President Donald Trump's call for a wall at the border has become an "almost mythical" feature of his agenda, and he should get that wall, but at the same time, his decision to send National Guard troops to the Mexican border shows he's on a "sugar high," over immigration issues, Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera said Friday.
"The president wants the wall," Rivera told "Fox & Friends" program. "The wall has become this almost mythical feature of the president's agenda. He was elected president, he should get his damn wall. He should get the wall."
His inability to get funding for that wall, along with news about a caravan of immigrants heading through Mexico and other issues, lead to his announcement Friday that he plans to send 2,000 to 4,000 troops to the border, Rivera said.
"I think it is like a sugar high," Rivera said during the beginning of his interview. "It feels good to say 'I'm going to fix this problem. I will send in the National Guard, send in the Marines,' the old cliché."
Rivera said he wants Democrats to concede Trump deserves to get the wall he was elected to build, and for the president and Republicans "to get together and find a path to legitimacy for the Dreamers. Dreamers, wall one, deal, one compromise."
Rivera, though, said he does wish the president had not brought up the wall, the border, or other issues than tax cuts during his tax cut roundtable in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia on Thursday.
Instead of sticking to his prepared remarks, Trump tossed them into the air, called them boring, and delivered off-the-cuff remarks to those attending the afternoon event.
"As a supporter of the president, I wish he had stuck with his remarks about the tax cut and about the economy," he said. "I really do believe that's the secret to the midterm elections in November, to emphasize that the president's economic policies have put Americans back to work in West Virginia and everywhere else."
Instead, he said Trump went off script, most likely because of continuing news about a caravan of people heading north from Central America through Mexico, and because of a spike in illegal immigration in March.
"We are at 46-year lows, historic lows when it comes to undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border," he said. "It was an unfortunate combination of the caravan story and it has broken up that caravan."
Trump did talk about the tax reform, including with a woman who got emotional about how the tax cut law helped her family, but "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed with Rivera that it wasn't enough.
"I totally agree with you," Kilmeade said. Had Trump talked about taxes, that's what the news would have been.
Instead, he said, "we're talking about voter fraud, people voting five times in California. He talks about the caravan where all the rapes are happening. Trump is being Trump, but Trump hurt Trump yesterday."
Rivera said that not only did Trump talk about voter fraud, when no "meaningful" instances were found, but he talked about the caravan, "which contoured up images of this brown tide washing over the southern border and, you know, all these people abusing our immigration laws" at a time when immigration is at a 46-year low.
"I don't fault the president for ad-libbing, although in this case I think that Brian is correct, that it detracts from the main message."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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