Photo: Jessica McGowan/Getty; Drew Angerer/Getty
After PresidentDonald Trumpasserted in a speech last week that “some” ex-presidents have told him they support his border wall efforts, their representatives are speaking out to rebut that claim.
“And they all know it,” he continued. “Some of them have told me that we should have done it.”
Within days each of the living former presidents — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush andBarack Obama— had reportedly issued statements denying that they said such things.
Vice PresidentMike Pence,addressed Trump’s claim inaTodayinterview on Tuesday.
When Hallie Jackson told him that all of the living presidents’ representatives said Trump was wrong, Pence replied with a semantic dodge: “The president has said that was his impression from previous administrations, previous presidents.”
“I know I’ve seen clips of previous presidents talking about the importance of border security, the importance of addressing illegal immigration,” Pence said.
On Monday Carter became the most recent former president to publicly address Trump’s assertion. The Carter Center issued a brief statement on his behalf: “I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump, and do not support him on the issue.”
With regard to the other living presidents,Bill Clinton,Barack ObamaandGeorge W. Bush, multiple outlets have reported that their reps denied the claim when asked about Trump’s remark.
Angel Urena, a spokeswoman for Clinton, toldCNN,theWashington PostandPoliticothat he never said a wall should’ve been built and that he hasn’t spoken to thereal estate mogul “since inauguration.”
Freddy Ford, Bush’s spokesman, toldPoliticothat he and Trump had never discussed the matter.
A speech Obamagave at Rutgers University in 2016is particularly telling.
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Trump has previously asserted on Twitter that former PresidentRonald Reagan, who died in 2004, tried and failed to build a wall.
“Even President Ronald Reagan tried for 8 years to build a Border Wall, or Fence, and was unable to do so,” he wrote Dec. 21, 2018, the daybefore the government shutdownbegan over funding the wall. “Others also have tried. We will get it done, one way or the other!”
As with Trump’s other assertion, former Reagan staffers denied this as well.
“There was not any discussion at the senior policy levels during the Reagan administration about fencing or a wall that I can recall,” Doris Meissner, who was executive associate commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Reagan administration, told thePostin an email.
The negotiations over funding the border wall have been fruitless so far.
source: people.com
