Despite the fact that the border deal legislation includes a mere fraction of the funds President Donald Trump wants for the border wall, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is spinning the legislation as a win for the administration.
The White House seems to be using a two-pronged tactic to make the deal a win for Trump: parroting back House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) sarcastic statement during the shutdown that Democrats would allot one dollar for the wall, and lumping in the funds for all border measures to inflate the number.
“Nancy Pelosi said she wasn’t going to give a dollar for the wall,” Sanders told the Fox and Friends hosts Wednesday morning. “This has roughly $1.4 billion that will go towards the wall.”
Pelosi technically said that she would give one dollar for the wall, but, semantics.
“In total it gives $23 billion in border security which is desperately needed,” Sanders added.
Trump stuck to a similar tactic while tweeting Tuesday night, emphasizing the total amount of money going to various border security measures (many of which Democrats support) rather than the $1.4 billion going to his wall, a sharp downsizing from the $5.7 billion he wants.
Watch Sanders here:
Sanders starts spinning border deal pic.twitter.com/fEqvWnEGyn
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) February 13, 2019
