WATCH LIVE: Donald Trump’s Immigration Speech
To wall or not to wall
Donald Trump is expected to deliver his much anticipated immigration speech at 9:00 EST tonight from Phoenix, Arizona. To watch his speech live, see the feed at the bottom of the post.
Trump spent the majority of the day in Mexico, meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto.
According to the New York Times, Mexicans accused President Peña Nieto of committing a ‘historic error’ by inviting Trump on their home turf.
Instead, the predominant feeling here in the Mexican capital is one of betrayal.
“It’s a historic error,” said Enrique Krauze, a well-known historian. “You confront tyrants, you don’t appease them.”
On Mexico’s most popular morning television show on Wednesday, a livid Mr. Krauze likened the president’s meeting with Mr. Trump to the decision by Neville Chamberlain, then the British prime minister, to sit down with Hitler in Munich in 1938.
“It isn’t brave to meet in private with somebody who has insulted and denigrated” Mexicans, Mr. Krauze said. “It isn’t dignified to simply have a dialogue.”
Yes, many Mexicans say, it was Mr. Trump who offended the people of Mexico with his disparaging comments about migrants and his promises to build a border wall paid for by Mexico.
But for many Mexicans, the surprising invitation from Mr. Peña Nieto — who has likened Mr. Trump’s language to that of Hitler and Mussolini in the past — is even worse.
Newspapers, television stations, social media and all manner of national communication were awash in vitriol at the idea of a meeting between the two men.
Discussions primarily concentrated on immigration and trade.
Naturally, curiosity about Trump’s much touted big, beautiful wall between the United States and Mexico graced the headlines. Trump indicated there was no discussion of his wall, while President Peña Nieto claims he started the discussion by telling Trump in no uncertain terms that Mexico would not pay for a wall.
Trump said they didn’t discuss who would pay for his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, despite his long-standing vow to compel Mexico to do so. He and Peña Nieto avoided direct confrontation in front of the cameras, airing their differences on immigration, border security and trade in cordial tones.
But later, Peña Nieto tweeted: “At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall.” The Trump campaign did not immediately comment on the conflicting accounts.
Trump spokesman Jason Miller issued an opaque statement Wednesday evening saying the meeting “was not a negotiation. . . . It is unsurprising that they hold two different views on this issue, and we look forward to continuing the conversation.”
The hastily arranged meeting, which Trump allies hoped would help the Republican nominee ease concerns among U.S. voters about his preparedness for the presidency, came only hours before a major speech on immigration Trump planned to deliver in Phoenix.
Did they talk about the wall or didn’t they? THE MEDIA WANTS TO KNOW. Might help if the Trump campaign’s communication and media response was somewhat unified:
Pence on whether Mexico should pay for wall: "Give me a couple hours and I’ll give you a real solid answer to that question" 1/2
— Ines de La Cuetara (@InesdLC) September 1, 2016
Pence: "I don't want to get in front of Trump's speech tonight (…) there's not gonna be any change in the foundation and principles" 2/2
— Ines de La Cuetara (@InesdLC) September 1, 2016
Watch the livestream of Trump’s immigration speech here:
Follow Kemberlee on Twitter @kemberleekaye
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Translated into English: the Mexican elites are at least as elite as the American elites.
Yes, a political leader of a country espousing his country’s right and desire to maintain it’s borders and sovereignty. How utterly tyrannical!!
So strange. Trump has never served a day in office and he is blames for every ill confronting the world.
Trumpublicans are going to need to take that knife out of their back after this evening and give it back to him. He’s going to need it again after they elect him president.
I would respond to your post but the blood is spurting out of my back so badly that I’m too weak to type.
The #NeverTrump crowd has no plan to get Hillary’s boot off our necks after they help her get elected.
It’s nice you have a group to blame for everything that goes wrong if Trump loses. And you can blame that same group for Trump’s loss as well. Very convenient.
You know there’s not really that many nevertrumpers in the grand scheme of things, right?
