Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Poorest Americans Dealt Biggest Blow Under Senate Republican Tax Package

7 hours ago

Trump Vowed to Dismantle MS-13. His Deal With Bukele Threatens That Effort.

11 hours ago

Ukraine Voices Concern as US Halts Some Missile Shipments

11 hours ago

Poll: Most Americans Say National Divide, Political Violence Threaten Democracy

12 hours ago

Paramount Settles With Trump Over ‘60 Minutes’ Interview for $16 Million

12 hours ago

Republicans Tee up House Vote on Trump Bill, Outcome Uncertain

12 hours ago

What’s Next for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs After His Sex Trafficking Trial?

12 hours ago

Dalai Lama Says He Will Be Reincarnated, Trust Will Identify Successor

12 hours ago
AP Fact Check: Trump on the Wall, and a Ban on Cows?
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 6 years ago on
February 12, 2019

Share

WASHINGTON — Let Democrats have their way, President Donald Trump suggested, and the United States will become a country without border security, airplanes or cows.
Trump warned of a variety of dire consequences from the Democratic playbook as he rallied Monday night in the border city of El Paso, Texas, in a hall where banners proclaimed “Finish the Wall” even though he barely has a start on the one he promised.

Trump warned of a variety of dire consequences from the Democratic playbook as he rallied Monday night in the border city of El Paso, Texas, in a hall where banners proclaimed “Finish the Wall” even though he barely has a start on the one he promised.
Both at the White House and in El Paso, he presented the border wall as a work in progress, hailing the start of a “big, big portion” with much more coming soon. It was a hefty exaggeration from a president who has yet to see an extra mile of barrier completed since he took office.
With another government shutdown looming — a tentative agreement reached by lawmakers Monday could avert it — and illegal immigration still at the heart of the budget dispute, Trump is pulling out the stops to portray his proposed wall as an answer to crime and drugs. As he’s done repeatedly, Trump also defied the record in claiming that the wall that Congress has refused to pay for is rapidly coming together anyway.
In the course of the evening, he also took a swipe at the Green New Deal, a sweeping plan put forward by a group of Democrats last week to transform the U.S. economy to combat climate change and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy. This is where gaseous cows come into it.
A look at his remarks:

Effects of the Green New Deal

TRUMP, on the effects of the Green New Deal: “You’re not allowed to own cows anymore.” He added that the plan would “shut down American energy” and “a little thing called air travel.”
THE FACTS: The Democratic plan would do none of those things. Trump chose to ignore the actual provisions of the plan, which calls for a drastic drop in emissions from methane-generating cows, air travel and more but would not ban cattle ownership or flights.
Instead, Trump took his cue from a FAQ that was distributed by the office of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York last week, then clumsily disavowed by her and replaced with a more accurate summary of the plan.
The first version described measures beyond those contained in the plan and made the impolitic statement: “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

Effect of a Border Wall on Crime in El Paso

TRUMP, on the effect of a border wall on crime in El Paso: “When that wall went up, it’s a whole different ball game. … I don’t care whether a mayor is a Republican or a Democrat. They’re full of crap when they say it hasn’t made a big difference. I heard the same thing from the fake news. They said, ‘Oh crime, it actually stayed the same.’ It didn’t stay the same. It went way down. … Thanks to a powerful border wall in El Paso, Texas, it’s one of America’s safest cities now.” — rally remarks.
THE FACT: Trump falsely suggests a dramatic drop in crime in El Paso due to a border wall. In fact, the city’s murder rate was less than half the national average in 2005, the year before the start of its border fence. It’s true that the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report shows that El Paso’s annual number of reported violent crimes dropped from nearly 5,000 in 1995 to around 2,700 in 2016. But that corresponded with similar declines in violent crime nationwide and included periods when the city’s crime rates increased year over year, despite new fencing and walls.
Before the wall project started, El Paso had been rated one of the three safest major U.S. cities going back to 1997.

His Proposed Wall

TRUMP, on his proposed wall: “We’ve built a lot of it.” — rally remarks.
TRUMP: “We’ve actually started a big, big portion of the wall today at a very important location, and it’s going to go up pretty quickly over the next nine months. That whole area will be finished. It’s fully funded … and we’re going to have a lot of wall being built over the next period of time.” — White House remarks.
THE FACTS: There’s less going on here than his words convey. Construction is getting started on merely 14 miles of extended barrier, approved by Congress about a year ago in an appropriation that also authorized money to renovate and strengthen some existing fencing. The extension will be in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. That’s not a “big, big portion” of the grand project he promised in his campaign and countless times since — a wall that, combined with existing fencing and natural barriers, would seal the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

Trump also promised in the campaign that he would make Mexico pay for the wall, which it refused to do.
The recent fight with Democrats in Congress has been over his demand for a $5.7 billion down payment on the wall. That money would pay for a little over 200 miles (320 kilometers) of new barrier. Democrats have refused to approve anything close to that for extended barrier construction.
Trump also promised in the campaign that he would make Mexico pay for the wall, which it refused to do.
He inherited over 650 miles of border barrier from previous administrations.

