US Elections Live: Trump Arrives in Alamo City, Texas to Exhibit Wall

KEY POINTS:
• Trump has come to Texas to display the border wall between the United States and Mexico.
• Trump told reporters at the White House before his flight that the prospect of impeachment is causing “tremendous anger” in the nation.
• The House will begin debating impeachment on Wednesday, a week before the inauguration of Democrat Joe Biden, on January 20.

President Donald Trump has arrived in Texas where he is showing one of his “achievements” of his presidency: the border wall between the United States and Mexico.

Trump was seen addressing supporters who greeted him as he got off Air Force One at Valley International Airport.

The current president is speaking at the wall site.

He’s in state to tout one of the pillars of his presidency: his campaign against illegal immigration.

Before traveling, he spoke about the “tremendous anger” at his impeachment. His comments were the first to reporters since the attack on the Capitol. He did not accept questions.

Trump told reporters at the White House that the prospect of impeachment is causing “tremendous anger” across the nation. But he said he doesn’t want “violence.”

On impeachment, Trump said that it is “something really terrible what they are doing.” He called the second impeachment process “absolutely ridiculous.” But he added: “We don’t want violence. Never violence.”

Trump assumes no responsibility for his role in fomenting the violent insurrection on the United States Capitol last week.

He said the “real problem” was not his rhetoric, but the rhetoric Democrats used to describe the Black Lives Matter protests and violence in Seattle and Portland this summer. “Everyone thought it was totally appropriate,” Trump said of his own comments.

Minutes before his supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump encouraged them to march on the headquarters of the nation’s government where lawmakers counted Electoral College votes affirming the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. Trump, for months, had also spread unsubstantiated claims that the November elections were fraudulent, despite his own administration’s conclusions to the contrary. While the rioters were still on Capitol Hill, Trump released a video apparently excusing the events, saying of the rioters: “We love you. You are very special.”

Trump heads to Alamo City, named after the San Antonio mission, where a small group of Texas independence fighters fought back against Mexican forces during a 13-day siege. Most of them were killed, but the mission became a symbol of resistance for Texans, who eventually defeated the Mexican army.

Trump’s visit, no doubt also a symbol of the president’s defiance, comes as he spends the final days of his presidency isolated, aggrieved and looking towards the prospect of a second impeachment after his supporters stormed the United States Capitol. last week in an effort to stop the peaceful transition of power.

Trump faces a single count, “incitement to insurrection,” in the impeachment resolution that the House will begin debating on Thursday (New Zealand time), a week before Democrat Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.

Unprecedented events – only the first US president to be indicted twice – are unfolding in a nation preparing for more unrest. The FBI has alarmingly warned of possible armed protests in Washington and many states by Trump loyalists ahead of Biden’s inauguration. In a dark omen, the Washington Monument has been closed to the public and the dedication ceremony on the west steps of the Capitol will be off limits to the public.

Aides have been urging the president to use his remaining days in office to highlight what they see as the main achievements of his presidency: a massive tax cut, his efforts to roll back federal regulations, and the transformation of the federal courts with the appointment of conservative judges. But Trump has repeatedly resisted their efforts as he has remained installed in the White House, behind closed doors, consumed by baseless accusations of election fraud and conspiracies.

In fact, the trip will mark the first time Trump has been seen in public since his speech to supporters on Wednesday, prompting them to “fight” against the violence on Capitol Hill.

Trump is expected to make comments highlighting his administration’s efforts to curb illegal immigration and the progress made on his 2016 campaign promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” along the southern border, an imposing structure made made of concrete and reinforced steel. .

Over time, Trump demanded modifications that have been largely rejected: he wanted it painted black to burn the hands of those who touched it; I wanted it adorned with deadly spikes; I even wanted to surround it with a moat full of alligators.

Ultimately, his administration has overseen the construction of approximately 724 km of the border wall, likely to reach 764 km by the day of the inauguration. The vast majority of that wall replaces the smaller barriers that already existed, although the new wall is considerably more difficult to get around.

Over the past four years, Trump and his administration have taken extreme, and often illegal, measures to try to curb both illegal and legal immigration.

His efforts were aided in his final year by the coronavirus pandemic, which brought international travel to a standstill. But the number of people who stopped trying to cross the southern border illegally has risen in recent months. Figures for December show nearly 74,000 encounters on the southwest border, 3 percent more than in November and 81 percent more than the previous year.

Mark Morgan, Acting Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, warned the next administration that easing the Trump administration’s policies, including halting wall construction, would lead to an increase in people seeking to cross the border. , creating “an absolute crisis in the country. first weeks.”

President-elect Joe Biden has said he will stop construction of the border wall and take executive action where possible to reverse some of Trump’s restrictions on legal immigration and asylum seekers.

But Biden and his aides have recognized the possibility of a new crisis at the border if they act too quickly, and Biden has said it could take his administration six months to secure the funds and put in place the infrastructure needed to ease the restrictions of the era. Trump. .

Chad Wolf, acting secretary of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, will be missing from the trip. He abruptly resigned on Monday, days after he pledged to serve Trump’s full term.

After the Capitol violence, groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center urged Trump to suspend his visit.

“The violence that Trump incited last week and the violence that his anti-immigrant policies provoke come from the alarming incorporation of the white nationalist ideology that our country must take into account and fight to uproot,” said Efrén Olivares, deputy legal director of Immigrant Justice from the center. Draft.

“The president’s planned trip to the border will only increase the damage and generate more violence.”

Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is asking the FBI to add anyone identified who violated the Capitol during last week’s violent riots to the federal no-fly list.

Schumer sent a letter Tuesday to FBI Director Christopher Wray saying the attack on Capitol Hill as Congress was voting to claim that President-elect Joe Biden’s victory was “domestic terrorism.”

He said those who stormed the Capitol should qualify as “insurgents for the No Flying List.” Schumer told Wray that they must also be fully prosecuted to the full extent of federal law. – AP