrats could actually be honest and approve. They're not being honest. Everybody knows they're not being honest. They know they're not being honest. I'd like to hear what they talk about in their rooms when they go back.

    And I tell you what: A lot of pressure is being put on by Democrats - being put on their leadership. Tremendous pressure is being put on because they cannot justify not having a barrier between our country and Mexico. Mexico - it just came out yesterday, numbers were just released: Thirty-eight thousand people were murdered in Mexico - up, like, an incredible amount, 30 percent or something, from the year before. Thirty-eight thousand people were murdered in Mexico. It's one of the most, unfortunately, unsafe countries in the world. We need a protective barrier for our country.

    And that doesn't include Honduras, who we are not happy with, and we're looking very seriously at taking away all funding. And same thing for Guatemala, and the same thing for El Salvador. It's a disgrace what's going on in those countries. For years and years, the United States has paid them hundreds of millions of dollars, and they do nothing for us.

    When a caravan starts in the middle of Honduras, obviously they're allowing it to start. And they want it to start because they want to not have certain people in their country. So what do they do? They put them in the caravan. And we've had tremendous numbers of criminals that we've caught in the caravans before they get here.

    So the committee is - I know the Republicans want to do something. And I'm not saying it because I'm a Republican. I'm saying the Democrats are instructed: "Don't do a wall." And they're only doing that - you hear about human trafficking, drugs, gangs, crime - they're only doing it for one very simple reason. It's one simple reason - couldn't be simpler: because they think it's good politics for 2020. Because they say, "Maybe we can beat Trump because this is a big issue."

    Now, I've done a lot of other issues. I've done military, where we've - our military is in great shape now. It's strong and ready. It was totally depleted when I got here. Regulation cuts, tax cuts. I mean, we've done more than any other President has ever done in the first two years of his presidency.

    But the wall is a big factor, and they want to use the wall for politics. So it's not going to work because we're building the wall, and it's under construction.

HbAD1

    Yes.

    Q Mr. President, have you privately decided whether or not you will declare a national emergency? And just to clarify -

    THE PRESIDENT: Have I privately? You know, what's in my mind?

    Q What's in your mind.

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, certainly thinking about it.

    Q You're thinking (inaudible)?

    THE PRESIDENT: I think there's a good chance that we'll have to do that. But we will, at the same time, be building - regardless, we're building wall and we're building a lot of wall. But I can do it a lot faster the other way.

    Q Are you saying that you will - that we should be prepared for you to announce at the State of the Union what you are going to do?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm saying listen closely to the State of the Union. I think you'll find it very exciting.

    Q Can we get a Venezuela question real quick?

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

    Q Are you willing to commit the U.S. military, if necessary, to force (inaudible) Maduro -

    THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't want to say that. But it's always an option. Everything is an option. I take no options off the table. Okay? Thank you.

    Q Mr. President, are you thinking of adding on a meeting with Xi Jinping on the back end or the front end of the meeting with Kim?

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I'm thinking about it.

    Q How close are you -

    THE PRESIDENT: I mean, some of you were there yesterday. We had an incredible meeting yesterday with the Vice Premier of China - a very powerful man, highly respected. Very strong. Very respected, also, by the President - President Xi. And we had an amazing meeting on trade - mostly on trade. Actually, also on fentanyl. China has agreed to criminalize fentanyl. That's going to have a huge impact on fentanyl coming into the country.

    There is a possibility we'll meet somewhere, whether it's there - I'm over in a certain location. I'll be over in a certain location there, as you know.

    Q So you might do -

    THE PRESIDENT: That'll be announced officially probably next week.

    Q So you might do two -

    THE PRESIDENT: It could happen. It could happen.

    Q It sounded like Da Nang for that summit, sir. Is that a good guess?

    THE PRESIDENT: Gee, Da Nang. Who does Da Nang remind me of, huh? (Laughter.) A certain senator. It's a certain senator that said he was a war hero when he wasn't. He never saw Da Nang.

    Q And just to follow up - have you found the money to pay - to build a wall in case you do have to (inaudible)?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have a lot of money, and that's why we're building. I mean, we have a lot of money. Don't forget, we had a billion-six approved. Then we had another billion-six approved. Now, in theory, we have a billion-three approved.

HbAD2

    But we're renovating a lot of walls that were basically dilapidated. In some cases, it's called a "renovation," but it's really much more. It's wall that is in such bad shape that we take it down and we build new wall in certain very important areas.

    But we're doing a combination of renovation and new wall. But we're doing a lot of it.

    Q Mr. President, do you need an appropriation from Congress or a national emergency to build all the wall you think is necessary?

    THE PRESIDENT: We're already appropriated. We have a lot of appropriation. It's already been done. And certain other things we'll be doing that we haven't done yet. And one of the things we're considering, obviously, is a national emergency.

    And it is - it's an invasion of our country, of not only people, not only gangs and criminals and human traffickers; it's an invasion of drugs into our country. It's an invasion like you've never seen before. You talk about heroin - 90 percent of the heroin coming into our country comes in through the southern border. We can stop so much of that.
Go Back



Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




President Donald J. Trump Hits the Mark in his Second State of the Union Address News Services, Government, State and Federal Administration Issues Annual Intellectual Property Report

HbAD3

 
Back to Top