Trump threatens to close US border with Mexico on heels of raucous post-Mueller rally
The president feels newly emboldened
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Donald Trump has claimed he may close the border with Mexico next week - the latest threat from an a newly emboldened president following the completion of the Mueller report.
Speaking to reporters at his estate in Florida, the president said he would take the step - potentially disrupting millions of legal border crossings and billions of dollars in trade - if Mexico did not stop immigrants reaching the United States. His words were an indication his mind is fixed firmly on the re-election battle he will soon be embroiled in, and the need to energise his base ahead of what will be a bitter fight.
“There’s a very good likelihood that I’ll be closing the border next week, and that will be just fine with me,” he said.
Reuters pointed out the president has repeatedly said he would close the US border with Mexico during his two years in office, and has not followed through. However, his latest threat comes as the government says it is struggling to deal with a surge of asylum seekers from countries in Central America who travel through Mexico.
Department of Homeland Security officials warned that traffic with Mexico could slow as the agency shifts 750 border personnel from ports of entry to help process asylum seekers who are turning up between official crossing points, the news agency said.
Some of those delays were already being felt on both sides of the international border. Reports said that on Friday afternoon, the wait was longer than usual on the Mexican side of the crossing between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas, with long lines of freight trucks carrying goods from Mexican factories into the United States.
Mr Trump’s threat was just the latest indication he is feeling newly empowered since the completion of the Mueller report. The report found his campaign did not collude with Russia, and while Mr Mueller pointedly did not reach a conclusion as to whether or not he obstructed justice, attorney general William Barr said he and his deputy, had decided there was insufficient evidence of a crime.
“Robert Mueller was a Hero to the Radical Left Democrats, until he ruled that there was No Collusion with Russia (so ridiculous to even say!). After more than two years since the “insurance policy” statement was made by a dirty cop, I got the answers I wanted, the Truth,” Mr Trump tweeted on Friday evening.
On Thursday evening, Mr Trump delivered a wild address to supporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, branding the Mueller investigation “the single greatest political hoax in the history of our country” and accusing House Democrats of “defrauding the public with ridiculous bulls***”.
The president also thanked his friends at Fox News for their support, attacked renewable energy and asylum seekers and, bizarrely, applauded the nearby Great Lakes for their “record deepness”.
His son, Donald Trump Jr, smirked as the crowd chanted “AOC sucks!”, in reference to Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on the same day that details of the president’s dodging an interview with the FBI special counsel during the 22-month probe began to emerge.
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Donald Trump has recently taken to complaining about the amount the US has spent on aid to Puerto Rico since the island was struck by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Governor Ricardo Ros Rossello has a few choice words for President Trump.
On Tuesday, the president held an Oval Office meeting with Fabiana Rosales, wife of Venezuela's opposition leader and self-declared president Juan Guaido, and called on Russia to "get out" of the troubled South American nation.
Two Russian air force planes landed outside Caracas on Saturday carrying nearly 100 Russian troops, according to local media reports, there to discuss military cooperation with the Nicolas Maduro regime rather than operations. Or so they say.
Washington has called on Maduro to step down with his election win in dispute and the country mired in a hyperinflation crisis.
The Kremlin has since told Washington precisely where to get off.
President Trump is known for creating policies on the fly and catching his staff off-guard and did so yesterday en route to his Michigan speech, to the huge embarrassment of education secretary Betsy DeVos.
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House for the rally, Trump said he had authorised funding for the Special Olympics, following a public outcry over DeVos's announcement it would be cut. "I heard about it this morning. I have overridden my people. We're funding the Special Olympics."
The president's sudden reversal reflected a political desire to move away from a plan that was not expected to pass Congress, but also underscored Trump's comfort with undercutting top officials.
Devos, forced to walk back her defence of the cuts proposal, issued a statement, saying: "I am pleased and grateful the president and I see eye to eye on this issue and that he has decided to fund our Special Olympics grant. This is funding I have fought for behind the scenes over the last several years."
Her remarks were in sharp contrast to her comments to Senate Democrats in a budget hearing earlier in the day.
DeVos had said her department had to make "tough choices" on the budget and insisted the Special Olympics should be supported through private donations.
In a heated exchange with Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, DeVos had said she "wasn't personally involved" in pushing for elimination of the funding, but she defended it as her agency seeks to cut $7bn (£5.3bn) for the 2020 budget. "Let's not use disabled children in a twisted way for your political narrative," she said.
Two Trump-related gems you might have missed from yesterday.
1) The Trump campaign has wasted no time in capitalising on the Mueller report (before it's even been made available) by selling "witch hunt" merchandise.
Mugs and T-shirts retail for $30 (£22) each and stickers will set you back $9 (£6.80).
2) Environmental activists wearing Creature from the Black Lagoon masks trolled Trump's nominee to head the Department of the Interior, David Bernhardt, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Democrats on Capitol Hill are growing increasingly exasperated at Trump's grandstanding about William Barr's "no collusion" verdict on the Mueller report and by the attorney-general's failure to release the original in full, saying he expects to miss the 2 April deadline.
Shaking her fist for emphasis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday Barr's summary was "condescending" and "arrogant".
"Mr Attorney-General, show us the report and we'll come to our own conclusions."
She asked what Trump and the Republicans were afraid of and even mocked them as "scaredy-cats".
Connecticut congressman Jim Himes, a Democratic member of Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee, worries the Trump camp will use an executive privilege defence to prevent the release of information damaging to the president from the Mueller report.
This was the same tactic White House lawyer Emmett Flood used to shield Trump from a one-on-one interview with Robert Mueller, according to The Washington Post (see below).
George Conway is educating Trump on American lawmaking with a classic 1976 segment of the children's show Schoolhouse Rock.
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