Scapegoat away but it’s not getting you anywhere.
Holding people accountable for the consequences of their actions is hardly scapegoating. Especially when those consequences were known beforehand. Especially if they avoided dealing with those consequences by denial.
Despite the fantasy claimed by some here, this election is binary. Trump or Clinton will be elected. The other candidates poll about 11% combined. Under our system, they will NOT be elected. Trump and Clinton are the only possible choices. Potential Trump voters who vote 3rd party hurt Trump. Ditto Clinton voters. Potential Trump voters who don’t vote hurt Trump. Ditto Clinton voters. What hurts Trump helps Clinton. Ditto what hurts Clinton.
The primaries are over. Now is the job is to elect the best candidate from the choices offered. Better choices only exist if you are in denial. And only 2 choices are realistic. The others can’t be elected.
Right now, today, the race is off. Lists of Trump’s faults and shortcomings have value only when contrasted with Hillary’s shortcomings. Absent the comparison they are meaningless. How bad Trump would be in office has meaning only when compared to how bad Clinton would be in office. Because one of them will be in office. And an honest, moral voter chooses the best of the possible choices. The perfect, the ideal, your favorite who should have been the candidate – none of that matters. The only choice is the best of the possible choices. Declaring Trump to be a bad guy is meaningless – he is still the candidate. Showing he is worse than Clinton would have meaning. Can you? If you can prove Trump is the worse candidate, vote for Hillary. If Hillary is worse, vote for Trump. One of them will be elected. Or are you in denial?
Those who believe that a Hillary presidency is an acceptable consequence of defeating Trump are dragging the rest of us into their fantasy world, their denial. Some of them dragged us into Obama 2 when they did the same thing to Romney. If you think I’m scapegoating, look at the consequences of Obama 2. The damage to our country and conservativism has been catastrophic. I am unrepentant and unrelenting in trying to prevent the same mistake, the same denial, the same fantasy from giving us Hillary 1.
And if you think it’s scapegoating, maybe that’s your guilty conscience.
I’m still a registered Republican and plan to vote for many Republican candidates this election and in future elections. If the house and senate are stocked with Republican majorities, feel free to thank me, especially when Trump flames out as expected and Hillary is elected.
Obviously, I think it was a mistake for Republicans to make Trump the nominee. He reinforces every negative stereotype of Republicans and doesn’t represent a positive future for the party. If you were to convince me that Trump is, in fact, the future of the Republican party, then you still wouldn’t get my vote and you’d lose every other vote going forward until the party corrects itself.
My principles, conscience, and intellectual honesty are what makes me a Republican. If you want my vote this Presidential election, try appealing to those. Trump never did that, trashed the people who did, and now as the nominee expects my vote. Good luck with that. And if you’re myopic enough to see that as a vote for Hillary then so be it, but you can’t say you weren’t warned.
Bravo! Well spoken! Thank you.
tyates,
I’m off to see a sick friend this am, so I will answer more completely later, but can you expand on 2 points.
1- how does voting for Trump make him the future of the republican party? Voting for Reagan didn’t make him the future, so I’m not sure why voting for Trump would lock the party to him. Please expand on that.
2- voting republican downstream is good and I commend you. How does it deal with the court nominees that Hillary will appoint? She will eventually get her way on supreme court choices by just nominating another leftist after each rejection. That will lock in the court for decades. And that will overrule conservative legislative attempts regardless of the majorities we get in congress. Do you dispute that would happen? I don’t understand why we would let that happen simply because we are not happy with Trump. Please expand on that.
No, I said *if* you were to convince me that Trump represents the future of the Republican party, then I would no longer be a Republican.
Personally I don’t think he does represent the future any more than, for example, Schwarzenegger did in ’03. For one thing, he doesn’t have a governing philosophy. He just has himself and his people. He has no principles and seems to view them with disdain.
How can I have any confidence in Trump’s supreme court picks? Well, I do have confidence – a confidence that anyone he picks for anything will be a Trump loyalist first and foremost. I’ve never been given a reason to think otherwise.
