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Donald Trump has long called for a “big, beautiful” wall along the United States-Mexico border. The president has had ambitious plans to secure the border and has had grandiose plans of leaving his mark along the southern border, but his ideas may have been even wilder than initially known.
A report from New York Times late Tuesday, October 1, revealed some of the alleged ideas that were shared behind closed doors.
The allegations come from Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear’s upcoming book Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration. In the book, there are claims that Trump proposed electric spikes at the top of the wall which would be surrounded by a moat “stocked with snakes or alligators.”
Funny enough, Barack Obama spoke in 2011 about the Republicans’ insecurity about the border wall and joked that they could go as far as to suggesting moats filled with alligators. And, well, here we are.
Trump allegedly also proposed “shoot[ing] migrants in the legs to slow them down.”
Is this real life?
According to the report, senior officials who were in the meeting with Trump during his proposals were:
Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary at the time; Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state; Kevin K. McAleenan, the Customs and Border Protection chief at the time; and Stephen Miller, the White House aide who, more than anyone, had orchestrated Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda. Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff was also there, along with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and other senior staff.
Trump was also insistent that the wall be painted “flat black,” but Nielsen informed him it would cost an extra $1 million per mile. Trump also suggested just taking land and letting property owners sue the administration in order to speed up the construction of his wall, but Nielsen again pushed back and said they would need proper permission.
Nielsen eventually resigned from her position as Secretary of Homeland Security.
The wild report from the New York Times highlights the latest signs of turmoil inside of the administration which continues to be surrounded by controversy. Currently, Trump and company are bracing themselves for the impeachment inquiry by House Democrats after a whistleblower shared damning information about his call with the president of Ukraine.
