Pro-Trump Lawmaker Says 'Build A Wall' Doesn't Exactly Mean A Wall
How would Donald Trump's most attention-grabbing promises become reality?
One answer came from one of the members of Congress who would face the task of actually enacting the promises. He's Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Marino, who recently became one of the first prominent Republicans to endorse Trump for president. Marino's answer: On one key issue, Trump doesn't literally mean what he says.
"It doesn't have to be a brick-and-mortar wall here," Marino told NPR's Morning Edition. "We're talking about technology that we have that can sense people's movements," as well as additional border guards.
It was a striking position for Marino to take. He appeared to be interpreting Trump's border policy as no radical departure. It sounded instead like an amplification of the policy the United States already pursues.
Recent administrations, including that of President Obama, have built fences or concrete walls along hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. A casual drive along that border reveals radar-carrying blimps and other signs of sensor technology already deployed. Marino said it hasn't been enough.
The Obama administration, especially in its early years, reported that it substantially increased the number of deportations of people caught in the U.S. illegally — so much so that immigrants' rights groups fiercely complained.
Conservative critics nevertheless insisted that Obama was not serious, complaining that the wall must be higher, and cover the entire border.
Trump captured this sentiment from his campaign's first day, describing many Mexican migrants as "rapists" who were "bringing crime," and vowing to build "a great wall" to seal the border, which Mexico would pay for. Responding to claims that this was wildly impractical given the border landscape, he spoke of his skill as a builder. In a February debate, Trump responded to Mexican criticism by saying: "The wall just got 10 feet taller, believe me."
Yet while Trump's rhetoric remains fierce, Marino's description better captures Trump's position as the candidate has gradually refined it over time. He has limited the apparent scope of his original idea laid out in June.
In that February debate, for example, Trump did not speak of a wall along the entire 1,900-mile border. "We need 1,000 [miles]," he said, "because we have a lot of natural barriers."
He has also said he wants a much higher barrier than the walls and fencing that now exist. But in urging partial coverage of the border, his view is not radically different than that of recent U.S. officials, who have built roughly 700 miles of walls and fences, relying on natural barriers such as mountains to block the rest. It is their position, of course, that Trump has gained so much from excoriating.
Listen to some of the Morning Edition discussion with Rep. Marino and Republican strategist Mark McKinnon:
To hear the full conversation, including a report from NPR's Sarah McCammon in Palm Beach, Fla., click the audio at the top of the page.
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Transcript
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Let's sum up last night's presidential voting in a sentence. We've heard one-sentence descriptions from our guests all morning, and now we have two more on the Republican race. They will come from Mark McKinnon, a strategist for former President George W. Bush among others.
Mr. McKinnon, good morning.
MARK MCKINNON: Hey, good morning. How are you?
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Doing fine. He's in Houston. Also, from Congressman Tom Marino, who is on the line. He's a Republican of Pennsylvania and one of the few members of Congress so far to endorse Donald Trump.
Congressman, good morning to you.
TOM MARINO: Good morning and thank you.
INSKEEP: And we'll let you go first. What's your sentence? Sum it all up for us.
MARINO: Hard-working taxpayers from across America have had enough of the heavy-handed established policy makers.
INSKEEP: There you go.
GREENE: All right. Mark McKinnon, what about you?
MCKINNON: Well, I just say on the macro level what we're seeing here is, on the Democratic side, we're seeing an evolution toward what's effectively a third term of Barack Obama. On the Republican side, we're witnessing a revolution where Donald Trump is blowing up the Republican Party and shaking it down to its very foundation.
GREENE: All right, long sentence, but I think grammatically you stuck to it. That was impressive. We're going to expand on those sentences in just a moment. It was a big night for Hillary Clinton, as you've been hearing elsewhere in this program. It was also a big night for Republican Donald Trump, though Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio also won victories. NPR's Sarah McCammon reports on how we reached this moment.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: At his waterfront club Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Donald Trump stood before a crowd of mostly reporters who'd gathered inside a baroque gold and white room. He took stock of his victories.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: It's Georgia, Alabama, Massachusetts...
