A panel on “The Evening Edit with Elizabeth MacDonald” got heated while discussing President Donald Trump’s border wall proposal on Wednesday night.
The Daily Caller’s White House correspondent Amber Athey joined the panel alongside Bernard Whitman, a Democratic strategist.
The segment began with MacDonald airing CNN’s Chris Cuomo defending the idea of a wall from Tuesday night. Cuomo, whose show ran after the president’s Oval Office address, brought up the fact that many border patrol agents have expressed a desire for more assistance.
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Whitman began:
“If you actually listen to what Chris Cuomo said, he said that border wall, border security, border fencing, has some part to play certainly in urban areas, certainly in places that it makes sense. That is not at all what President — that is not at all what President Trump is suggesting. President Trump is suggesting, as Will Hurd the Republican Congressman that has his district stretch from El Paso to San Antonio across parts of the entire Rio Grande, the worst way to ensure border security is to build a barrier fence across the entire spectrum of the border.”
“Again the president is not saying that, he is saying repair what is there,” MacDonald responded. (RELATED: Immigration Experts Explain What An Effective Border Wall Looks Like)
“That’s not what he’s saying! He’s not saying repair at all! He’s talking about building a huge wall. That is not true!” Whitman continued as he and MacDonald talked over each other.
MacDonald kept going, “I’m sorry, forgive me, that is true, Bernard. I have listened and read transcripts of [what] the president is saying in detail and clearly you have not read it, but clearly, we have read it and what you’re saying is wrong!”
“The National Border Patrol Council surveyed their members last spring and 89 percent of them said yes, fencing and a physical barrier in some places on the border would yes be very, very helpful and the president is not proposing a concrete wall across 2,000 miles of the border,” Athey chimed in. “If you look at his proposed plan it is informed directly by the Department of Homeland Security and border patrol agents who want more fences built.”
