Trump plugs border wall in exchange with young Easter egg roll attendee
President Trump on Monday took advantage of the White House Easter Egg Roll to promote his administration’s accomplishments and assure a young attendee that a wall along the southern border is being built.
The president and first lady Melania Trump welcomed thousands of people to the South Lawn of the White House for the annual Easter celebration. The president joined children to color cards for members of the military when he said a young man told him, “Keep building that wall.”
“It’s happening. It’s being built now,” Trump said before looking up to other attendees at the annual White House Easter celebration.
“Can you believe that?” Trump said. “He’s going to be a conservative some day.”
The exchange occurs about 30 minutes into the video.
{mosads}The president made the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border a signature campaign pledge when he ran for president in 2016. The wall has been a cornerstone of Trump’s efforts to crackdown on illegal immigration since taking office, though Congress has not allocated the funds the president requested for the structure.
After Congress did not appropriate the $5.7 billion Trump had requested for the wall in its latest round of funding, the president in February declared a national emergency at the border to secure money for his project.
Congress passed a resolution blocking the emergency declaration, but Trump vetoed it. The declaration is still the subject of multiple lawsuits.
Trump took multiple opportunities at Monday’s Easter Egg Roll to promote his administration’s accomplishments.
The president opened the proceedings by speaking to attendees from the White House balcony, flanked on one side by the first lady and the other by the Easter bunny.
“Our country is doing fantastically well,” Trump said. “Probably the best it’s ever done economically. We’re setting records on stock markets. We’re setting records with jobs.”
“Regulations, low taxes, our country has never done better,” he continued. “And do we love our military? Our military is literally being completely rebuilt. We are completely rebuilding our military. It was very depleted, as you know.”