Fifteen Minutes to the Truth: Trump’s Address and the Democrats’ Response
Last night, in the ten minutes it took the President of the United States, and in the five minutes it took the Speaker of the House and the Senate Minority Leader, to discuss the logjam in negotiations on border security and the partial government shutdown, the truth concerning all of the hubris surrounding these issues came to the forefront…and it wasn’t pretty.
Sadly, many of the President’s supporters who decided to skip the response from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) missed an opportunity to see the full truth on display. Concurrently, Democrat supporters who decided to skip President Donald Trump’s first address from the Oval Office also missed an opportunity to see the truth concerning these two issues.
For the rest of us who invested the requisite nineteen minutes in order to see both of these speeches, the real truth about Washington, D.C. and all that ails it was on full display for all the world to see…and, again, it wasn’t pretty.
In his address to the nation, President Trump did an exemplary job in explaining the nature of what has been and is taking place along the U.S./Mexican border. In copious detail, he recounted the very real human tragedy taking place as a direct result of our flawed immigration policies and the lack of effective border security. The president enumerated the list of harmful and dangerous drugs- meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl- pouring into the United States through the porous border separating our two countries, indicating that more Americans will die each and every year, as the result of this smuggling, than died in fifteen years of the war in Viet Nam. He laid real numbers on the crime statistics directly resulting from this illegal immigrant entry during the last two years- 266,000 arrests, 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes and 4,000 homicides. He told a watching nation of the perils that beset women, one out of three of whom are sexually assaulted, and children making the trek from Central America, including tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who have been sent across the border by those who have no interest in their welfare, and many of whom are being used as “human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.”
The President also reviewed the specific proposals of what he has submitted to Congress, based upon recommendations from the Department of Homeland Security, border agents and law enforcement professionals, which include humanitarian assistance, medical care, technology for detecting drugs, weapons and other illegal contraband. Included in his proposals is $5.7 billion to repair, replace and construct barricades designed to prevent illegal crossings and funnel migration into ports of entry, where each migrant can be identified, assessed and evaluated as to their qualifications for entry. He has asked the Congress to enact immigration reform that will close the current loopholes which otherwise prevent unaccompanied children from being returned to their families in the countries of their origin.
He also recalled four very real and personal accounts of those American citizens in California, Georgia and Maryland who have been savagely victimized by illegal aliens and the very real pain that their families have had to endure, saying he will never forget how these tragic instances have affected real people across our country.
After a three-minute pause between the two speeches, it was the Democrats’ turn to respond to the President’s address and oh, how they did respond…
Without any mention of the illegality and the resulting criminality of what is taking place, and without any specific proposals on what they define as border security, Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer instead took the occasion to deny that the crisis which the President enumerated even exists, accusing the president of manufacturing the crisis and fomenting malicious hatred towards those who seek entry into the United States. Accusing the President of “holding the American people hostage,” engaging in a “temper tantrum,” and shutting down government- all in an effort to build a wall which they see as no deterrent and ineffective to ensure border security- they instead insisted that the President end the shutdown with empty promises that they would subsequently engage in further dialogue following the end of the shutdown. Despite the fact that both of these Democrat leaders have in the past voted in favor of border barricades only to see such votes amount to nothing, and the fact that neither has done anything in their combined 52 years of holding office to bring real solutions to immigration and border control, they presented a fantasy of wanting to address the problem- but only after the President “caves” on the shutdown and abandons his insistence of “building a wall.”
While the President still seeks to end the impasse by arriving upon reasonable compromise, it is the Democrats who insist upon stonewalling the President- all because they hate the man and will deny him any possible victory, and all for the sake of political gamesmanship.
Fifteen minutes to the ugly truth, one which any impartial observer can plainly see- a President who has vowed to uphold the oath of his office by protecting the citizens he was elected to serve, and the overtly-partisan leaders of his opposition who would sooner let the country fall down and continue to see American lives ruined than to work towards a solution to a very real problem that has existed for decades, and has reached a crisis point that is as undeniable as it is in need of permanent resolution.
Fact check that!
-Drew Nickell, 9 January 2019
© 2019 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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