A Fox News host slammed President Donald Trump's failure to deliver on his promised border wall, suggesting that even after two years in office there was still no real plan for the controversial project.
Leland Vittert made his comments Tuesday during an interview with David Mark, the former editor of Politico and current news editor for the conservative Washington Examiner. The host lamented the lack of clarity on the wall's design and the president's failure to secure funding through Congress.
Read More: Donald Trump should pay for part of border wall since he is "wealthy," Republican rep says
The discussion began with the question of what the wall would actually look like. "We haven't heard that from the administration," Vittert said. "We've seen some tweets from the president that have steel slats with spikes on top. He's talked about how it's going to be. It will be big, it's going to be beautiful, it's going to do all these things."
Despite the promises, there has been little in the way of concrete design plans, Vittert said, suggesting his frustrations were shared by Republican lawmakers.
"Even Republicans in Congress have told me, 'Look, it would be a lot easier to fight Democrats on this if we actually had a plan—and that we're going to have a concrete wall from here to here, we're going to have a wall with slats so Border Patrol can see through it from there to there," Vittert said.
"This is the president of the United States's signature domestic policy. It's been two years, are you telling me in two years, [Department of Homeland Security] and the White House couldn't come up with this plan and say, 'Here's the plan for the wall. Now go enact it, Congress.'"
Mark noted that the lack of a clear plan was no great surprise, given that the Trump administration was not really "about those kinds of specifics." Rather, he said, "It's about telling his political base they are working on a wall," whether metaphorical or real.
But for Vittert, "Governing is actually in the details. You'd think that Republicans would have learned that—repeal and replace Obamacare, where they talked about it for so many years, but when it came time to repeal it and replace it, they didn't have any replacement."
Trump allowed the U.S. government to go into a partial shutdown before Christmas over funding for the wall, after Democrats refused to release $5 billion for its construction.
Nancy Pelois, the speaker-designate of the House of Representatives in the new Congress, has said the new Democratic majority in the House would put a priority on finding a solution to the shutdown—which has left 800,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay—when it begins work on January 3.
On Tuesday, Trump signaled he was open to finding a way out of the shutdown with Pelosi's help. "Border Security and the Wall 'thing' and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let's make a deal?" the president tweeted. He did not elaborate on what kind of a deal he would be willing to make.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
David Brennan is Newsweek's Diplomatic Correspondent covering world politics and conflicts from London with a focus on NATO, the European ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
