Texas Gov. Rick Perry used the same line he once criticized President Barack Obama for using, referencing alligators in a moat by a border fence between the U.S. and Mexico.
In a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday, Perry defended his view that there should not be a fence across the entire U.S.-Mexico border. "I think the idea of saying, 'Listen, I'm gonna build a double fence, we're going to put alligators between it, and we're going to put lava in there, as well,'" he said. "You know, one tries to outdo the other one," he added.
Obama mocked people who wanted extreme border security measures last May in a speech on immigration reform in El Paso, Texas. "They'll want a higher fence. Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat," he said to laughter. "They'll never be satisfied. And I understand that."
Perry reacted to that line from the speech in May on the Laura Ingraham show. "You know," he said, "this is a president who is more interested in trying out for Saturday Night Live, it seems like."
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain once suggested adding alligators in a moat to a border fence. "It will be a twenty foot wall, barbed wire, electrified on the top, and on this side of the fence, I'll have that moat that President Obama talked about. And I would put those alligators in that moat!" he said at a campaign stop in Iowa over the summer.
Cain later suggested his plans on the fence in October: "It's going to be 20 feet high. It’s going to have barbed wire on the top. It's going to be electrified. And there's going to be a sign on the other side saying, ‘It will kill you -- Warning,'" he said. The next day he said his remarks were a joke.
In the interview with Sean Hannity, while Perry did not think the idea of a border fence across the entire 1,969-mile U.S.-Mexico border was practical, he said, "When I'm the president, that border will be secure."
