CNN anchor Chris Cuomo defended President Donald Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border for the second night in a row on Tuesday.
Cuomo, who attended a lunch with the president and other TV anchors Tuesday afternoon, hosted a CNN panel to react to Trump’s national Oval Office address on immigration. Some of the panelists were less than enthralled by the president’s demand for a wall and his insistence that the border situation is a “crisis,” but Cuomo sprang to Trump’s defense.
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“Let’s just get something straight for the audience right now because this is one of those things that’s literally been bothering me — almost ruined my vacation,” Cuomo asserted. “There is a barrier system all along the southern border. They need more.”
“Anybody who does the reporting, anybody who talks to the people down there doing the work — the men and women — they need more of what the president is increasingly describing as his own idea for a bollard fence,” Cuomo said.
A bollard fence also refers to steel slats, which Trump has increasingly embraced at the request of Border Patrol agents and as a compromise to Democrats. Cuomo also noted that Democrats agreed to finance something similar in the past. (RELATED: Immigration Experts Explain What An Effective Border Wall Looks Like)
CNN analyst Gloria Borger chimed in with a Democratic talking point, arguing that Democrats believe a wall is “not necessary because there are other ways to attack the problem that are better.”
“But is that true?” Cuomo shot back. “Who says that a barrier isn’t helpful?”
Cuomo previously defended the president’s calls for a border wall on Monday night during a debate with colleague Don Lemon.
“Wanting barriers along the border is not propaganda. It’s not immoral. It’s not wrong,” Cuomo said Monday.