After officials revealed that drug smugglers are slicing through Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar “impenetrable” border wall, the president admitted Sunday: “You can cut through anything.”
Just two days earlier, Trump said at a campaign rally in Mississippi that it was impossible to cut through the barrier’s bollards. The bollards are long steel rods filled with concrete-encased steel reinforcing bars, or rebar. Trump said at the rally that “you can cut through steel but you can’t through the concrete, and then you can’t through the hardened rebar.” He added: “We got it all.”
The Washington Post reported Saturday that border officials revealed that smugglers are using $100 cordless reciprocating power saws fitted with special blades to slice through the bollards in just minutes. The tools are available at hardware stores.
The bollards are only attached at the top and bottom, so once they’re cut at the base, the rods can easily be shoved aside. When asked by reporters Sunday about his reaction to news of the barrier breaches, Trump insisted he “hadn’t heard” about it. “We have a very powerful wall,” he said. “But no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything.”
In any case, he added, “It’s very easily fixed. You put the chunk back in.”
During a tour in September of a new section of his barrier in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego, Trump declared that it “really is virtually impenetrable.”
He added: “If you think you’re going to cut it with a blow torch, that doesn’t work because you hit concrete, and then if you think you’re gonna go through the concrete, that doesn’t work because we have very powerful rebar inside.”