One of the favorite chants at Donald Trump rallies revolves around a claim he originally made in 2015 while speaking of what he would do as President.
You remember it: Trump would lead his followers in a chant of "Build the Wall," then ask, "And who is going to pay for it!?" to which the crowd would respond "Mexico!"
Trump not only claimed he would build a wall along the almost 2,000 mile southern United States border with Mexico, which would cost billions of dollars, but he would also coerce Mexico into paying for it.
In a 2015 interview, Trump said:
"I will build the best wall, the biggest, the strongest, not penetrable, they won’t be crawling over it, like giving it a little jump and they’re over the wall, it costs us trillions. And I’ll have Mexico pay for the wall. Because Mexico is screwing us so badly."
Mexico immediately refuted Trump's claim, but it still played well at his rallies. Each time he said something about Mexico saying "No", Trump simply claimed his wall "just got 10 feet higher."
And even after the election, President Trump continued to claim Mexico would be paying for his wall. Once reality set in against his campaign rhetoric, he tried to find other ways to make Mexico pay for his wall.
In January, Trump claimed:
"There are many forms of payment. I could name 10 right now. There are many forms of payment, I didn’t say how."
And when pressed, Trump responded:
"They can pay for it through, as an example, they can pay for it indirectly through NAFTA. Okay? You know, we make a good deal on NAFTA, say I’m going to take a small percentage of that money, and it’s going to go toward the wall. Guess what? Mexico’s paying."
But not long after, Trump announced NAFTA was a horrible deal and stated he pulled the United States from the agreement in advance of enacting new tariffs on Mexico and Canada. But even after a new trade agreement was formed with Mexico, no provision to pay for his wall was included.
Still, the President did not admit the United States taxpayers would foot the bill for his wall.
Until now.
On Thursday morning, Trump took to Twitter to ask where in the United States budget was the money for his border wall.
Finally acknowledging what his opponents and critics said from the first time Trump made his claims about the wall, the President stated all funding for his wall comes from the United States budget. It is not directly or even indirectly going to be paid for by Mexico and it never was.
And Twitter slammed him for it:
Trump's admission that taxpayers would foot the bill comes just after a report from Customs and Border Patrol that all prototype models for Trump's wall failed in testing. The Department of Homeland Security paid $20 million dollars for the failed prototypes.
Congress gave Trump $1.6 billion towards border security, but the majority of funds went to repairs for the wall that already exists along major stretches of the border with Mexico. Some also went to the contracts to design and build the eight failed prototypes.
But who actually wants the wall? Polling numbers on the wall's popularity consistently show it is not the majority of people in the United States. Experts in immigration also stated the wall is an extravagant expense with limited effectiveness.
The majority of people entering the United States come on valid visas by plane, boat or other form of transit. After their student, work or tourist visa expires, they do not leave. A wall does nothing to curb the majority of people entering the US.
