Brooke Baldwin Baffled by Trump’s ‘Professional Mountain Climbers’ Wall Remark: ‘What?’
President Donald Trump visited Southern California Tuesday to examine prototypes of a border wall, which he thinks will stop “professional mountain climbers” otherwise known to him as Mexicans.
In response, CNN’s Brooke Baldwin had only one word: “What?!”
As if the less-than-diplomatic remarks weren’t shocking enough, one former official with insider knowledge of drug trafficking operations said the wall doesn’t come close to addressing the heart of the issue, part of which lies underground.
In an interview with Baldwin following Trump’s remarks, Former Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Sandweg said the notion that a wall would cut off the drug flow into the U.S. was “disturbing.”
“I’ve been right not that far away from where the president is standing in a drug tunnel that we seized and stopped…about two miles long, was fully ventilated, it even had a rail system inside,” Sandweg said. “Drugs are not coming in, cocaine and heroin are not being seized between the ports of entry, meaning people crossing the border at land, very rarely are they bringing in cocaine and heroin.”
Rather than hauling drugs over a wall, Sandweg said at land, traffickers are using “legal ports of entry” including cars, boats and planes.
Deliveries are made, he said, “even through the ocean up in the beaches, you know, all the way north, all the way to Los Angeles, we’re seeing boats coming fourth bringing in drugs and people, smuggling them into the United States.”
Sandweg suggested the billions of dollars that would be spent on a wall be redirected to more sensible initiatives.
Watch above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com