Politicians often have to change course when their campaign promises run up against reality. But when President Trump ran for office and throughout his
Politicians often have to change course when their campaign promises run up against reality. But when President Trump ran for office and throughout his presidency, an explicit part of his pitch was that he wasn’t like all the other politicians. Trump’s “great wall” was a big concrete symbol of that.
Except that now it isn’t even concrete. In recent weeks, he’s been saying it will be made of “beautiful” steel slats. The way Trump has described the wall has changed a lot over time, to the point of contradiction. That includes how the wall will be paid for.
The president is now in a battle with congressional Democrats to approve $5.7 billion in funding for a physical barrier, placing the wall at the center of a lengthy government shutdown that Trump is struggling to find his way out of.
In April 2014, when businessman Donald Trump was toying with running for president, he told an audience in New Hampshire that he “would build a border fence like you have never seen before.”
That summer, a couple of Trump’s advisers came up with the idea of calling it a “wall” as a way of signaling Trump would be an immigration hardliner.
“And what better way than to have his brand incorporated by Donald Trump saying, ‘Yeah, I’m going to build a wall. Nobody builds like Trump’?” said former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg.
The advisers wanted to ensure that every time he gave one of his wide-ranging largely unscripted speeches, Trump would hit the theme of being tough on immigration. “Build the wall” — like “Make America Great Again” — was easy to remember and would fit well in the “Trump variety show,” as Nunberg described Trump’s rally speeches.
“It was fun. It was cool. It was novel,” said Nunberg.
Nunberg wants to be clear: Trump rejected plenty of their ideas. But he went all-in on the wall.
In August 2014, Trump sent his first tweet about building a wall. Fittingly, it was in all caps.
SECURE THE BORDER! BUILD A WALL!
A few months later, he tweeted again, adding a little more detail. The wall would be “massive,” and the funding would come, indirectly, from Mexico.
The border is wide open for cartels & terrorists. Secure our border now. Build a massive wall & deduct the costs from Mexican foreign aid!
Trump officially launched his campaign in June 2015, with the wall as a centerpiece.
“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively,” Trump said in the gilded Trump Tower in New York.
