The wall meeting and the border trip

A Department of Homeland Security test of a steel border barrier prototype showed that the material can be cut through with a saw, NBC News reported Thursday.

A DHS photo obtained by NBC News showed the damage to the “steel slat” barrier being pushed by President Trump as the partial government shut down drags into its 20th day.

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In the test, according to NBC News, Marine Corps experts were told to attempt to breach the prototypes with common tools.

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The photo shared Thursday by NBC News was from late 2017, and was detailed in an internal February 2018 report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Trump inspected the prototypes the month after this report.

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Ralph DeSio, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman, told KPBS at the time that the prototypes "were not and cannot be designed to be indestructible," but were made to “impede or deny efforts to scale, breach, or dig under such a barrier, giving agents time to respond."

[...]

Since the shutdown began, Trump has backed away from demands for a concrete wall, pushing instead for a “steel slat” barrier because, he said, Democrats “don’t like concrete.”

In December, he shared an illustration of the proposed “Steel Slat Barrier” which he called “totally effective while at the same time beautiful!”

  The Hill

It's all bullshit, and he knows very well it's all bullshit.

Trump was in a chummy mood when he entered the Situation Room, according to a source familiar with how things unfolded. The President passed out candy to attendees -- Butterfinger and Baby Ruth bars as well as M&M's.

Trump told congressional leaders they would find a letter at each of their chairs -- a copy of the budget request the Office of Management and Budget had put together for congressional staff in Sunday's meeting that laid out the administration's shutdown priorities.

Then, with the letters stating their position in front of them, White House officials asked Democrats where their position stood.

Pelosi informed the President she was concerned about ports of entry, something which he agreed with. Trump said there was money allotted in the administration's priority list that beefed up the ports of entry. But Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, also seated at the table, interjected to say that even if the ports of entry eliminated all drug smuggling, smugglers would find another way in, which is why the barrier structure is important, sparking the most heated exchange of the meeting between Pelosi and Trump.

Schumer jumped in to stress the importance of opening up the government and then negotiating on border security funding from there.

He at one point asked Trump, "Why won't you open the government and stop hurting people?"

Trump responded bluntly, "Because then you won't give me what I want."

A White House official disputes that the President replied with those words. The official claims that Trump answered, "I gotta get you to do the right thing."

  ABC-KMIZ

He may have said both, but you know he definitely said the former.

Trump then asked Democrats whether, if he opened up the parts of the government that are shut down, Pelosi would be willing to build a barrier. She declined.

A source familiar with what happened inside the room said Trump ended the meeting by standing up and announcing "bye-bye" before turning and walking out.

Bye-bye - which he admits he said - is the response of a petulant, snotty, Valley Girl.

After Trump left the room, Pelosi and Schumer got up to leave. Vice President Mike Pence then asked for a counteroffer from Democrats -- asking what they are willing to work on, so the White House would have a better idea to move forward. They didn't offer one, something that has frustrated White House officials since they first privately offered less than $5.6 billion the day after the government shut down.

Why would they? Why continue with Pence when Trump - the guy who's running the show - has left the room?

Pelosi, speaking alongside Schumer outside the White House, said Trump was "insensitive" to federal workers missing pay during the shutdown and alluded to Trump's own privileged upbringing.

"He thinks maybe they could just ask their father for money, but they can't," the California Democrat said.

He doesn't give a shit.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's number two Democrat, said after the meeting that "it was pretty clear" Trump's heart was not in it.

"He said today, in the middle of this meeting, 'I don't know why I'm doing this. I didn't want to do this meeting. They told me I had to do this meeting,' " Durbin said.

Petulant teenage Valley Girl.

[P]rivately, Mr. Trump dismissed his own new strategy as pointless. In an off-the-record lunch with television anchors hours before the address, he made clear in blunt terms that he was not inclined to give the speech or go to Texas, but was talked into it by advisers, according to two people briefed on the discussion who asked not to be identified sharing details.

“It’s not going to change a damn thing, but I’m still doing it,” Mr. Trump said of the border visit, according to one of the people, who was in the room. The trip was merely a photo opportunity, he said. “But,” he added, gesturing at his communications aides Bill Shine, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, “these people behind you say it’s worth it.”

  NYT

Nice. We're glad he can waste our taxes while many of us can't pay our rent.

Trump's response?



So why did you give that luncheon and say those things if you didn't want people to know how you really feel?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.