“He has no principles and seems to view them with disdain.”
Which is it, no principles, or he has them but views them with disdain?
“How can I have any confidence in Trump’s supreme court picks?”
Did you have confidence in George W Bush’s picks? Was Harriet Myers your fav? How do you like Chief Justice Obamacare Roberts?
You can have absolute confidence in shrillary’s supreme court picks.
“My principles, conscience, and intellectual honesty are what makes me a Republican.”
George H W Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and George W Bush thank you.
Hellavu job you’re doing. Me, I’d start examining my “principles, conscience, and intellectual honesty” and try to figure out what went wrong.
tyates,
Let’s start with what we agree on. Trump’s election would not be the end of the republican party or conservativism. Both would survive.
After that it gets murky. I did not ask you about Trump’s court nominees or your feelings about them. Yet that is the answer you chose to give. I did ask about Hillary’s nominees and whether you dispute that they would cause decades of damage to our cause. You ignored that. As I pointed out in my previous reply, and as your answer confirms, anti Trumps live in a world of denial where the comparison of Trump to Hillary is absent. Yet, as of now, that is the only valid comparison. One of them will be president and we have to choose the best or we will get the worst. Your focusing exclusively on Trump’s flaws is denial of reality.
There’s a lot of hubris in your discussion of principles. You seem to think that only you have any. You want Trump and others to change theirs to earn your vote. Would you have wanted your preferred candidate to change the principles that got him chosen to attract Trump voters if the roles were reversed? Which of your principles are negotiable, or is it just the other guy who has to yield? Your view was rejected by the voters who chose Trump as the nominee. I was always taught that, if you don’t make it to the finals, you still support your league in the championships and work harder next year. Neither candidate meets your principles – I understand. But, we already agreed that electing Trump will not destroy the party, conservativism or conservative principles. Trump is the better candidate and will do far less harm than Hillary. And our job is to elect the better candidate.
LOLOLOLOLOL
“It’s a historic error,” said Enrique Krauze, a well-known historian. “You confront tyrants, you don’t appease them.”
this, from a country that elected the same party (PRI) decade after decade, even though each one term president went into retirement as a millionaire or billionaire, while the entire country remained, a third world hellhole of ignorance, squalor, disease, corruption and violence, as it is today, even with other parties changing off who is in power.
it is to laugh, and IDGAF what the mexican intelligentsia, to misuse a word, or their general public, or their best & brightest (/sarc), the illegals busy dragging my country down to their level say or feel about the issue.
Build the Wall, Deport ALL illegals & enforce immigration law.
Trump 2016!
Did they talk about the wall or didn’t they? THE MEDIA WANTS TO KNOW.
So what? Just because they want something is no reason to give it to them.
I have a suspicion that what Nieto thinks about the project’s financing is of no importance whatever; in which case discussions are pointless. Trump never said the financing was going to be voluntary.
But the money is a relatively trivial issue.
The breakthroughs are/were the appearance of a major player in American politics who—
1. was finally willing to express a wish to secure the country’s borders,
2. was willing to actually propose a way to do it,
3. didn’t immediately fold and retreat when attacked with the usual whining critiques,
4. almost certainly doesn’t give a rat’s patoot what anyone in Mexico thinks about it,
5. is not so monomaniacal about it that he thinks Mexico has to be treated as an enemy, to the point that he’s willing to, oh, I don’t know, maybe bombard Vera Cruz to show that he’s serious.
All that’s been accomplished. It sounds like the trip was a success. The inevitable spin by the press and punditry, both American and Mexican, will try to portray it as something else, naturally.
Yes I love the speech by Trump tonight. I can hear the Jacobin Rags head exploding now. Even if I don’t believe Trump can pull it off, it is fun watching Rags lost it here everyday and claim he is against the collective thug.
