President Donald Trump‘s long-proposed border wall passed a somewhat momentous milestone the other day, when the House Appropriations Committee agreed to include $1.6 billion in funding for the wall in its upcoming budget.
Trump proudly announced the news on Twitter.
Big WIN today for building the wall. It will secure the border & save lives. Now the full House & Senate must act! ➡️https://t.co/TTg7lvBdo2 pic.twitter.com/xhiknXko70
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2017
On his flight to France earlier this week, with the White House press pool in tow on Air Force One, Trump opened up about his “beautiful” wall in what was originally an off-the-record session. The next day, though, the White House released segments of the talk. One particular part of the transcript stood out to Twitter, when Trump talked about innovations his wall would need to keep border patrol agents safe.
https://twitter.com/justinsink/status/885573633099354112
“You have to be able to see through it,” Trump said. “In other words, if you can’t see through that wall—so it could be a steel wall with openings, but you have to have openings because you have to see what’s on the other side of the wall. As horrible as it sounds, when they [drug dealers] throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them—they hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It’s over. As [crazy] as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall. But we have some incredible designs.”
Conversely, border patrol agents could stand further away from the wall on the U.S. side, but it’s also possible that including openings in the wall could keep down material costs. Who knows.
Regardless, here’s a compilation of Wile E. Coyote trying to use a catapult, because that’s pretty much where we are at these days.
Trump also wants the wall to be solar powered, although it’s not clear what a “solar wall” is.
“There is a chance that we can do a solar wall,” he said. “We have major companies looking at that. Look, there’s no better place for solar than the Mexico border—the southern border. And there is a very good chance we can do a solar wall, which would actually look good. But there is a very good chance we could do a solar wall.”
Alright.