Preparations for His Rally

TRUMP, on preparations for his rally: “We have a line that is very long already. I mean, you see what’s going on. And I understand our competitor’s got a line, too, but it’s a tiny little line.” — at the White House.
THE FACTS: That’s not true. His comment came about four hours before his El Paso rally and a competing one nearby, led by Beto O’Rourke, a prospective Democratic presidential contender. The gatherings for both events were small at the time. People were standing around in a dusty wind, not so much lined up.

Addressing El Paso Rally

TRUMP, addressing El Paso rally: “He has 200 people, 300 people, not too good. … That may be the end of his presidential bid.”
THE FACTS: That’s not true, either. O’Rourke’s march and rally drew thousands. Police did not give an estimate, but his crowd filled up nearly all of a baseball field from the stage at the infield to the edge of outfield and was tightly packed.

Drugs Pouring Through the Border

TRUMP: “Drugs pouring through the border kills tens of thousands of innocent Americans a year, including heroin, meth, cocaine, fentanyl, so many others — they come through the southern border. We have a drug problem over the last 6, 7, 10 years like we have never had before. We can have such a big cut in the numbers, the percentages, if we get the wall built.” — rally remarks.
THE FACTS: His assertion that a wall would stop most drugs from “pouring” into the U.S. runs counter to his government’s findings on how the illegal substances get in. Most of it is smuggled through official border crossings, not remote stretches of the border.
The Drug Enforcement Administration says “only a small percentage” of heroin seized by U.S. authorities comes across on territory between ports of entry. The same is true of drugs generally, with the exception of marijuana.
In a 2018 report, the agency said the most common trafficking technique by transnational criminal organizations is to hide drugs in passenger vehicles or tractor-trailers as they drive into the U.S. through entry ports, where they are stopped and subject to inspection. They also employ buses, cargo trains, and tunnels, the report says, citing other smuggling methods that also would not be choked off by a border wall.

‘Illegal Immigration Hurts All Americans’

TRUMP: “Illegal immigration hurts all Americans, including millions of legal immigrants, by driving down wages, draining public resources and claiming countless innocent lives.” — rally remarks.
THE FACTS: These assertions are unsupported by research, which Trump appeared to acknowledge obliquely by making a crack about “phony stats.”
The weight of research on wages suggests that immigrants have not suppressed them, although it’s not cut and dried. What’s clear is that macro forces that go beyond immigration are at work in the sluggishness of wage growth: the decline in unionization, an intensified push to maximize corporate profits, growing health insurance costs that supplant wages and the rise of a lower-wage global labor force that in an intertwined worldwide economy can hinder pay growth for Americans.

“Illegal immigration hurts all Americans, including millions of legal immigrants, by driving down wages, draining public resources and claiming countless innocent lives.” — President Donald Trump
On public resources, the National Academy of Sciences concluded: “An immigrant and a native-born person with similar characteristics will likely have the same fiscal impact.” The academy found that because state and local governments supply most of the money for public schools, immigrants often receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. But education produces children who grow into adults who get jobs, buy cars, buy houses and pay taxes and thereby contribute to economic growth. And succeeding generations of immigrant families become net contributors to government budgets, according to the study.
On the loss of lives, plenty of research challenges the assumption that people in the country illegally drive up violent crime. In one such study, sociologists Michael Light and Ty Miller reviewed crime in every state and the District of Columbia from 1990 to 2014. They found that a rising number of immigrants in the country illegally corresponded with a drop, not a rise, in reported crime.

Vicious Crime Committed by MS-13

TRUMP: “We’re going to El Paso. … We’re going there to keep our country safe, and we don’t want murderers and drug dealers and gang members, MS-13, and some of the worst people in the world coming into our country. … We need a wall.” — remarks at White House.
THE FACTS: Trump suggests that weak border enforcement is contributing to the vicious crime committed by MS-13, a gang held responsible for murders in cities across the U.S. But sealing the border completely would not eliminate the gang. It was founded in the U.S. in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants and has sunk roots in the country. Some of its members are U.S. citizens and not subject to deportation or border enforcement.
The government has not said recently how many members it thinks are citizens and immigrants. In notable raids on MS-13 in 2015 and 2016, most of the people caught were found to be U.S. citizens.

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

House Republicans Say They Expect to Vote Tonight on Trump’s Tax-Cut Bill

DON'T MISS

San Luis Obispo’s Madre Fire Grows to 8,300 Acres, Prompts Evacuations

DON'T MISS

SLO Deputies Fatally Shoot Man in Los Osos Weeks After US Marshal Impersonation Arrest

DON'T MISS

Madera County Deputy Injured, Wanted Felon Arrested After Violent Struggle

DON'T MISS

San Luis Obispo County Wildfire Burns More Than 3,000 Acres. No Containment Yet

DON'T MISS

Wired Wednesday: Why Is State Lawmaker Taking Aim at Rooftop Solar?

