Fox News host Chris Wallace challenged the Trump administration’s repeated claims about terrorism and the southwestern border of the United States while interviewing White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Sunday.
Sanders told Wallace that President Trump meant what he said when he declared that he would keep the government shut down for “years” if necessary, in order to secure funding for his border wall.
Wallace then played a clip of Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen claiming, at last week’s Rose Garden press conference, that “CBP has stopped over 3,000 what we call special interest aliens trying to come into the country on the southern border. Those are aliens who the Intel community has identified are of concern.”
Wallace: “the state department says, quote, ‘there were no credible evidence of any terrorist coming across the border from Mexico,’” citing a report that was released in September.
“We know that roughly nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally, and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry is southern border,” Sanders began, but Wallace cut her off.
“I know the statistic, I didn’t know if you were going to use it, but I studied up on this,” Wallace said. “Do you know what those 4,000 people come where they are captured? Airports.”
“Not always…” Sanders said weakly.
“Airports. The state department says there hasn’t been any terrorists found coming across the southern border,” Wallace said.
“It’s by air it’s by land it’s by sea, it’s all of the above,” Sanders said, “but one thing that you’re forgetting is at the most vulnerable point of entry that we have into this country is our southern border. You have to protect it, and the more and more that individuals know that…”
“But they’re not coming across the southern border, Sarah, they’re coming and they’re being stopped at airports,” Wallace interrupted, once again.
“They’re coming a number of ways, they’re certainly, I’m not disagreeing with you that they’re coming through airports,” a flustered Sanders replied. “I’m saying that they come by air by land and by sea, and the more and more that our border becomes vulnerable and the less and less that we spend time and money protecting it the more that we’re going to have an influx, not just of terrorists, but of human traffickers and drug inflow.”
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8 Responses
It is really hard to “hide” when flying in by plane, so many people of concern are caught. A lot easier to get away with sneaking across (or under) the border. The latter are not caught so easily so may never show up on statistics. In any case, it seems impossible to believe that terrorists are so stupid that when the airport is blocked off they cannot figure out that sneaking across the border is an alternative. Are we really going to count on the terrorists being that stupid? And one further point. Just exactly what is the definition of “terrorist” here? Is this a game of semantics? The way some of those that cross the Mexican border behave (say MS13) could qualify for the term “terrorist”.
georgeg +1
Georgeg +1+1
How can you trust that wild eyed liberal socialist Chris Wallace, LOL!
Of the 4000, there were all of 6 people of interest stopped at the southern border and none arrested. Only the brainless don’t use their brains.
Agree with number 1 💯. They’re getting caught at the airport but they’re coming in undetected at the southern border
Look at all the terror attacks in America since and including 9/11. They all came across the Mexican border. All the 9/11 came across the Mexican border. Oh wait. They all flew in. We dont need a wall. We need a steel roof preventing planes from landing in Ameica. Think
Sanders did not fluster
she responded powerfully and straight forward
its about time theyeshivaworld should stop copy pasting from CNN
The interesting thing about all of this talk about the wall stopping terrorists, is that the vast majority of Americans killed in terrorist attacks since 9/11 were killed by right wing extremist or other home grown mass shooters. If the president and the republicans are so concerned about our safety, instead of spending billions on a wall, why don’t they use the money to run a gun buy back and get the weapons off the streets. There are over 35,000 deaths from Firearms each year, vs maybe a few dozen by “terrorism”, and most of that is not even from illegal immigrants, in fact, some years its all home grown, if at all. You are statistically more likely to be shot by a toddler, than by a terrorist coming over the border. The biggest kicker of all is that not one of the 9/11 hijackers even came over the border illegally, they all came in on flights using student or visitor visas!