WASHINGTON ¨C President Donald Trump said he¡¯s ¡°stopping an invasion¡± of the U.S. in a pair of tweets directed at conservative commentator Ann Coulter, whose criticism reportedly helped crystallize his decision to forge ahead with a record long federal government shutdown in December.
Addressing ¡°Wacky Nut Job¡± Coulter, a former ally, Trump said he¡¯s ¡°winning on the Border¡± and that major sections of the U.S.-Mexico border wall are being built and renovated with more to come. He also tweaked ¡°certain Republicans¡± for being ¡°sadly unable to fight.¡±
¡°With another president, millions would be pouring in¡± to the U.S. through Mexico, Trump said. ¡°I am stopping an invasion¡± with the effort to use executive action to renovate and construct a new wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, he told Coulter and his 59 million Twitter followers.
Just two years after the right-wing pundit published a laudatory book called ¡°In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome,¡± the pair have fallen out over his border wall tactics, failure to secure billions of dollars from Congress for construction, and subsequent move to declare a national emergency.
In December the Senate easily passed a temporary spending measure without any money for the border wall after getting signals from the White House that Trump wouldn¡¯t press the issue. But an outcry from conservatives, including Coulter and talk show host Rush Limbaugh, saw the White House do an about-face that resulted in the lengthy and damaging shutdown.
The pair have swapped barbs since then. Trump dismissed Coulter¡¯s role in December¡¯s decision-making during the press conference in which he announced he would declare a national emergency at the border, saying he didn¡¯t have time to speak to the commentator.
¡°I hardly know her. I haven¡¯t spoken to her in way over a year,¡± Trump said, adding that Coulter was ¡°off the reservation.¡±
Coulter publicly dismissed Trump¡¯s plan as overreach, and said in a radio interview that the president was ¡°fooling the rubes with a national emergency.¡±
¡°Forget the fact that he¡¯s digging his own grave,¡± Coulter said at the time. ¡°The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot.¡±
The president is staying this weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, and spent part of Saturday golfing with LPGA pro Lexi Thompson, the White House said.
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