Trump Threatens to ‘Close Up Our Country’ To Get Wall

President Donald Trump was in Ohio on Saturday promoting his agenda, attacking Democrats, and making outrageous comments about immigration and border security.

At a business roundtable promoting his tax cuts and showing his support for Ohio Republican Senate candidate Jim Renacci, the president said “we’re going to get the wall,” even if it requires “closing up the country for a while.”

Here are Trump’s complete remarks:

How about the wall where everyone scales the wall? Now, we are fixing and building walls now but we need much more money — we’re doing the job right. We’re going to do the job. And we may have to close up our country to get this right because we either have a country or we don’t. And we can’t allow people to pour into our country the way they’re doing.

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You just take a look at the mess that’s on television right now. It is a total catastrophe. And these are laws passed by Democrats so we have open borders. They want open borders. We have to have borders. If you don’t have borders, you don’t have a country. So we’re going to have to stop it…

You know, [Republican U.S. Congressman] Jim Renacci has been really terrific, he’s represented Ohio for a long time. He’s a very successful businessman and he’s now as you know running for the Senate against Sherrod Brown who does not think the way we think and when it comes to borders, when it comes to so much, and remember, it’s also the vote because they are going to vote as a bloc and the Democrats are very weak on borders, very weak on health care.

The healthcare that they had is a disaster and it’s coming home to an end. Very weak — you look at the borders, they didn’t want the wall, but we’re going to get the wall. Even if we think about closing up the country for a while, we’re going to get the wall. We have no choice. We have absolutely no choice and we’re going to get tremendous security in our country. 

But Jim has been there all the way, he’s highly respected in Washington, just a respected person, really knows what it is to go out and make a dollar, go out and spend a dollar, understands business, understands what we are doing in the country and understands what it takes to make America great again and I give Jim my full support.

Notice that Trump said “the Democrats are ….very weak on health care. The healthcare that they had is a disaster and it’s coming home to an end.”

It’s not clear why he mentioned healthcare in his rant about border security but it shows that he has an undisciplined mind that will not help Republican candidates in the fall.  Healthcare is the #1 issue for many voters, and the vast majority of Americans believe Democrats will do a better job of dealing with the healthcare crisis than the Republicans in Congress.

Earlier this year Congress passed a spending bill allowing only $1.6 billion toward border security which was about $9 billion less than Trump had asked for, so he is upset about that.  In typical Trump fashion the way he deals with his disappointments is to make outrageous comments and proposals.

For the president to threaten to “close up our country” because he didn’t get what he wants is like a child threatening to take his ball and go home.  It shows how weak he is, in addition to being childish and immature.

The President of the United States is supposed to work with Congress — Republicans and Democrats — and then hammer out a compromise that everybody can live with.  But Trump hasn’t learned that yet, and is unwilling to compromise.  He backed himself into a corner because of his irrational campaign promises, and now is desperately trying to force Congress — and the American people — to support him even though the vast majority of people do not want to spend $10 billion on a border wall with Mexico.

Donald Trump will find out in November that the American people do not want a leader who makes irrational threats in vain attempts to get his way, but instead want leaders who will solve the actual problems facing our country.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.