DON'T MISS

Two Visalia Men Sentenced in 2021 Motel Killing

DON'T MISS

Ex-Jan. 6 Defendant Gets Life in Prison for Plot to Kill FBI Agents

DON'T MISS

Del Monte Files for Bankruptcy. Gets Nearly $1B to Keep Producing Through Process

DON'T MISS

Who is Running for Fresno Area Offices in 2026? An Updated Look

UP NEXT

Poll: Most Americans Say National Divide, Political Violence Threaten Democracy

UP NEXT

Trump Pulls Back 150 Guard Troops From Federal Duties in California

UP NEXT

Suspect Identified in Ambush Shooting That Killed 2 Idaho Firefighters

UP NEXT

Suspect Identified in Ambush Shooting That Killed 2 Idaho Firefighters

UP NEXT

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

UP NEXT

Bill Moyers, Broadcaster and LBJ’s White House Press Secretary, Dies at 91

UP NEXT

Tesla Executive, Elon Musk Confidant Leaves EV Maker, Bloomberg News Reports

UP NEXT

How a Birthday Boat Ride on Lake Tahoe Turned Tragic

UP NEXT

Cuomo Concedes to Mamdani in New York City Democratic Mayoral Contest

UP NEXT

Mamdani Holds Lead Over Cuomo in Democratic Primary for NYC Mayor

Madera County Deputy Injured, Wanted Felon Arrested After Violent Struggle

5 hours ago

San Luis Obispo County Wildfire Burns More Than 3,000 Acres. No Containment Yet

5 hours ago

Wired Wednesday: Why Is State Lawmaker Taking Aim at Rooftop Solar?

5 hours ago

Two Visalia Men Sentenced in 2021 Motel Killing

6 hours ago

Ex-Jan. 6 Defendant Gets Life in Prison for Plot to Kill FBI Agents

6 hours ago

Del Monte Files for Bankruptcy. Gets Nearly $1B to Keep Producing Through Process

7 hours ago

Who is Running for Fresno Area Offices in 2026? An Updated Look

7 hours ago

CIA Review Finds Flaws but Does Not Dispute Finding Putin Sought to Sway 2016 Vote to Trump

7 hours ago

Poorest Americans Dealt Biggest Blow Under Senate Republican Tax Package

7 hours ago

Check Out Newest Downtown Mural. It’s a Spectacular Tribute to Fresno Artisans

8 hours ago

House Republicans Say They Expect to Vote Tonight on Trump’s Tax-Cut Bill

WASHINGTON – Republicans in the House of Representatives on Wednesday struggled to pass President Donald Trump’s massive tax-cut...

4 hours ago

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks to the press, as Republican lawmakers struggle to pass U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping spending and tax bill, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 2, 2025. (Reuters/Annabelle Gordon)
4 hours ago

House Republicans Say They Expect to Vote Tonight on Trump’s Tax-Cut Bill

The Madre Fire in San Luis Obispo County has rapidly expanded to 8,396 acres with no containment, prompting evacuation orders and warnings near New Cuyama. (CalFire)
4 hours ago

San Luis Obispo’s Madre Fire Grows to 8,300 Acres, Prompts Evacuations

Andrew Biscay, 40, was arrested Friday, June 20, 2025, after deputies found him with a fake U.S. Marshal’s badge, homemade firearm, and law enforcement-style gear during a warrant arrest. (Madera County SO)
4 hours ago

SLO Deputies Fatally Shoot Man in Los Osos Weeks After US Marshal Impersonation Arrest

On Tuesday, July 1, 2025, a Madera County sheriff’s deputy was injured while trying to arrest a wanted felon, Felix Adrian Nucamendi Carrasco, 40, who later fled and was captured near Raymond Road. (Madera County SO)
5 hours ago

Madera County Deputy Injured, Wanted Felon Arrested After Violent Struggle

A wildfire dubbed the Madre Fire has burned over 3,300 acres near New Cuyama with 0% containment, officials said Wednesday, July 2, 2025. (CalFire)
5 hours ago

San Luis Obispo County Wildfire Burns More Than 3,000 Acres. No Containment Yet

5 hours ago

Wired Wednesday: Why Is State Lawmaker Taking Aim at Rooftop Solar?

Jose Luna (left), 33, and Ralph Grajeda, 45, both of Visalia, have been sentenced for their roles in the 2020 shotgun killing of Robert Soto at a local motel. (Tulare County DA)
6 hours ago

Two Visalia Men Sentenced in 2021 Motel Killing

A U.S. Justice Department logo or seal showing Justice Department headquarters, known as "Main Justice," is seen behind the podium in the Department's headquarters briefing room before a news conference with the Attorney General in Washington, January 24, 2023. (Reuters File)
6 hours ago

Ex-Jan. 6 Defendant Gets Life in Prison for Plot to Kill FBI Agents

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend