Pr🧜esident Trump delivered a downbeat Christmas greeting to Americans Tuesday morning, airing a laundry list of grievances about his border wall, the economy, government shutdown and even James Comey.
“It’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country,” the president said. “But other than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas.”
Trump, a sour expression on his face, kept pushing for his wall, insisted that it would be so effective at preventing illegal immigration that only “an Olympic champion … can get over the wall.”
The commander-in-chief also repeated his claim that portions of the wall had already been built, an assertion refuted by multiple fact-checkers, who𝐆 say that large sections of fencing have been repaired and concertina wire installed but no wall construction has begun.
Trump, however, insisted it would be completed by Election Day 2020 even as Congress h🔯as refused to give him the $5 billion he had demand🍷ed, resulting in the shutdown.
“One other thing people don’t understand or know or whatever but they might as well … we’ve renovated massive amounts of very good wall, wall that was good but was in bad shape. So you don’t have to replace it but you have to renovate it, and we’ve renovated a massive amount of wall,” the president said.
“And in addition to that, and I think very, very importantly, we’ve built a lot of new wall. So it’s all being built, the new piece, the new section is very, very exciting, what’s going on there. And you’ll see it, because in January I’m going to there. We’re almost having a groundbreaking, it’s such a big section. It’s probablyꦓ the biggest section we’ll get out. So while we’re fighting over funding, we’re also building. and it’s my hope to have this done, completed, all 500 to 550 miles, to have it either renovated or brand-new, by Election Day.”
Trump did not specify who was doing the work or how it would be 🔯paid for, and said without explanation that the $25 billion he had been seeking for wall funding had already been found, though Congress has not authorized any funding fo🐭r the wall.
“Different people. Different people. Highly bid,” he said when asked who was doing the wor༺k.
“You have to understand, it’s complicated. Because we’re getting $25 billion. It’s already approve♏d, but that’s for everything. That’s for homelan𝔍d security,” he continued.
“That includes, as we say, the bells and whistles. We have a lot of drones,⛄ a lot of everything. Plus we have some wall money in there. But we want the wall money to be increased, because I want to finish it. but 🎐what people have to understand, it has been strongly started, a lot of areas,“ Trump said.
Asked about Monday’s stock market plunge and his attitude toward Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, ꧙whom he appointed but has also blamed for the recent market woes, Trump said: “We’ll see” and that he lacked confidence in Powell.
The president has been enraged oveℱr the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates in light of the strong overall econom💛y.
“The𝄹y’re raising interest rates too fast, that’s my opinion. I shouldn’t have confidence. They’re raising rates too fast because they think the economy is so good. But I think they will get it pretty soon. I really do,” Trump said, a day after the Dow lost more than 650 points and fell 2.9 percent — the worst Christmas Eve performance ever.
“I mean, the fact is that the economy is doing so well that they raised interest rates and. President Obama had a very low-interest rate. We have a normalized interest rate, a normalized interest rate, it’s good for a lot of people. They have money in the bank, they get interest on their money,”🧜 he said.
Trump then said the shutdown of roughly 25 percent of the federal g🐟overnment as of midnight Friday could last a while.
“I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open. I can tell you it’s not going to be open until we h🐻ave a wall, a fence, whatever they would like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they want. But it’s all the same thing, it’s a bar��rier from people pouring into our country,” he argued.
The president then claimed that federal workers were reaching out to him and thanking him for the shutdown, and that he remained in the White House for Chri꧋stmas because he didn’t think it was right for him to be at his Mar-a-Lago resort while workers were out of a job in DC.
”I’ve been at the White House, I love the Wh𒁃ite House, but I wasn’t able to be with my family. I thought it would be wrong for me to be with my family, my family is in Florida, Palm Beach, and I just didn’t want to go down and be there when other people are out,” he said.
“But many of those workers have said to me and communicated, ‘Stay out until you gꦿet the funding for the wall.’ These federal workers want t𓃲he wall. The only one that doesn’t want the wall are the Democrats,” he charged.
Finally, the president once again lashed out at the former FBI director, saying that Democrats hated Comey before he fired him, but love h♛im now — comparing that to the wall fight, in which Democrats, Trump said, favored the wall before he made it a campaign issue.
“I said I want to build a wall, they were all against it. It’s like, take another example. Take Comey. Everybody hated Comey, they thought ❀he did a horrible job’ he said.
“And once I fired him, everybody said, ‘Oh, why did you fire him, whyꦅ did you fire him?’ Take a look at some of these people. Literally the day before I fired h🎉im they were saying he should be fired. It’s a disgrace, what’s happening in our country,” he said.
“But ot🌟her than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Ch🎐ristmas.”