If there is one good thing to cheer and applaud in Trump’s first Oval Office speech to the nation—it was short.
It was delivered in under 10 minutes and viewers were spared his profuse litany of lies, although he still managed to drop a number of clunkers that amounted to either being false or needing more context, according to fact checkers.
At the core of the address or mess to the nation, as some would deem it, especially those outraged that he commanded control of the television networks as he holds the government hostage, was an attempt to be the deal maker on getting his wall built.
A major reason for having the southern border protected, he said, is because “it is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border.”
This piece of misinformation flies in the face of authorities—and even Clint Eastwood’s “mule” would know better than that—who first of all have reported that most of the drugs Trump cites come in through legal ports of entry in a variety of concealed ways. Moreover, experts contend, no wall, no matter how high or wide, would be effective in stopping the flow of drugs into the country.
To add incredulity to his proposal, Trump stated that the wall, if built, would pay for itself. And such a prospect of a wall paying for itself falls within his promise in the past that Mexico would pay for it.
Once more Trump is blowing smoke and insisting that the blame for the government shutdown belongs to the Democrats. Just a few weeks ago he said he would take the blame for the shutdown. But we should have known, as in too many other instances, that he would change the narrative on that.
But back to the speech. “Over the years thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country, and thousands more lives will be lost if we don’t act right now,” Trump said.
Like so much of his balderdash, Trump presented no evidence of this; in fact, there have been several research projects that show undocumented immigration does not increase violence. But if Trump was provided this information, he would either not read it or dismiss it as fake news.
Trump opened his speech talking about a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul, but these conclusions are at best self-referential, though he was applying them to a national crisis, an imagined national emergency.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her rebuttal put it far more accurately in her contention that Trump is “manufacturing the crisis.”
If the nation is facing a humanitarian crisis, as Trump believes, then much of that problem stems from his own policies.
Trump might not enjoy the news that his former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, gave polling data to a Russian political consultant with ties to Russia’s intelligence service during the presidential campaign in 2016, but he might experience a measure of relief now that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will step away from the job next month.
Meanwhile, a quarter of the government remains in lockdown and nearly a million government employees are waiting for the New Year to brighten.
Yes, Trump is right, there’s a national emergency and he has promulgated much of it.
In a joint statement Make the Road organizations in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut said, “In an effort to undermine Congress and continue his anti-immigrant racist ploy, Donald Trump is lying to the people and manufacturing a fictitious national emergency. Trump cannot turn the military into his own personal company to build his absurd, racist and expensive border wall.
“The real crisis is the fact that immigrant children are dying at the hands of ICE and CBP, the families that have been separated at the border, and the 800,000 federal employees and their families whose paychecks and livelihoods are being held hostage. The only crisis at the border has been caused by this administration’s cruel policies toward children and families.
“Not one dollar should be given for Trump’s wall or his out-of-control deportation machine. The Senate should pass the bipartisan House bills to reopen the government, and Trump should come to his senses and end this government shutdown.”
The whole town is buzzing as the drip, drip fallout of the shutdown takes effect. As local federal workers such as tristate TSA employees enact the “blue flu,” the 800,000 furloughed or work without pay nervously eye the next few days with Trump’s threat of a shutdown lasting weeks or even years. Other everyday people turn thoughts to much anticipated tax returns, food stamps and social services being held up. Tourist and city draws such as The African Burial Ground and Hamilton Grange National Memorial stay closed. A negative economic effect is a real possibility. “Every day, Trump further diminishes the office of the presidency, and this stunt was just another extension of that damage, using the Oval Office to gain a wider audience for his lies and fear-mongering,” said New York City Councilmember Jumaane Williams. “Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis to cover for his ineptitude, and scapegoating vulnerable populations to advance his nationalist agenda.
“As hundreds of thousands of federal workers lose out on the paychecks they and their families depend on, as important services are denied the American people because of the shutdown, he continues to deflect, to lie and to stoke hatred and fear with a ‘crisis’ of his own making.”
Williams concluded, “Real crises are the over half a million homeless individuals in our country, the tens of millions without health insurance, the 30,000 people killed each year in the gun violence epidemic. On a local level, we will continue to work on solutions to these issues. If Trump could turn his attention from an asinine wall, maybe our federal government could do the same. This address was nothing more than political hackery by a man who is himself a national crisis.”
Of Trump’s threat to declare a national state of emergency Ana María Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy Action, labelled it “a dangerous attempt to undermine the safety of all people in this country.” She noted, “This is the latest in a series of racist, anti-immigrant attacks that are meant to fuel hatred. But worse of all, the move suggests that Trump wants to use the military and violence as tools to build his expensive border wall.
“President Trump has inflicted tremendous pain on human beings: children are dying in the custody of ICE and CPB; thousands of children are separated from their families and living in jail-like facilities; hundreds of thousands of TPS and DACA recipients have lost their status protections and are now in limbo; and over 800,000 federal workers are going without pay. This is a crisis of his own creation. We urge Congress to not succumb to his bullying and irresponsible tactics.
“Congress must reopen the government and reject funding for the border wall.”