Monday on CNN’s “The Lead,” host Jake Tapper said President Donald Trump was “lying” to advance his call for a border wall.
In the show opening, Tapper said, “President Trump heading to the border as he repeats the lie that the border wall saved the city of El Paso, TX.”
He continued, “As lawmakers are meeting right now to try to avoid the inflicting of pain on the American people by their own government due to yet another partial government shutdown, President Trump is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border tonight to the city of El Paso, Texas to pick up the political fight and that he seems to relish and continue to spread a falsehood that he loves to trot out.”
Tapper explained, “The president using a false story that the barriers built in El Paso are exhibit A for why he should get the full $5.7 billion he demanded for a border wall or barrier or metal slats or whatever it is this week. Here is the problem; whatever your position on border barriers or a border wall, the case the president lays out about El Paso is simply false. El Paso has never had ‘one of the highest rates of violent crime in the entire country,’ according to FBI data. Its violent crime rate has been well below the average rate for the top 35 cities with a population over 500,000. Lower in El Paso in fact than Houston or Dallas or Ft. Worth. Large Texas cities not on the border. Let’s get to the other point. How did the barrier that was built there impact the city? FBI crime data shows violent crime in El Paso actually peaked in 1993 and continued on a downward trend falling 60% over the next 13 years. Border wall construction didn’t begin until 2008. Violent crime did not actually drop then. It actually increased 5.5 % from the year before construction of the fence started to the year it was completed.”
He continued, “It is correct that Customs and Border Patrol officials would like more barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border. That’s not in dispute. But the president wants to depict undocumented immigrants as hordes of almost entirely violent criminals, which is not true. So he makes claims that are also not true.”
He added, “The president is lying to you to get his border wall.”
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