President Donald Trump made an unexpected appearance at his Homeland Security secretary’s swearing-in ceremony today and turned the feting into a promotion of his border wall.
Trump said it was a ‘very special occasion because this is an issue I ran on’ as he crashed Kirstjen Nielsen’s celebration in the White House’s Roosevelt Room.
‘We’re going to get the wall. I know you want the wall. We’re going to get the wall,’ Trump said. ‘If we don’t get the wall, then I got a lot of very unhappy people, starting with me.’
President Donald Trump made an unexpected appearance at his Homeland Security secretary’s swearing-in ceremony today and turned the feting into a promotion of his border wall
MIND IF I JOIN YOU? Trump was not scheduled to attend Kirstjen Nielsen’s induction in the White House’s Roosevelt Room on Friday afternoon
Taking the podium, Trump said it was a ‘very special occasion because this is an issue I ran on’ as he crashed her celebration
The president told Nielsen, who leaves her role at the White House as deputy chief of staff, that it was an ‘honor’ to be with her today as she takes on this new challenge. He’s seen speaking with her guests at this afternoon’s ceremony
Trump has rarely attended his secretaries’ and ambassadors’ installations. Typically, his vice president, Mike Pence, has tended to political appointees
Trump has rarely attended his secretaries’ and ambassadors’ installations. Typically, his vice president, Mike Pence, has tended to political appointees.
The president was not on hand when his Secretary of Energy Rick Perry took the Oath of Office, or his Director of National Security Dan Coates, for that matter.
Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Robery Lighthizer were also initiated with relatively little fanfare.
Evidence of the importance Trump places on the issue of border security, the first-year president attended the swearing-in ceremony of Nielsen’s predecessor, John Kelly, who’s now the White House chief of staff.
The president was also present at his longtime friend and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s induction.
Trump was not scheduled to be at Nielson’s formal gathering of family and friends today.
His schedule had him lunching with the vice president and hosting his defense secretary before a late afternoon flight to the Florida-Alabama border for a campaign-style rally.
The president told Nielsen, who leaves her role at the White House as deputy chief of staff, that it was an ‘honor’ to be with her today as she takes on this new challenge.
‘You’ve been with us so long now,’ he told the former DHS staffer. ‘Anyway, I have no doubt. And it’s going to be incredible what takes place.’
Trump said he was there because the nation’s internal security ‘is one of the real big issues.’
A’nd I just want to congratulate you on such an important day for our country,’ he said.
Trump then began to laud the Homeland Security department for dramatically increasing its level of border apprehensions.
‘The numbers have been so incredible; they’re up to 78 percent. If they used to have a 1 percent or 2 percent number, they used to celebrate. We’re at 78 percent,’ he reveled. ‘And it went down a little bit because, actually, a lot of people aren’t trying to come in so much because they know it’s not easy.’
He expects Nielsen, he said, to cap the number even further – especially once he wins the funding for his wall.
‘We’re going to get the wall. And we need it. We need it for the drug flow; we need it for people coming into our country,’ Trump said. ‘And we want to have great people coming into our country. We want to have a merit-based system. We have to get rid of chain migration.’
Trump said he wants Nielsen to ‘toughen up the borders even more’ and that he wants to ‘toughen up air travel too.’
‘It’s not just walls; it’s lots of people fly in and they come in through other means,’ he said.
‘But I have absolutely no doubt you’re going to be so outstanding. And I’d like to congratulate you, and I wanted to be here for the big moment,’ he added.