President Donald Trump tours a section of the US-Mexico border wall under construction. Photo / AP
President Donald Trump tours a section of the US-Mexico border wall under construction. Photo / AP
KEY POINTS: • Donald Trump has arrived in Texas to showcase the US-Mexico border wall. • Trump told reporters he bore no reponsibility for the siege of the US Capitol, calling his remarks to supporters beforehand "totally appropriate". • Trump said at the White House before his flight the prospect of impeachment was causing "tremendous anger" in the nation. • The House will begin debating Trump's impeachment tomorrow, a week before Democrat Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated, January 20.
US President Donald Trump today took no responsibility for his part in fomenting a violent insurrection at the US Capitol last week, despite his comments encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol and praise for them while they were still carrying out the assault.
"People thought that what I said was totally appropriate," Trump said.
President Donald Trump tours a section of the US-Mexico border wall under construction. Photo / AP
He made the comments during his first appearance in public since the Capitol siege, which came as lawmakers were tallying Electoral College votes affirming President-elect Joe Biden's victory.
Trump arrived in Texas today to trumpet his campaign against illegal immigration in an attempt to burnish his legacy with eight days remaining in his term, as lawmakers in Congress appeared set to impeach him this week for the second time.
In Alamo, Texas, a city in the Rio Grande Valley near the US-Mexican border - the site of the 450th mile of the border wall his administration is building - Trump brushed off Democratic calls on his Cabinet to declare him unfit from office and remove him from power using the 25th Amendment.
James Lambert, right, attaches flags to his truck as he gathers with other supporters of President Donald Trump in anticipation of his visit to the Mexico border. Photo / Eric Gay, AP
"The 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me, but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration," Trump said. "As the expression goes, be careful of what you wish for."
Before he travelled, Trump told reporters at the White House the prospect of impeachment was causing "tremendous anger" in the nation. But he said he wanted "no violence". He took no questions.
Donald Trump greets supporters as he arrives at Valley International Airport, Texas. Photo / AP
On impeachment, Trump said it's "a really terrible thing that they're doing". He called the second impeachment proceedings "absolutely ridiculous".
Trump said the "real problem" was not his rhetoric, but the rhetoric that Democrats used to describe Black Lives Matter protests and violence in Seattle and Portland this summer.
Minutes before his supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump encouraged them to march on the seat of the nation's government, where lawmakers were tallying Electoral College votes affirming President-elect Joe Biden's victory.
For months, Trump has also spread baseless claims that the November election was fraudulent, despite his own administration's findings to the contrary. As rioters were still in the Capitol, Trump released a video seemingly excusing the events, saying of the rioters: "We love you. You're very special."
Trump faces a single charge - "incitement of insurrection" - in the impeachment resolution that the House will begin debating on Wednesday (NZ time), a week before Democrat Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated.
President Donald Trump waves while boarding Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base on his way to Alamo, Texas. Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta.
The unprecedented events - Trump is the first US president to be twice impeached - are unfolding in a nation bracing for more unrest. The FBI has warned ominously of potential armed protests in Washington and many states by Trump loyalists ahead of Biden's inauguration.
In a dark foreshadowing, the Washington Monument was closed to the public and the inauguration ceremony on the west steps of the Capitol will be off limits to the public.
Aides have been urging the President to use the days he has left in office to highlight what they see as the chief accomplishments of his presidency: a massive tax cut, his efforts to roll back federal regulations and the transformation of federal courts with the appointment of conservative judges.
In Alamo City, Trump is expected to deliver remarks highlighting his administration's efforts to curb illegal immigration and the progress made on his signature 2016 campaign promise: building a "big, beautiful wall" across the length of the southern border - an imposing structure made of concrete and reinforced steel.
President Donald Trump boarding Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base. Photo / Alex Brandon, AP
The Trump administration has overseen the construction of roughly 724km of border wall construction - likely reaching 764km by Inauguration Day. The majority of that wall replaces smaller barriers that had already existed, though the new wall is considerably more difficult to bypass.
Over the last four years, Trump and his administration have taken extreme - and often unlawful - action to try to curb both illegal and legal immigration.
Their efforts were aided in his final year by the coronavirus pandemic, which ground international travel to a halt. But the number of people stopped trying to cross the southern border illegally has been creeping back up in recent months.
Figures from December show nearly 74,000 encounters at the southwest border, up 3 per cent from November and up 81 per cent from a year earlier.
Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, has warned the next administration that easing Trump administration policies, including a halt to wall construction, would lead to a surge of people seeking to cross the border, creating "an unmitigated crisis in the first few weeks".
President-elect Joe Biden has said he'd halt construction of the border wall and take executive action where possible to reverse some of Trump's restrictions on legal immigration and asylum seekers.
But Biden and his aides have acknowledged the possibility of a new crisis at the border if they act too quickly, and Biden has said it could take six months for his administration to secure funding and put in place the necessary infrastructure to loosen Trump-era restrictions.
Trucks drive along Mexico's Route 2 as border wall construction continues along a cleared pathwayin Guadalupe Canyon, Arizona. Photo / Matt York, AP
After the Capitol violence, groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center urged Trump to call off his visit.
"The violence Trump incited last week, and the violence his anti-immigrant policies cause stem from the alarming mainstreaming of white nationalist ideology that our country must reckon with and fight to uproot," said Efrén Olivares, deputy legal director of the centre's Immigrant Justice Project.
President Donald Trump is returning to the US-Mexico border to highlight his accomplishments as impeachment proceedings gather force in Washington. Photo / Evan Vucci, AP, File
"The President's planned trip to the border will only further the harm and beget more violence."
Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is calling on the FBI to add anyone identified breaching the Capitol during last week's violent riot to the federal no-fly list.
Schumer sent a letter Tuesday to FBI director Christopher Wray, saying the attack on the Capitol as Congress was voting to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's win was "domestic terrorism".
He said those who stormed the Capitol should qualify as "insurrectionists for the No-Fly List". Schumer told Wray that they must also be prosecuted to the full extent of federal law. - AP