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: ...Tennessee.
(APPLAUSE)
MCCAMMON: No one could've imagined a night like this last June when the billionaire announced his candidacy at Trump Tower in New York.
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TRUMP: The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems.
MCCAMMON: And there he brought up the issue that has become the focal point of his campaign - immigration, especially from Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.
MCCAMMON: Trump's candidacy was largely laughed off, and that line was the first of many comments that pundits predicted would doom him. Last summer, in Iowa, after Senator John McCain criticized him, Trump hit back. He told pollster Frank Luntz he thought McCain was a loser.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: He's not a war hero.
FRANK LUNTZ: He's a war hero.
TRUMP: He's a war hero...
LUNTZ: Five and a half years in the POW camp.
TRUMP: He's a war hero 'cause he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, OK? I hate to tell you.
MCCAMMON: There was that remark, and his feud with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, but none of it seemed to slow Trump down.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Unbelievable. Thank you.
MCCAMMON: Tapping into widespread frustration among voters, he kept drawing bigger crowds. At a stadium in Mobile, Ala., last August, the crowd size was estimated at 20,000 to 30,000.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: You know, now I know how the great Billy Graham felt because this is the same feeling.
MCCAMMON: The mood of the campaign turned deadly serious after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., last fall. Fears about ISIS led
Trump to this statement.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.
MCCAMMON: Again and again, Trump's rivals denounced him as fostering hate and fear. They seemed to be in disbelief that he could actually win. After he was upset in Iowa by Texas Senator Ted Cruz and nearly overtaken there by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, it looked like there was a chance Trump could be thrown off course. But he bounced back with big wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The attacks from the remaining candidates continue even after Trump's biggest night yet. Rubio and Cruz are still calling on Republicans to help take him down. As for Trump...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I am a unifier. I would love to see the Republican Party and everybody get together and unify. And when we unify, there is nobody - nobody that's going to beat us. Thank you very much.
MCCAMMON: But with every big win, mainstream Republicans seem more conflicted over whether they can still stop Trump or have to learn to accept him.
GREENE: OK, that's NPR's Sarah McCammon. And Steve and I are still joined now by Republican Congressman Tom Marino of Pennsylvania and Republican strategist Mark McKinnon.
INSKEEP: And Mark McKinnon, this is a democracy after all - as unhappy as some Republican leaders are, are Republican voters telling the party that's something many leaders just don't want to hear?
MCKINNON: Oh, they're sending a pretty clear message. If it were anybody else but Donald Trump at this point, the Republican establishment would be calling him Mr. President. But they're still looking at, you know, at sort of dream possibilities, which is, you know, you still have to get half the delegates, and there are still a lot of delegates to go. And Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz both have an argument to make - not a good one at this point, but, you know, until somebody gets half the delegates, there's still a race.
INSKEEP: Is dream the right word for Rubio's chances, Cruz's chances, or John Kasich's chances, for that matter?
MCKINNON: Yeah. Listen, it's not - it's not a very real possibility at this point, but, you know, I mean, things happen in democracy and it gets pretty messy. And who knows? At this point - you hang in and wait till the votes are counted.
GREENE: Congressman Marino, you represent a big swath of Pennsylvania - I mean, much of Central Pennsylvania to the Northeast part of Pennsylvania. In endorsing Donald Trump, are you responding to the voters in your district?
MARINO: In part, but I also am making this move - I put a lot of thought into it and this is what the country needs. Overwhelmingly, people in my district and across the state of Pennsylvania support Donald Trump because he is saying exactly how they are feeling.
INSKEEP: Granting that he may be saying what a lot of people are feeling, let's ask about practicalities here. Donald Trump has said he's going to build a wall across the whole border. He's going to deport 11 million people here illegally. He said he's going to block Muslims from entering the country for a time. He said he's going to bring back torture - variety of other things. As a lawmaker, as a congressman, do you actually believe he will do those things if elected?
