Fox News’ Shepard Smith Fires Back At Donald Trump Over Border Wall Claim
Shepard Smith, one of the few left-leaning anchors at Fox News, called out President Donald Trump on Wednesday over a comment the president made on Twitter about the proposed border wall.
On Wednesday afternoon, the president tweeted video footage of what appeared to be new border wall sections on the U.S. border, claiming in the tweet that “The Wall is going up very fast despite total Obstruction by Democrats in Congress, and elsewhere!”
According to The Hill, Smith quickly pointed out that Trump wasn’t being truthful, reminding his viewers that the wall footage that the president posted actually featured a replacement of the original wall that was there.
“So far, despite the president’s claims to the contrary, there is no new wall,” Smith said. “Existing barriers have been replaced. Same span. The total of repaired barrier is about 60 miles along that 2,000-mile border.”
Smith doubled down in his call-out of the president’s claims.
“The president also said in the tweet that the wall is going up rapidly. It is not. As we just reported, there’s no new wall. Only replacement for walls which were in need of repair or upgrade. Those are the facts,” the Fox News anchor said.
Smith, in an effort to solidify his retort to Trump’s claims, cited a recent article from The Washington Post that indicated the president’s sense of worry over the possibility that the border wall wouldn’t be completed before the presidential election in 2020.
He also said the article detailed Trump’s instructions to his aides to get the wall built by whatever means necessary and that if they broke any laws in the process, the president would pardon them.
According to The Hill, an anonymous official in Trump’s White House reportedly told the newspaper that the pardon talk was nothing more than a joke.
Fox News's Shepard Smith pushes back on Trump: "There's no new wall … not true" https://t.co/kABO45IgTf pic.twitter.com/N42Ai4o57m
— The Hill (@thehill) August 29, 2019
In a Wednesday tweet, Trump excoriated The Washington Post for publishing the story, which the president labeled as “totally fake” before leveling an accusation that the news outlet made up the story with bad intentions.
Taking advantage of the newspaper’s report, two 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls slammed the president for reportedly offering pardons to his administration.
Sen. Kamala Harris blasted Trump as a “lawless president,” and former Texas representative Beto O’Rourke accused Trump of believing he’s above the law.
Trump’s promise to his supporters that he would have a border wall built on the southern U.S. border to help quell the number of people crossing the border illegally was a cornerstone of his 2016 presidential campaign.
Then-candidate Trump also pledged to make Mexico pay for the wall, which to date, hasn’t happened.
