Trump, the Troops, and the U.S.-Mexican Border

This is a follow-up to Thursday’s post, Is Donald Trump Pro-Military? No, Not Really.

Tuesday the White House announced that Trump’s plan to deploy Federal military forces to the Mexican border was limited to “support and intelligence troops” working behind the border to assist local law enforcement agencies and the Border Patrol.

But that is not what he said in his press conference last week when he declared that he would order military troops to defend the border.

This is one more example of Trump declaring a policy that is unwise, if not illegal, without consulting his advisors, and then the White House Spin Commandos trying to walk it back.

In fact, Federal military forces providing support and intelligence on the Mexican border are already there and have been since 1989 when Joint Task Force 6, now Joint Task Force-North, was created. Headquartered in Fort Bliss, Texas, the JTF has been providing that exact support for almost 30 years, something that the White House now claims is a Trump initiative.

Trump’s flip-flops and his White House staff walk-backs of his inane statements are so frequent that it is a fulltime job for a political commentator to try to keep up.

That is what I call Fake News.