Previously on White House Apprentice, we found out that the magical wall of doom your “president” won’t stop talking about was never really supposed to be a thing in the first place.
It was revealed that the “wall” was actually a mnemonic meant to help the then-candidate remember to talk about being tough on immigration at his rallies. Because Donald Trump is a blithering idiot who probably has to be stopped from scooping his own poop out of the toilet with his bare hands, the wall somehow became real in his mind—and thus began his personal obsession with building it.
It’s sort of like Noah’s Ark but instead of God guiding him, it’s probably the toxic combination of Adderall and early onset dementia convincing him that he has to take his gigantic Lego set to the U.S./Mexico border and build something.
And so it is that the producer of White House Apprentice decided that we should have a special episode where the dotard in chief delivers a “candid” Oval Office confession for all to see.
“My fellow Americans, tonight I am speaking to you because there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border,” he began, jumping right into the exaggeration and lying portion of the program.
The truth is, as pointed out by several pundits on MSNBC, there is no crisis at our border. In fact, the number of people who have tried to enter the U.S. at the southern border without proper paperwork is down by at least 40 percent.
But as we well know, your “president” sits on a throne of lies, and he will tell any number of them at once if he thinks it will further his agenda.
“Every day Customs and Border Patrol agents encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country. We are out of space to hold them, and we have no way to promptly return them back home to their country,” he continued while sniffing repeatedly the way someone who does massive amounts of coke sniffs when the drip is all gone.
“America proudly welcomes millions of lawful immigrants who enrich our society and contribute to our nation, but all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal migration,” he continued. “It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages.”
He then moved to the xenophobic, racist and divisive rhetoric, and said: “Among those hardest hit are African Americans and Hispanic Americans.”
Basically, Trump is saying that people who come into the country undocumented are taking away all the slave jobs from the rest of you darkies. He’s so predictable.
His assertion that undocumented immigrants create a strain on our nation is basically refuted in a 2017 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (pdf) which shows undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.74 billion in state and local taxes. Additionally, 50 percent of undocumented immigrants file federal tax returns using Individual Tax Identification Numbers (ITIN), and those who don’t still have federal taxes taken out of their regular paychecks.
If you were too lazy to read all of that (which clearly the “president” is), the report said, “undocumented immigrants make considerable tax contributions.”
Trump then claimed that it was the fault of the Democrats that the government is shut down, but we all know that is not true. He threatened to shut the government down if he didn’t get his way as far as the mythical wall is concerned, and when Congress didn’t bend, he shut the government down.
“The government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only: the Democrats will not fund border security,” he lied.
But as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would later say in their rebuttal, Democrats do support border security—they just don’t support his need for an expensive and unnecessary wall to secure it.
“There is bipartisan legislation — supported by Democrats and Republicans — to re-open government while allowing debate over border security to continue. There is no excuse for hurting millions of Americans over a policy difference,” Schumer said.
Pelosi agreed and said, “President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must re-open the government.”
“No president should pound the table and demand he gets his way or else the government shuts down. Hurting millions of Americans who are treated as leverage,” Schumer said, telling it like it is. He accused Trump of using fear and not facts, division and not unity to further his personal agenda.
“Most presidents have used Oval Office addresses for noble purposes. This President just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear, and divert attention from the turmoil in his Administration,” said Schumer.
“Throughout this debate and his presidency—President Trump has appealed to fear, not facts. Division, not unity,” he added.
At one point during his talking head confessional, Trump claimed that it was Democrats who requested a steel barrier at the southern border. That is also false, as previously noted; the Democrats do not think building a wall is necessary to secure the border.
In another lie, Trump claimed that more people will die this year from drug overdoses than died in the Vietnam War. He made that statement to illustrate how much the wall is needed to protect the U.S. from illegal drugs coming across.
As noted by CNN’s Maegan Vazquez, your dumb “president” is conflating drugs coming across the border with overall drug overdoses in the country. While it is true that 58,220 Americans died in the Vietnam War versus the 70,327 who died from drug overdoses in 2017, the number of overdose deaths does not represent just deaths from illegal drugs. There are a high number of overdose deaths from prescription drugs as well, but no one wants to talk about that. That’s a post for another day, however.
From CNN:
The majority of hard narcotics seized by Customs and Border Protection come through ports of entry either in packages, cargo or with people who attempt to enter the US legally. The only drug that is smuggled in higher numbers between legal entry points is marijuana, according to information from Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In summation, your “president” didn’t say anything new Tuesday night. He simply tried to use a lot of fear-mongering to convince the American people that they need this mysterious wall that will somehow pay for itself even though Mexico was supposed to be paying for it and he is demanding $5.8 billion to pay for it now.
None of what Donald Trump says makes sense. We don’t need a wall.
We need a new fucking president.