It was just last fall when Donald Trump insisted that no one could “cut through” his “impenetrable” border fencing. Within hours of his boast, we learned that people in Mexico have “repeatedly sawed through” the president’s “wall” using cordless household tools readily available in hardware stores.
Trump has also claimed that the border barriers cannot be climbed, and that doesn’t appear to be true, either.
According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration may not want to come right out and admit that the president’s claims were false, but officials are looking for ways to address the problems Trump insisted wouldn’t exist.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has asked contractors for help making President Trump’s border wall more difficult to climb over and cut through, an acknowledgment that the design currently being installed across hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico boundary remains vulnerable. The new request for information notice that CBP posted gives federal contractors until June 12 to suggest new anti-breaching and anti-climbing technology and tools….
All things considered, it’s a safe bet that the administration wouldn’t be looking for anti-breaching and anti-climbing tech if no one could breach or climb the border barriers.
As for construction, Trump has promised to finish roughly 500 miles of new barriers by the end of the year — a scaled-back goal from the president’s original promises — and the Post’s report added that administration officials have indicated that they’re unlikely to reach the arbitrary political objective.
As of a couple of weeks ago, Customs and Border Protection acknowledged that 194 miles of border barriers had been constructed since Trump took office, but 191 of those miles already had barriers in place. So let’s take stock. Trump wants Americans to believe he’s built hundreds of miles of impenetrable wall that cannot be climbed. In reality, it’s not a wall; it’s not hundreds of miles; it can be climbed; it’s penetrable, and in one instance, it failed to withstand wind gusts of 37 miles per hour. Oh, and Mexico isn’t paying for any of it, the Republican’s campaign promises notwithstanding.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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