Panic in the White House as Trump Doubles Down on Border Closing

Last updated on April 4th, 2019 at 11:37 am

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An inside report from the White House this morning reveals that staff members are panicking over the prospect of their boss actually going forward with his threat to close the U.S. border with Mexico.

On Friday Donald Trump made his initial threat to close the border and since then has repeated it, in effect doubling down on a draconian disaster.

If the border closes there would be an immediate multi-billion dollar cost to the U.S. economy, as well as tens of thousands of lost jobs and a dramatic spike in consumer prices.

The website POLITICO reports that they “spoke to several senior administration figures who described a White House freaked out about the implications of closing the border.”

A major casualty of such an ill-advised move by the the president would be his top legislative priority, the U.S.-Canada–Mexico Agreement (USCMA) which Trump has promised would be a much improved replacement for the NAFTA trade agreement.

According to POLITICO:

“There are people in the White House who are trying to cobble together a plan to present to Congress that would seek to tighten immigration laws — a way to beg the president off his close-the-border plan.”

“The people who work for the president are trying to head off what they see as another self-inflicted wound.”

For many years Congress has been unable to agree on changes to immigration laws, so the fact that White House staff see that as their best bet to dissuade the president from closing the border is a sure sign of their desperation.

Realists are very skeptical that any type of immigration reform would get through Congress.

Evidence of the Panic

Last night in London a U.S. Coast Guard G5 that DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen uses departed from London’s Stansted Airport less than one day after it landed.

Nielsen was attending some very important high level meetings in London, but inside the White House, Trump’s aides decided they needed to bring her back to the United States to deal with the border closing issue, and possibly convince her boss to change his mind.

Donald Trump Is Desperate

As Donald Trump‘s legal and political problems pile up,  he is acting increasingly desperate. His threats to close the U.S. border with Mexico are beyond the pale. It would be the dumbest thing he could do because of the damage it would inflict immediately on the U.S. economy. The only reason he would do it is to please his racist base of supporters who hate all immigrants, and because all of his immigration policies have failed.

If Donald Trump goes forward with this idiotic plan it will be one more nail in his political coffin, and it will lead surely to his demise in 2020, if not before.

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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.