Did Scott Walker Call for a Northern Border Wall?
Not exactly.
Scott Walker joined Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Sunday.
The Wisconsin Governor answered questions ranging from foreign policy to securing the border.
Following the interview, numerous headlines suggested Scott Walker was gung-ho about making our northern border a little more pronounced.
An Associated Press wire story written by Kevin Freking reported, “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is putting a new twist on the topic of securing the border, a staple among the GOP candidates running for president, by pointing north.”
Written to imply Walker introduced the idea of a Canadian border wall as part of a discussion on immigration enforcement, that’s simply not the case. Chuck Todd introduced the idea and asked Walker if he’d build a northern wall.
“Why are we always talking about the southern border and building a fence there, we don’t talk about our northern border,” said Chuck Todd. “If this is about securing the border from Mus– securing the border from potentially terrorists coming over, do you want to build a wall north of the border too?”
“Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire, they’ve raised some very legitimate concerns including some law enforcement folks who brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago, so that is a legitimate issue for us to look at,” Walker responded.
Though he didn’t refute the idea outright, Walker didn’t explicitly advocate for a wall to keep out northern crossers.
And yet, headlines:
The AP article concluded by attaching Governor Walker’s comments to those Donald Trump made regarding the southern border:
Billionaire Donald Trump is riding the issue of illegal immigration to the top of the Republican presidential primary polls. He has said he would make Mexico pay for completing a permanent wall along the border. He also says he would also end automatic citizenship for those born in the United States, a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that was originally added to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their descendants after the Civil War. His positions appear to have pushed rivals to also take strong stands on immigration.
Walker, at one point, echoed Trump’s call for ending birthright citizenship, but later said he’s against any such repeal.
A less than stellar response, a well crafted AP wire story, et voila, crisis created.
Follow Kemberlee Kaye on Twitter @kemberleekaye
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“A less than stellar response, a well crafted AP wire story, et voila, crisis created.”
That just baffles me, Kemberlee.
It was perfectly fine response, in context, and one any candidate could give. The Collectivist echo-chamber first tortured it and then blasted it all over creation.
The AP story was a butt-load of lies and partial truths. I don’t see it being “well crafted”. It is readable, which is something these days.
The net effect is that all we’ve heard from Walker in a week is a fabrication by the “press”, which is just a crime.
I don’t see it being “well crafted”.
I think she meant “well crafted” in the sense that it achieved the (assumed) goal of making Walker, and by extension all GOP candidates, a bunch of wackos vis-a-vis immigration.
At least, that’s the way I read it. But, I always read your comments as wise and enlightening, so my reading comprehension may be under question. 🙂
Nailed it. That’s exactly what I meant.
I apologize if I wasn’t clear. By “well crafted,” I meant the AP article which misconstrued Walker’s remarks, completely neglected to mention that Todd asked the question, and then immediately went on to attach Walker’s response to Trumps “I’m going to make Mexico pay for a border fence” diatribe. I wasn’t referring to to Walker’s response, which wasn’t all that bad.
“Why are we always talking about the southern border and building a fence there, we don’t talk about our northern border,” said Chuck Todd
_______________
Here’s a hint, Chuckie: which U.S. border has had millions of illegal aliens, many of them violent criminals, crossing over it (and tunneling under it) for the past few decades?
Here’s another hint: NOT the northern U.S. border.
Let me just take the opportunity to reinforce my thoughts on “gradients”.
WHY don’t Canadians flood across our border? The answer is apparent; they have a standard of living very similar to our own.
People from all over the world come here BECAUSE of the gradient between what they can have in other places, versus what they can have here even as illegals.
So, we simply…but EFFECTIVELY…take that away. No gainful employment possible, and no government benefits.
Food for some future thought: how is a dam like a “wall”, and why do you build a dam?
Yes! It seems obvious that if people couldn’t get jobs and couldn’t get benefits they wouldn’t come here. The same is true of the anchor baby argument. If the parents weren’t routinely allowed to be here because of the child, and to receive benefits, having a baby here wouldn’t be worth the trip.
