Donald Trump has now confirmed that he will be scrapping plans to find the funding for his border wall in this week’s spending bill.
The president’s close adviser and alternative fact aficionado Kellyanne Conway has stated that the funding for the wall would certainly be left out of this budget measure, a budget which needs to be passed by Friday. This clearly shows a lack of support for the border wall amongst the congressional politicians, most of whom are members of his own party
This is being taken by many observers as another embarrassing failure by Trump. Just like his defeat with repealing Obamacare, the border wall was a key campaign pledge that has yet to come to fruition in any form.
Democrats threatened to block the bill if money had been earmarked for the wall, an action that would quite possible have caused a government shutdown, this omission therefore should now avert such drastic action from his opponents and allow the government to keep functioning.
Trump was quick however to take to his favourite media platform and tweeted to his supporters that the wall would still be built.
President Trump reportedly told a private meeting of Republican supporters on Monday that he aims to push through funding for the wall later this year. Ms Conway backed up this call when she confirmed to Fox News that the wall does not need to have its funding this week, but remains a “very important priority” for the administration.
If Trump does plan on calling for the funding for his wall later in the year he needs to make some serious improvements and alliances amongst congressional representatives, otherwise he will continue to suffer Obamacare style embarrassments throughout his term.
The wall was a crucial centrepiece of Trump’s election campaign, at every rally he would shout out the phrase: “And who’s going to pay for it?” A phrase that was always met with a shout from the audience of: “Mexico!” Except of course there’s no legal way that was possible and the Mexican government made clear that they would do no such thing.
That meant that when Trump actually made it to office and had to make good on his outlandish promises reality began to settle in. He said that initially the US taxpayers would need to fund its construction but that he would later take the money back from Mexico, yet again not actually possible but people seemed to believe him.
Now though Trump is facing the daunting task of scaling his own wall, one this time presented by the numerous Democratic senators opposed to his proposals.
Because these senators will be able to block his spending proposals it means the White House budget will need to be re-written mins the funding the president needs to erect his signature policy.
The president soon after this news broke: “Don’t let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL. It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc.”
Once again Trump is misunderstanding the term fake media but I don’t have the time to get into that right now. This is an important lesson for the president though, there is a huge difference between campaigning and governing, something everyone else knew except for the man who managed to win.
