"We've already broken every record in the book," Trump tells his Homeland Security secretary of immigration enforcement. He does not specify which records or which book.
This event is a "Salute to the Heroes of ICE and CBP"...but Trump keeps calling CBP "CBC."
Trump lies: "The men and women of DHS are building the border wall as we sit, and the wall is getting longer and taller and stronger each and every day."
The wall has not been started at all.
The wall has not been started at all.
Trump has now called Customs and Border Protection "CBC" maybe five times early in this speech, which he is reading from a text.
Trump calls up a Border Patrol agent who saved lives - who is Latino - and says: "Come here, you're not nervous, right? Speaks perfect English."
"They're actually liberating towns," Trump says of ICE efforts against MS-13. "It hits home when you grew up there." (When talking about MS-13 and only when talking about MS-13, Trump claims he kinda grew up in Long Island, which nobody from Queens says.)
Trump denounces "open-borders extremists" who have threatened ICE agents and blocked access to ICE buildings. He adds: "What you hear in the newspapers and on the news is nothing compared to the way it really is. And we're stopping it very, very strongly."
Trump: 88% or 93% of Americans are supportive of ICE, it's just people with "big, loud mouths" who oppose them.
July Pew poll found 44% favourable opinion of ICE, 47% unfavourable opinion of ICE. vox.com/2018/7/24/1760…
July Pew poll found 44% favourable opinion of ICE, 47% unfavourable opinion of ICE. vox.com/2018/7/24/1760…
Trump: "We will never surrender our nation to the forces of anarchy and chaos and crime."
Trump on Democrats who support sanctuary cities: "People are dying because of their either lack of knowledge, lack of understanding, or just plain stupidity."
Trump calls CBP "CBC" again. There are bigger gaffes, but must say I've never seen a politician hold an event that is a salute to the heroes of an organization and then say the organization's name wrong every time.
Trump's speech is over. Most memorable moment was the president informing his audience that a Latino federal law enforcement officer "speaks perfect English."
Trump went briefer than usual on the graphic descriptions of rapes and murders, was mostly on-script. He usually lets loose at immigration-related events.
