Trump Mexico wall building to start within months

Trump Mexico wall building to start within months

NEWS: goo.gl/a3kAcQ



President Donald Trump has started the clock ticking on his pledge to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and believes construction will start 'in months.'

He spoke in his first interview since being inaugurated, with ABC Nightly News anchor David Muir.





ABC News broke into lunch-hour programming – Washington, D.C. viewers missed a few minutes of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' – in order to broadcast a brief teaser from Wednesday's Oval Office interview.

Construction will begin 'as soon as we can, as soon as we can physically do it,' Trump said.

Asked if it would be just a matter of months, the president agreed.

'I would say in months, yeah. I would say in months. Certainly planning is starting immediately.'

Trump repeated his frequent campaign claim that Mexico will, one way or another, 'absolutely, 100 per cent' pay for the wall.

The president believes the giant public works project will dramatically reduce the northward flow of illegal immigrants and narcotics into U.S. border states and beyond.

On Wednesday he provided one of his vaguest explanations yet of how that payment would be structured.



'Ultimately it'll come out of what's happening with Mexico. We're going to be starting those negotiations relatively soon, and we will be, in a form. reimbursed by Mexico,' Trump said.

'It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form,' he added, putting less meat on his idea's bones than usual.

Trump dismissed Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto's steadfast denials that his country would ever pay to erect a wall on its northern edge.

Peña Nieto told his nation's diplomatic corps two weeks ago that he has 'differences with the new United States government on some issues, such as a wall that Mexico absolutely will not pay for. At no time will we accept anything that goes against our dignity as a country and our dignity as Mexicans.'

Trump scoffed.

'Well, I think he has to say that. He has to say that,' he declared. 'But I'm just telling you there will be a payment.'



'What I'm doing is good for the United States,' the president declared. 'It's also going to be good for Mexico. We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico.'

ABC's David Muir and Jonathan Karl interviewed Trump at the White House, and described an exchange about the president's views on torturing suspected combatants in the War on Terror.

'This is a fascinating conversation,' Karl recalled, describing differences of opinion between Trump and Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

'He tells you that General Mattis surprised him by saying he doesn't think that waterboarding works, he doesn't think that torture works,' Karl said.

'And then he made it very clear that Donald Trump still very much believes that torture works, and he said in the last 24 hours he has spoken to top intelligence people who say it does work.'

'So for now,' the newsman concluded, 'no waterboarding, no torture. But he made it clear that he could bring it back.'



'Beginning today the United States of America ...gets back its borders': Trump signs orders to build Mexican wall and attack sanctuary cities, announces 5,000 new border guards and triples immigration enforcement force as he goes to war on immigration

President Donald Trump cracked down on illegal immigration on Wednesday, signing off on two executive actions to restore law and order.

One of the orders he signed jumpstarts construction of a wall on the border with Mexico, the White House says, the other defunds sanctuary cities like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago that harbor illegal immigrants.

'A nation without borders is not a nation,' Trump told Department of Homeland Security employees after signing the orders. 'Beginning today the United States of America...gets back its borders.'

To help with the 'crisis' at the southern border, Trump gave DHS the authority to hire another 5,000 border patrol officers and triple its roster of immigration enforcement agents.



For 'too long' immigration official and border patrol agents 'haven't been allowed to properly do their jobs.

'That's all about to change,' Trump told employees of DHS. 'And I'm very happy about it, and you're happy about it.' Immigration laws will be 'enforced and enforced strongly,' he added.

The president said he was recognizing members of those agencies in his remarks 'not because they unanimously endorsed me for president.

'That helps, but that's not the only reason,' he teased.

Trump signed the executive orders this afternoon at DHS before his address.

He said in the remarks that followed that he expects the United