negotiations about whether or not they can seize the land and pay later. that s the strategy they have now and it s one that jared kushner laz been assigned to carrying out as he is now kind of the unofficial border wall czar, if you will, by his father-in-law to carry this out. another issue though is the contracts. my colleague and i reported on the fact there s now an inspector general investigation into a company known as fischer sand and gravel that got a $400 million contract to build 35 miles of wall on the southern border, and it turns out they might not be able to carry that through. that s what the inspector general is looking at. and they may have been chosen because of outside influence. the president repeatedly touted that company. the swamp is being drained, huh. getting swampier. how do you think trump voters will react to him not delivering on his signature promise. obviously they ve already forgotten they forgot he promised mexico would pay for
Transcripts for MSNBC Morning Joe 20191227 12:23:30 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
year, probably not a lot, but it will go up, the president will point to and say i ve started to build the wall. but three years in nothing s happened. he controlled congress for the first two years, could have got t gotten it done. so there s a new op-ed this morning entitled three years in trump is pushing his border wall. the editors of the new york times write from the earliest days of his campaign to become president, donald trump seized on the construction of a, quote, beautiful wall along the u.s./mexico border as a solution to what he assert dollars watt dangerous and costly problem of illegal immigration. all though the government has managed to erect a total of 93 miles of new fencing, nearly all of it updates or replaces existing barriers. still the administration is pressing forward with what seems like desperation to build up to 500 miles of new wall by the end of 2020 which means the wall will probably once again be a major campaign issue in the
boogeyman scenario that would work. his supporters never thought the wall would be built. what is the plan to break through the road blocks you ve mentioned and others as well there are out there. another road block i should mention is the fact that some of the funding that the administration wanted to use from a defense budget has been held up in court where they said they can t dip into that pot of money. if you can think about almost a year ago when the president said he would reopen the government without congressional funding because he wanted to argue it was a national emergency. that s one road block they have to go through. could they still use the money to buy land but not erect the wall yet? these are things that are being discussed. they also have to look in large part at how long they re willing to spend in court. right now i think what we can t quite understand is why there s this very specific promise by the president and by people at dhs to say they re going to
the idea of the wall as almost as he s likes to fight about the wall. and my question to you, he s talking about this all year next year too. it s going to be a key issue in his re-election, the border wall, not saying he s building it but the democrats have tried to oppose it. what are you hearing in terms of how much of a role is that going to play in 2020 whn it was the wall was sort of his signature issue in 2016, there s a lot on his plate now. but don t you think that the wall and immigration, what are you hearing, is going to play a key part to his re-election as well? yeah, jonathan, we hear definitely that the wall as a as a stand-in for the larger immigration and border issues that are central to the president s re-election campaign will be is now and will continue to be a major focus for not only his rallies, but things that he does and says in washington. the president really feels that