Trump Reveals Major Border Announcement Is Planned for Saturday
President Donald Trump announced that he would be making a “major” statement regarding the border showdown Saturday, according to a tweet published Friday.
“I will be making a major announcement concerning the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border, and the Shutdown, tomorrow afternoon at 3 P.M., live from the @WhiteHouse,” Trump said.
The announcement came as the partial government shutdown over border funding entered its fifth week.
I will be making a major announcement concerning the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border, and the Shutdown, tomorrow afternoon at 3 P.M., live from the @WhiteHouse.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2019
There was little context given, although news organizations were more than happy to provide some of their own.
The Associated Press, for instance, noted that the announcement came as the House Democrats were shaping their border security plans.
The new Democrat proposal would include “hundreds of millions of dollars for new immigration judges and improvements to ports of entry from Mexico but nothing for the wall, a House aide said.”
The AP also noted that while the White House refused to provide any information about the announcement, it was not expected to involve invoking emergency powers to build the border wall.
“Instead, Trump was expected to propose the outlines of a new deal that the administration believes could potentially pave the way to an end to the shutdown, according to one of the people,” the AP reported.
“They were not authorized to discuss the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.”
Trump had also posted a video to his Twitter account Friday which could have provided some clues as to what the speech might entail.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2019
“Everybody knows by now that our southern border is a humanitarian crisis,” Trump says in the video, filmed on a snowy White House lawn.
“It’s also a national security crisis. Things are happening there and they’ve happened for many years — decades. But it only gets worse with time, because a lot of people want to come into our country, and there are a lot of people that we don’t want.”
Trump noted these people included gang members, human traffickers and drug smugglers. He then extended something resembling an olive branch to the Democrats.
“Take the politics out of it,” he continued. “Let’s get to work and make a deal. We sit down — a lot of the Democrats, they agree with me, they’ve told me so, but they’re afraid to say it. We have to secure our southern border. If we don’t do that, we’re a very, very sad and foolish lot.”
It’s worth noting some Democrats have begun to show signs of compromise on the wall, as The Washington Free Beacon reported last week.
“There are areas along the border where there are currently fences that are put up or barriers that are put up that need to be enhanced,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York admitted.
“If we have a partial wall, if we have fencing, if we have technology used to keep our border safe, all of that is fine,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois.
“Certain physical barriers can make sense along the border, and a lot of places you already have that,” said Rep. John Sarbanes of Maryland.
While there are more than a few of these voices, none of them are in leadership — and, from the sound of things, they’re advancing with their own plan. Whether Saturday will be enough to bring them to the table remains to be seen, but as long as they keep on rejecting facts a deal to reopen the partially shutdown government may be a hard road indeed.
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