Inside Trump’s Manic And Incompetent Obsession With The ‘Wall’
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
The Wall Street Journal posted a behind-the-scenes deep dive into President Trump’s signature issue, a wall along the United States’ southern border, on Friday. In the story, written by Michael Bender, Trump emerges as an angry and unprepared figure, often yelling at staffers who failed, in the President’s estimation.
“Who the f— put that in my request?” Mr. Trump shouted in one testy 2017 exchange related to funding for the wall, according to Bender’s story.
The angry comment was directed at Marc Short, then Trump’s legislative affairs director, while John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, was silent in the room, per Bender. The long read further pointed out that the various failures in getting the wall started the past few years may be the fault of Trump himself, who failed to appoint a dedicated point person, despite the barrier being his signature policy initiative.
“Yet in the two years since Mr. Trump took office, there had been no single official appointed within his administration to champion the wall,” Bender writes. “A revolving cast handled negotiations with Congress over paying for it. And the picture of what, exactly, the wall should be kept shifting.”
Trump did not blame himself for the wall not being built, however. He assigned blame to Democrats and some Republicans.
According to the Journal:
During the shutdown last month, Mr. Trump complained to conservative allies that Paul Ryan should have pushed harder for wall funds. Last weekend, the president complained about it again during a meeting with a Republican member of the committee that negotiated the latest deal.
