Today, America’s Voice launched a new, six-figure week long television and digital advertising campaign uplifting bipartisan voices against Trump’s border wall and urging Americans to encourage their members of Congress to oppose funding for his border wall and his threats of declaring a national emergency to detract from military readiness to do so.
The TV ad buy targets cable news in the DC Metro area during primetime, daytime, and, yes, “executive time.”
As the national security and conservative voices in the ad make clear, there is no actual national security crisis or national emergency worthy of a declaration at the border. And let’s not forget: Trump promised Mexico – not American taxpayers – would pay for it.
And, as the polling makes clear, Americans strongly oppose Trump’s border wall, the 35-day government Trump shutdown, use of a national security declaration to get his way, and his cynical lies that portray immigrants as dangerous threats. By a 2:1 margin, the public opposes an emergency declaration over the border wall. A CNN poll finds that by a 31-66 percent margin, Americans are opposed to Trump declaring a national emergency in order to build the border wall (24-73 percent among women; 34-63 percent among independents).
The poll is the latest in a long string of recent polling reminders that the more Trump talks about immigration, the less Americans trust him or his anti-immigrant worldview (and are actually growing more pro-immigrant).
According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, “The 2018 midterms and the outcome of the government shutdown speak volumes: Americans are against Trump’s wall, his tactics and his rhetoric. He and his Republican enablers did not make his stupid border wall a priority when they controlled both congressional chambers. He listens to right-wing radio commentators more than the American people. And he lies about immigrants and lies when he says Mexico will pay for it. The true national emergency is not at the border, it’s at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Call Congress. Make your voice heard.”
The script follows below:
Who’s going to pay for the wall?
Mexico!
He doesn’t want the wall so much as he wants a political symbol.
It’s not a national security imperative, it’s a political imperative.
That is not at all the wall along the southern border paid for by Mexico that he was promising the American people.
And what he’s setting the table for is the declaration of the national emergency that will allow him to at least make a cosmetic show of building the wall.
I think that would be a real nuclear option.
