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Empowered by the massive popular resistance anna was describing. the more people get out and protest and manifest their opposition, the stronger we are in congress. but, look, i think the opposition to trump s agenda is already starting to be bipartisan in nature. representative will hurd, with whom i serve on the house oversight and government reform committee expressed his pop sigs to the trump wall today and he represents the district that has the moist territory that would be covered at the border with mexico. and he s a republican congressman. and so we re starting to see big cracks in that republican coalition as a lot of the republican leaders increasingly want to distance themselves from what the trump administration is doing. and they re hearing from their constituents. we ll file briefs when we can and fight on the floor wherever we can. congressman jamie raskin, ....
An example of one option of how to pay for the wall. then nbc s peter alexander asked the president himself about the tax and he replied, and i m going to quote here. we re going to tax people coming in. look, we cannot lose our companies to mexico or any other place and then have them make the product and send it across our borders free. we re going to put a substantial tax on those countries. democrats and republicans alike have started criticizing the proposal on the merits. republican senator lindsey graham succinctly put it on twitter saying any policy proposal which drives up costs of corona, tequila or margaritas is a big time bad idea, mucho sad. joining me now a reporter with the texas tribune. patrick, one of the things i find fascinating is the way all of this so much is about the border and the way the border plays nationally is so different than how it plays along the border so a 20% import tax on max can products, how would that be for texas and particularly those are ....
The newly inaugurated republican president of the united states apparently wants to raise taxes on americans by 20%. that sounds weird but that seems to be what is happening. today aboard air force one press secretary sean spicer was asked about how trump planned to pay for his notorious border wall, the one he has repeatedly claimed mexico will pay for and this is what the press secretary said in response to that. if you tax that 50% $50 billion at 20% of import which is is, by the way, a practice that 160 other countries do right now, our country s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. by doing it that way we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall. if you tax import s 20% you can easily pay for the wall. i guess that s true but it wouldn t be mexico, that tax ....
it really remains to be seen. there was a lot of confusion as you pointed out whether this is a real proposal or something trump is pushing for. i personally didn t hear much support for it from texas republicans. our lieutenant governor dan patrick had some remarks. he was a major trump supporter. he said he doesn t view it as something that will happen but maybe a negotiating tactic donald trump is using as he tries to take a stuff stance toward mexico. but as you pointed out, a lot of uncertainty about whether this is a serious policy proposal or something being floated. as to the wall which there s insistence is going to be built. i talked to a lot of texans and texas republicans who basically said what congressman hurd said, building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border. is that your sense that even if they re not saying publicly, privately republicans in texas who think the idea of building a physical barrier over every inch of the boarder ....
you re right will hurd is the lone republican in texas to say that publicly. all others since the election in their public statements have tried to appear like team players, like they re generally supportive of the idea of a wall but once you press them on the details, you either get silence or vague answers. i think other texas republicans have a more nuanced view on it. our governor for example said it doesn t make sense to build a wall in some parts of the border including big bend national park which is an area that will hurd represents. but a lot of republicans since the election have kept their statements on this generally supportive and vague or silent when you get pressed on the details. what would an increasing trade war and diplomatic standoff with mexico, say a set of tariffs exchanged in a kind of tit for tat fashion or negative economic like a recession or economic shock to mexico. wh would that do for the state of texas? ....