MARINO: I think he will in some way, shape or form. First of all, even the FBI director, when I questioned him (unintelligible) said we have no way of knowing who's coming into this country. And, if terrorists aren't here now, they will be in. And as far as building a wall, you know, let's look at this in the 21st century. It doesn't have to be a brick and mortar wall here. We're talking about the technology that we have that can sense people's movements. And plus, he's also talking about putting more agents on the line, on the...
INSKEEP: Wait, wait, wait - whoa, whoa, whoa. You're saying you don't think that he actually means a wall when he says a wall and when he talks about make it 10 feet high, or he doesn't mean that?
MARINO: I think he means a wall to a certain extent, but I'm sure he's aware of the technology that's available today.
INSKEEP: And which is already deployed. I'm just trying to figure this out. Forgive me.
MARINO: Excuse me?
INSKEEP: It's already deployed, isn't it? A lot of that sensor technology, you see, like, your balloons in the air with radar and so forth?
MARINO: No, it's not enough. We need a lot more of it along with a lot more agents. I mean, I've been to the - that border. I've seen what has taken place. And it's open, the officers are great people, but they just don't have the resources to work with.
GREENE: Mark McKinnon, let me ask you. I mean, Congressman Marino says that he's responding in part to what his voters in his district want. When you look at Donald Trump's appeal and try to sort out what exactly some Republican voters are asking for in their next president, I mean, how would you sum that up?
MCKINNON: I'd sum it up as they've been wanting somebody for a long time to just throw the middle finger at Washington. That's exactly what Donald Trump is doing. They just - they don't believe that anybody that they've elected in the last decade or two has done what they've said or delivered on the promises, and people feel disenfranchised, they don't feel like they have a voice. And so they may not even agree with Donald Trump on all the positions, but they just know he looks, acts and sounds completely different than anything they've seen before, and that's what they want because nothing else has worked.
GREENE: But you've worked for Republicans in the past, including President Bush, who've talked about sort of being for people and, you know, against the Washington establishment. What is Donald Trump doing that is causing more people to believe that that message will really remain true?
MCKINNON: Well, a lot of it's just that he's completely politically incorrect, and that's what people want. I mean, they're just tired of sort edicts from Washington about how people should act, how they should behave, what the government should do, and Donald Trump is just saying, you know what, I'm just going to be a bull in a china shop and break it all up. And that's the point at which, you know, a lot of Republican voters and independent voters are today. They just say, you know what, let's just break it all up and start over again.
INSKEEP: This is interesting. Congressman Marino, we had former New Jersey Governor Chris - we should say Christine Todd Whitman on the program earlier today. She's endorsed John Kasich, she's strongly against Trump, says that she can't support him in a general election. And she said a number of things, including, quote, "he is a bully who demeans people, driving wedges between groups of people, will denigrate entire groups of people." I think I hear Mark McKinnon saying that voters actually listen to that and say, actually, yeah, that's what I want - I want somebody to be that way. Is that right?
MARINO: That's exactly right. Donald Trump is a maverick, and hard-working taxpayers are tired of having the establishment say the same thing over and over again - they want a leader. Let me pose this question. How's it been going the last 30 years with senators, governors and lifetime politicians, career politicians, as president? Not well. We're $19 trillion in debt, 15 million people are out of work, the borders are open, companies are leaving the U.S. Trump is an executive, he's built companies. He's built and had control over billions of dollars of budgets. He's the guy that can get it done, come in under budget, and here's the most important thing - he's not afraid to get in somebody's face and tell it like it really is.
GREENE: Mark McKinnon, just about 15 seconds left. Is that - fair points the congressman's making?
MCKINNON: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that sums it up. He's, you know, he's tried to turn things on its head, and that's what people want. But, you know, it's still a delegate race and he's only a hundred delegates ahead of Ted Cruz. So Ted Cruz has some wind back in his sails. Marco Rubio's got a case to make about Florida. So, you know, until there's a majority of delegates, this thing ain't over yet.
GREENE: All right. Mark McKinnon and Congressman Tom Marino, thank you both very much, we really appreciate it.
MARINO: You're very welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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