I agree. It’s time to take the sugar off the table.
It will be very instructive to see how the Walker campaign manages their response to this.
It will tell us whether Scott Walker’s ready to take on the unfair media slams that our eventual nominee will need to face.
And it will tell us where Scott Walker’s immigration position is — how soft will he go to point out how ridiculous this characterization is.
It’s not all about “immigrants”; the drug-gang angle is being neglected. There’s not a lot of cross-border activity by the narcotics biz on the northern border.
The narrative is that all Republicans are nukking futts, and Walker has in the past been very effective at undercutting the narrative. So, I am looking forward to his response. This is one reason I would be glad to see him as President. I think he has demonstrated very effective leadership against dishonest opposition.
This is also why I have a tendency to seek out the original document or video, most especially when the story is just a little too smooth. If you want to see it in action, do a key-word search on any Republican candidate and any topic. See how far down the list the original is, if it shows up on the first search at all. Then look at the sources, count how many of them link back to the original, and count how many of them include purposeful falsehoods. This is how the very partisan Democratic-Party press interferes with Republican candidates.
There is another side of it, and that is the protective treatment toward Democrats. I’ve watched Republicans hung out to dry, including recently, over anything that someone decides is a gaffe. Democrats are treated differently. I used to watch hearings on CNN, when Sen. Ted Kennedy said the damnedest things. Joe Biden says weird things. Ted Kennedy was vicious. Had it been a Republican, the Washington Post would have put that stuff on the front page, every time. Ted Kennedy would have been hounded out of office. Because it was Ted Kennedy, about every third to fifth one would be packed into a throw-away line in another story, usually as a humorous highlight. The Washington Post spikes stories about embarrassing statements by Democrats, unless and until other agencies force their hand.
We need links to original videos and documents.
I sent this email in identical form to numerous people:
The level of interpersonal hostility in the comment section is out of control. I don’t even like reading the comment section sometimes, and readers are complaining as well.
So I’m asking people to tone it down and to express viewpoints without name calling. Whatever has happened has happened, and I’m not interested in determining who started it.
From this point forward, comments will be deleted, with blocking accounts a last option.
Thanks.
Terrorist groups like ISIS or Hezbollah working with the Mexican drug cartels aren’t looking for a standard of living similar to our own. So it doesn’t really matter if millions of Canadians aren’t streaming across the border.
They’re in Mexico simply because our southern border is wide open, Mexico is essentially a failed state so they can establish training bases in cartel-controlled territory, and the cartels have well-established smuggling routes and experienced smugglers.
But there is no reason why, if we hardened the southern border that they wouldn’t simply switch to the northern border. It’s thousands of miles long, largely uninhabited, and largely unguarded.
In fact terrorists have been caught trying to cross at established border crossings. There’s no way to know how many have come across either at those crossings with fake IDs or who have made it across in other places.
In fact, in 2011 the Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner, Alan Bersin, testified before Congress that it was commonly accepted in law enforcement circles that for a variety of reasons the Canadian border is a bigger terror threat than the southern border. Given this administration’s track record I doubt the situation has improved since then.
As for the idea of Scott Walker’s statements being well crafted or not, I doubt there is anything he or any other GOP candidate could say on the subject that the Democratic party operatives wouldn’t deliberately misconstrue to make them look like nutcases.
Exactly. The reason to secure the southern border is not all the decent people looking for a better life; if we could reliably identify them we should welcome them with open arms. The reason to secure the southern border is to keep out those people who cross with hostile intent, and those people can just as easily come from Canada. Immediately after the 2001 attacks I recall Mark Steyn remarking on how easy it was to enter the USA from Canada, and how there was no way to know how many terrorists had used that route. The authorities claimed that there was no evidence that any terrorists had come in that way, but of course there wouldn’t be any evidence no matter how many there were, so we’re left not knowing.