Donald Trump rose and shone Friday morning with his usual Twitter routine. This edition featured a trashing of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ratings, and Trump also beefed with the media for accurately reporting that he asked Congress to fund his fabled wall between the U.S. and Mexico. This structure is projected to cost taxpayers somewhere between between $5 to $25 billion to build and far too many millions in annual maintenance costs.
Well, Trump admitted that the U.S. will pay for his “Great Wall” but only because he wants this puppy to go up fast. He promised that Mexico will pay the money back “later” and slammed the “dishonest media” for not reading his mind and reporting to that effect.
The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed), will be paid back by Mexico later!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2017
Who knows how Trump plans to force Mexico to “pay back” billions of dollars on a project that they never agreed to. Last night, Former Mexico President Vicente Fox — who dropped multiple f-bombs on the subject last year — undoubtedly had a good laugh over the news of Trump going to Congress for money. He also tweeted that Mexico isn’t going to pay for Trump’s “racist monument” and used this as an example of “another promise he can’t keep.”
Trump may ask whoever he wants, but still neither myself nor Mexico are going to pay for his racist monument.
Another promise he can't keep.— Vicente Fox Quesada (@VicenteFoxQue) January 6, 2017
Fox makes a valid point. During his campaign, Trump vowed to jail Hillary Clinton (“lock her up!”) and use his cabinet picks to “drain the swamp.” Neither happened. The Wall was the first and most notorious promise of his entire campaign, but that’s about to crumble too. Remember, he took that famous June 2015 Trump Tower escalator ride, announced his candidacy, and uttered a promise that he’d repeat for 18 months:
“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
At most rallies, Trump repeated this claim. And with every primary victory speech, he’d declare that the wall had just grown in height by several feet. Trump deepened this narrative even as current Mexico President Enrique Nieto continued to insist his country wouldn’t pay. So, this Wall thing is turning out to be as messy as predicted, and of course, folks are rolling their eyes at the “Great Wall” term on Twitter.
He's calling it the "Great Wall"? He's calling it the "Great Wall." The. Great. Wall.
— Trekkingway Terilynn (@TerilynnS) January 6, 2017
https://twitter.com/crehage/status/817331894421487618
https://twitter.com/itomkowiak/status/817345095288627200
Regarding the "Great Wall":
Buying something up front expecting someone else to pay it back is how the market collapsed in 2008.
— Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) January 6, 2017
https://twitter.com/TedHeath4/status/817375204435513344
2016: "Mexico will pay for my Great Wall."
2017: "Mexico will pay us back for my Great Wall."
2018: "I never said that."— ⚜️ Jamie Harrison ⚜️ (@JamieHarrison__) January 6, 2017