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President Trump vows to send as many troops to the border ‘as necessary’ to stop caravan
USA Today
During an interview with USA Today yesterday, President Donald Trump “vowed to send as many troops as necessary to the U.S.-Mexican border to block a growing caravan of Central American migrants, calling their trek ‘an assault on our country,’” David Jackson, Susan Page, and John Fritze report.
HOUSTON – President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to send as many troops as necessary to the U.S.-Mexican border to block a growing caravan of Central American migrants, calling their trek “an assault on our country.”
In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY aboard Air Force One, the president said there were “people from the Middle East” in their ranks, reiterating a claim he made without evidence in a morning tweet. The president declined to say whether his assertion was based on intelligence agencies or some other source.
While Trump has made unsubstantiated charges that Democrats had funded the migrants, he said the television footage that showed them straggling north was rebounding to the political benefit of Republicans in the midterms. The caravan could be seen on a TV, tuned to Fox News, on the wall of his office aboard the presidential aircraft.
“I think this could be a blessing in disguise because it shows how bad our laws are,” he said. “The Democrats are responsible for that.”
That was akin to the unexpected political repercussions of the bitter Senate confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice. The controversy helped energize GOP voters in advance of the Nov. 6 elections, he said.
How many troops was he prepared to send to the border?
“As many as necessary,” he replied.
Trump has pummeled Democrats for weeks on immigration, harping on a proposal raised by some in the liberal wing of the party to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Though the idea is unlikely to ever become law, Trump has used it to paint Democrats as soft on crime and border security.
“In that caravan you have some very bad people and we can’t let that happen to our country,” Trump said.