Trump Busted As Troops To The Border Midterm Stunt Will Cost Taxpayers Millions

Trump is set to waste untold millions deploying troops to the border for a non-emergency.

Read About Ivanka Trump's Plotting To Return To The White House On THE DAILY

On Wednesday, the Pentagon told Reuters that about 7,000 troops could be deployed if needed. The Pentagon refused to discuss budget. We have no actual assessment of threat, and in any case, as the BBC pointed out, the caravan is months out, so even if it posed a threat, and it doesn’t, it won’t be here *until after the election.*

But Trump has decided to send active duty troops inside the US border. The President can only deploy troops if there is an insurrection or invasion, neither of which a starving caravan full of desperate people seeking asylum represents, especially since they’re 1,000 miles away.

Sen Leahy noted that Trump is doing this despite the law that prevents using the military to enforce our domestic laws. In a statement sent to PoliticusUSA, the Democrat wrote, “This is despite a century-old U.S. law that prevents using our military to directly enforce our domestic laws. This deployment — which comes at the expense of millions of taxpayer dollars, and an uncertain impact on our military readiness — might satisfy the President’s ego but not much else, given all the restrictions on what the military can legally do in support of our law enforcement authorities at the border.”

This is nothing but election stage craft – a phony crisis as Greg Sargent detailed so well in the Washington Post, funded by the U.S. taxpayer. How do we know this? Because Trump has told us exactly how he would do things in his own words as he projected onto Obama his own lack of values and humanity, seeing everything as a campaign issue:

Using political conflicts to set a narrative like you’re running a reality TV show is Trump’s thing, so he assumes reality is not real and is actually just Obama’s manipulation of reality to benefit himself. A telling projection:

Because of Hurricane Sandy decimating parts of the east coast, Trump accused Obama of “buying” the election.

Trump projected his own willingness to use violence or the threat of violence (the “caravan” threat) to win an election:

Would that be like using taxpayer money to send unneeded troops to the border for a not actual emergency just to have props for your Caravan Threat Get Out the Vote effort? Yeah, except the hurricane was real, not of Obama’s making, and required a presidential response other than paper towels being tossed and that is what it got.

No Donald conspiracy can be complete without the scientific backup of the Fox news “some people say”. This applies when he is accusing others of things he will or has done, and when he’s just making things up to elevate himself. But because it’s Trump, it’s expanded to the grandiose “many people.”

In case it’s not clear yet, how about this one from the man who refused to even release his tax returns, let alone his college transcripts, real medical records, and refused to legitimately separate from his business interests when he took office:

The reason logical people have concluded that the modern day conservative movement is not conservative at all, that is it is not fiscally conservative or about upholding traditions, is because they have shown under Bush and now under Trump that they do not care about the deficit one bit, along with Congressional and Senatorial traditions that they’ve spit upon.

The treasury is set to, due in part to Trump and Republicans’ unpaid for tax cut for the rich, issue one TRILLION in debt *this year*. The very conservative Wall Street Journal explained, “The U.S. Treasury Department estimates it will issue more than $1 trillion in debt this year as higher government spending and sluggish tax revenues push the deficit higher… That would be the highest annual debt issuance since $1.586 trillion in 2010, when the U.S. economy was still crawling out of a recession.”

Reminder: That recession began under former President George W. Bush, a Republican.

Yet, here’s Trump accusing Obama in 2012 of burying America and destroying our children’s future because of spending (ironically, Republicans were in control of the budget during this time and still are today, but Trump is not known for his comprehension of Congressional powers):

Trump created the caravan threat as a piece of stage craft to motivate his base, and now he’s using your money to pay for it, while terrorizing his own country with an abuse of power that under any other president would be mind-boggling. Sadly too many in the press are going along with Trump’s demonizing of this caravan, which is an embarrassment akin to their obsession with Hilary Clinton’s emails.

The caravan is a non-issue. They aren’t going to hurt anyone. We don’t need 7,000 including some armed troops to meet a caravan of desperate, hungry people. Only a conservative could create such a fear-laden, lame attempt at creating an election boogeyman.

Trump is trying to “buy an election” as he wrongly accused Obama of doing- except, in perfect Trump style, he’s not paying for it. We are.

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Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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