Trump is proving what I always thought, the establishment is bought and paid for by special interests. If is interesting to see how hard they are attacking Trump. I think he is on to something or they would not fight so hard.
After watching the speech, which has much to digest, it seems that beyond whether it can or will all happen, the mind set to approach policy is most important, and here Trump sets the table well.
Solid speech. I haven’t watched a lot of Trump’s speeches so I don’t know how it measures up, but really liked this one. Good policy approach in simple terms.
I have followed Scott Adams (dilbert) blog series on Trump and look forward to his take on this. He’s had some interesting insight on the campaign so far.
Scott Adams
“Trump sticks the landing by engineering a rare reverse-Khan. (Good luck, critics!) “
Good day for Mr. Trump.
Great day for America.
Has Trump lied to us about building a wall and how tough he was going to be on illegal immigration?
Probably that’s a little strong, perhaps he misled us.
From The Maltese Falcon (approximately)
Oh, I lied to you. Can you ever forgive me for lying to you?
That’s o.k. Those really count as we knew you were lying to us.
I really don’t see the point of the Mexico visit. Trump either had to go there and start talking about deportations, building a wall, tearing up NAFTA, etc and start a international incident, or instead backpedal on all of his promises and talk about “common goals” and look like he really doesn’t mean anything he says. Obviously, he did the latter.
I assume Trump supporters have their rationalization dials turned to max, but for the rest of us, as far as I can tell he wants to improve NAFTA and sign on to CAFTA. Personally I don’t see the US prospering by trading with low income, low wage countries, but then again I’m not a billionaire either.
Maybe not. But what was the point of his Washington rally the day prior? The man doesn’t know what to do with himself.
“It’s a historic error,” said Enrique Krauze, a well-known historian. “You confront tyrants, you don’t appease them.”
You’d think Mexicans should know a tyrant, but no. Trump is no tyrant, he’s a clown.
No you are wrong! He is the next President of the United States!
Crooked Hillary is sinking fast in the polls.
If you like your wall you can keep your wall.
Watch Donald Trump’s Immigration Policy Speech in Phoenix, AZ 8/31/16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w-_NObzPp8
Transcript: Donald Trump’s full immigration speech
http://heavy.com/news/2016/08/read-donald-trump-immigration-speech-august-31-phoenix-arizona-full-transcript-text/
I notice that both the Washington Post and LA Times are publishing “annotated” transcripts online, for the purpose of constructing “rebuttals.” They cannot stand to just report, if someone is running under the Republican label.
What you missed…if you were listening like an American instead of a serf…is any mention of “mass deportation”. In fact, there’s a massive, gaping hole in Der Donald’s (or whoever’s plan it really is) plan. You have a population that have an incentive to hunker down, because Der Donald has expressly stated their status will be decided “later”.
A lot of what he said…and I emphasize “SAID”…is swell. I have grave doubts about his commitment to what he SAID, based on his past as recently as last week.
So if one does not listen or hear as you like, they are not American? Who are you to decide anyway?
Americans have traditionally been skeptical of political crap.
Are you unaware of this?
Americans have always avoided throwing in with a cult of personality, and instead applied basic principles to evaluating an office-seeker.
Is this news to you?
Which is exactly why I questioned, as a skeptic, the ridiculous assertion in your comment!
You could have easily said “if you were listening like a skeptic,” but you said that, unless you believe like ME, you are not an American, but a serf. Nonsense!
And with respect to applying “basic principles to evaluating an office-seeker” rather than “throwing in with a cult of personality,” would you care to explain the Obama phenomenon?
In other words, I need no lessons from you about being aware or what constitutes news.
And with respect to applying “basic principles to evaluating an office-seeker” rather than “throwing in with a cult of personality,” would you care to explain the Obama phenomenon?
=======================================
Sure. Like you T-rump cultists, an Obama cult was a big part of electing the worst president in modern history.
How stupid a question CAN you ask?
LOL, your slavish devotion to Cruz is the precise definition of a cult.
Obama…
Trump 2016…