Page:Remarks by President Trump on the National Security and Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border.djvu/12

2/17/2019 got to get rid of drugs and gangs and people. It’s an invasion. We have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country that we stop, but it’s very hard to stop. With a wall, it would be very easy.

So I think that we will be very successful in court. I think it’s clear. And the people that say we create precedent — well, what do you have? Fifty-six? There are a lot of times — well, that’s creating precedent. And many of those are far less important than having a border. If you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country.

You know, we fight — before I got here — we fight all over the world to create borders for countries, but we don’t create a border for our own country.

So I think what will happen is, sadly, we’ll be sued, and sadly, it’ll go through a process. And, happily, we’ll win — I think.

Go ahead. Let’s go. Let’s hear it, NBC. Come on.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to say, in the past, when President Obama tried to use executive action as it related to immigration, you said, “The whole concept of executive order, it’s not the way the country is supposed to be run.” You said, “You’re supposed to go through Congress and make a deal.” Will you concede that you were unable to make the deal that you had promised in the past, and that the deal you’re ending up with now from Congress is less than what you could have had before a 35-day shutdown?

THE PRESIDENT: No. Look, I went through Congress. I made a deal. I got almost $1.4 billion when I wasn’t supposed to get one dollar — not one dollar. “He’s not going to get one dollar.” Well, I got $1.4 billion. But I’m not happy with it. I also got billions and billions of dollars for other things — port of entries, lots of different things. The purchase of drug equipment. More than we were even requesting.

In fact, the primary fight was on the wall. Everything else, we have so much, as I said, I don’t know what to do with it we have so much money. But on the wall, they skimped.

So I did — I was successful, in that sense, but I want to do it faster. I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster. And I don’t have to do it for https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-national-security-humanitarian-crisis-southern-border/