Donald Trump’s crusade to build border barriers — which the White House likes to describe as a “wall” — ahead of his re-election campaign continues, and earlier this month, we learned of the president’s intention to divert another $7.2 billion into the project. The money, diverted without congressional approval, was supposed to be spent on military construction and efforts to combat drug smuggling.
It’s the second consecutive year in which Trump will divert money intended for the Pentagon to his border barriers, lawmakers’ wishes be damned.
Of course, if the president is going to keep this going, he might want to prioritize wind-resistant barriers.
Newly installed panels from the US border wall fell over in high winds Wednesday, landing on trees on the Mexican side of the border.
The area is part of an ongoing construction project to improve existing sections of the wall.
Agent Carlos Pitones of the Customs and Border Protection sector in El Centro, California, told CNN that the sections that gave way had recently been set in a new concrete foundation in Calexico, California. The concrete had not yet cured, according to Pitones, and the wall panels were unable to withstand the windy conditions.
What kind of winds are we talking about? It’s not as if a hurricane swept through southern California: CNN’s report added that there were wind gusts in the area “as high as 37 mph.”
Alas, this wasn’t the only recent setback for Trump’s project.
A couple of months ago, for example, the president 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.
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."